Corbin Burnes bounced back from his two shortest outings of the season, Willy Adames got two of his three hits in a seven-run fifth inning and the Milwaukee Brewers routed the New York Mets 10-2 on Wednesday night for their second win in 11 games.
Milwaukee’s big night gave manager Craig Counsell his 564th victory with the Brewers, breaking the franchise record. Counsell, the longest-tenured manager in the National League, passed Phil Garner, who managed 1,180 games for the team from 1992-99.
Counsell was showered with beer by his players and conducted his postgame interview with his hair still soaked. He also got a gift from Brewers owner Mark Attanasio along with video messages from retired Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, Milwaukee Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer and Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr.
“It’s humbling, for sure,” Counsell said. “What I told the players, I feel a lot of gratitude for everything that they’ve contributed to. They do the heavy lifting and it’s been fun to watch a great era of Brewer baseball.”
Counsell is 564-508 since taking over for Ron Roenicke on May 4, 2015, and the Wisconsin native is the third-longest tenured manager in the majors behind Cleveland’s Terry Francona and Tampa Bay’s Kevin Cash.
“He’s awesome,” Milwaukee outfielder Christian Yelich said. “He grew up here, he played here and now he’s the winningest manager in Brewers history. A lot goes into that.”
New York’s nine-game home winning streak ended. The Mets had gone 30 innings at Citi Field without allowing a run.
Burnes (4-4) gave up two runs in six innings. He struck out eight and walked none.
“That’s the first time I really got to see him up close,” Mets manager Buck Showalter said. “A reminder of why he’s one of, if not the, best pitcher in the National League. Got to see it up close.”
Burnes entered with a 6.75 ERA over his previous two outings and had allowed eight runs in eight innings in losses to San Diego and Philadelphia. But the reigning NL Cy Young Award winner was in control throughout. He yielded five hits, including Jeff McNeil’s homer in the fourth and RBI single in the sixth.
“I was able to fill up the zone a little more,” Burnes said. “We still had a couple of deep counts. Early they were trying to slap balls around, put balls in play and try to single me to death, but we were able to kind of bear down and get some of those swings and misses.”
Burnes fanned Francisco Lindor twice and retired NL RBI leader Pete Alonso all three times, getting the slugger on a pair of foul popups before striking him out in the sixth.
Milwaukee scored twice in the first, its first opening inning with multiple runs since May 26 at St. Louis. Then the Brewers poured it on in the fifth against David Peterson (3-1) and relievers Jake Reed and Trevor Williams.
Adames doubled in the first and scored on a two-run single by Luis Urías. Adames later started Milwaukee’s biggest inning of the season with a single and scored on a bases-loaded walk to Victor Caratini after advancing to second on an errant pickoff toss by Reed.
The slumping Adames also hit a two-run single to give the Brewers a 9-1 lead. In between his two hits in the fifth, Lorenzo Cain hit a run-scoring infield single and pinch-hitter Jace Peterson had a two-run double. Andrew McCutchen capped the big inning with an RBI single.
“It’s a lot of good at-bats tonight that inning,” Adames said.
Adames had his second three-hit game of the season. He entered 3 for 24 since returning last week from a sprained left ankle.
Peterson permitted four runs and six hits in four-plus innings.
