It was almost as if the Milwaukee Brewers were taking out a (shortened) season’s worth of frustration.
After watching, seemingly game after game, the offense struggle to mount any sort of consistent attack, the bats exploded in a major way Wednesday afternoon at Comerica Park.
Starting with left-hander Matthew Boyd and ending with position player Travis Demeritte, the Brewers unleashed a 21-hit attack that included a franchise-record 13 extra-base hits – five of those home runs – in a 19-0 annihilation of the Detroit Tigers.
The entire scene was pretty much stunning considering Milwaukee had entered the day as the fourth-lowest-scoring team in the major leagues at 3.95 runs per game and the second-lowest-scoring team in the National League ahead of only the Cincinnati Reds.
Making the performance even more fun for the Brewers was the fact that much of the damage was done by the bottom of the order.
BOX SCORE: Brewers 19, Tigers 0
RELATED: Complete and total domination
NOTES: Urías has played well across the infield
Orlando Arcia, hitting sixth, and rookie Tyrone Taylor, hitting eighth, each had four-hit games with Arcia scoring three times and Taylor both driving in and scoring three runs.
Another youngster, Luis Urías, had three hits and five RBI out of the seventh spot in the lineup. Even the No. 9 hitter, Jacob Nottingham, got into the act with a two-run homer and two runs scored.
"When you score 19, hopefully there’s a lot of stuff going good. But I think when the bottom of your lineup has a great day, you’re going to have a good day," manager Craig Counsell said. "Urias, Arcia, Tyrone Taylor, Jacob doing good things – that always is going to be a reason you have success.
"Those guys had a nice day, did a lot of nice things."
Some old hands did some nice things as well, with Jedd Gyorko hitting a couple solo homers and Ryan Braun homering, driving in three and scoring twice in his most productive game in what's otherwise been an injury plagued 2020.
All 10 players that got into the game got on base, with nine collecting at least one hit and scoring at least one run. Keston Hiura was the only one not to get in on the fun in that regard.
Yes, indeed, hitting can be contagious.
"It really is," Braun said. "For no rhyme or reason, it feels like as a group sometimes teams get into stretches where everybody swings the bat well and other stretches when nobody swings the bat well.
"I think by human nature when an offense is struggling, everybody tries that much harder or recognizes that you only get so many opportunities. I actually think over last week or so that we've swung the bats better we just haven't gotten the big hit with runners in scoring position.
"Today was obviously the extreme opposite of that but it was just encouraging to see up and down the lineup everybody putting together good at-bats."
It looked like it was going to be more early game frustration when the Brewers failed to score in the first inning despite drawing a pair of walks from the eminently hittable Matthew Boyd.
But they were off and running in the second with four doubles – tying their single-game high for the season – and a 3-0 lead. Those three runs represented exactly half the Brewers' second-inning output for their previous 40 games.
Gyorko homered in the third for a 4-0 lead and Nottingham's two-run homer and Braun's RBI single made it 7-0 in the fourth.
Five hits, four of those two-baggers, paved the way to a five-run sixth and 12-0 lead. Urías struck the big blow with his two-out, bases-loaded double and Taylor then drove him in with a double of his own.
Gyorko's double-play grounder with the bases loaded in the seventh plated another run, and Braun's two-run blast drove Gyorko in.
"It's been a long time coming," said Braun. "Obviously, things haven't gone very well for us offensively so whenever you do have a rare good day like this, you have to really enjoy it."
Things got totally wacky in the ninth when the Tigers, having already utilized five pitchers, sent Demeritte, an outfielder, to the mound.
He got Christian Yelich to ground out before Gyorko – also a position-player pitcher himself earlier this season – homered. Arcia and Urías singled with two outs and Taylor capped his day with a two-run homer to left that also broke the franchise record for extra-base hits.
"It was pure joy, man. Everyone was happy for me," said Taylor of his first career long ball. "I think I was the only one who felt awkward about it, just because it was off a position player. But everyone was excited for me.
"I’ve been on the other end of facing a position player before, where I struck out. The home run is way cooler."
The Brewers' 13 extra-base hits tied the San Francisco Giants for the major-league high this season. They had three times previously collected 12 extra-base hits, most recently on April 22, 2010 at Pittsburgh.
The 19 runs were Milwaukee's most since that 2010 game in Pittsburgh and tied for fifth-most ever. The 21 hits were the most since Aug. 29, 2018 at Cincinnati and the 20th time the Brewers recorded at least 20 hits in a game.
With Braun, Arcia, Urías and Taylor recording three-hit games, it marked the first time since Aug. 18, 2019 they'd had four or more players with as many hits (Arcia, Hiura, Ben Gamel and Mike Moustakas).
Additionally, Arcia's and Taylor's four-hit games were the first for the Brewers this season and first by any Milwaukee hitter since Hiura did it last Sept. 27. Moustakas and Yasmani Grandal were the last Brewers to collect four hits in the same game, last May 30.
All in all, it was the type of day the Brewers and hitting coach Andy Haines had been waiting for since reconvening in July.
"I told him today was the day to go in and ask for an extension," Braun joked when asked about Haines. "When you're hot you're hot, and the offense was hot."
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