MILWAUKEE -- "We wanted this one," Gerrit Cole was saying at his stall. "Bad."
It showed. Man, did it show.
The Pirates poked and prodded toward a big early lead, then kept pushing to preserve it all afternoon long Wednesday at Miller Park, only to have Cole cough up three more home runs, George Kontos another and Juan Nicasio the killer, a two-run blast by Manny Pina in the eighth inning to put the Brewers ahead to stay, 7-6.
It's hard to know where to start in describing how hard this one must have been to take.
Maybe with the math.
The Pirates were swept in both games here, they've lost four in a row, they went 2-5 on this three-city Great Lakes trip, they've fallen deep into fourth place in the Central Division at five games back, they're all but buried in the National League wild-card picture at 8 1/2 back and ... yeah, all that.
"It's not going to be easy," Josh Bell said.
Maybe the pitching was right up there, too.
Cole actually pitched OK, believe it or not -- more on that in a bit -- and Nicasio told me he executed his fastball exactly as he wanted to Pina, except that it caught too much white over the plate. But nothing sinks emotions to the stomach for any pitcher like a ball clearing a fence, and having that happen a handful of times in eight innings ... yeah.
"I'm not happy," Nicasio said, moments after getting up from the seat where he'd planted his head between his hands for several minutes.
Maybe the emasculation on the offensive side was worse.
I mean, my goodness, everyone knew Milwaukee's roster is built for bombs while the Pirates have long been popgun -- especially when stripped of Jung Ho Kang, Starling Marte and Gregory Polanco for much of an entire summer -- but all of the Brewers' runs came via long ball, thanks to five of their six hits being home runs, and all of the Pirates' runs came by small ball, squeezed out by six RBI singles.
"They swipe it five times and get seven runs and, obviously, we battle and put up 11 hits to get our runs," Clint Hurdle said before a long pause, then adding, "So ... we had our best guys out there. Came up short. Lost by a run."
There's no level of baseball at which that won't do some macho damage. Or vice versa for the other side.
"It's certainly fun when you hit home runs," Hurdle's counterpart, Craig Counsell, said. "That game was a lot of fun. Cole made just a few mistakes, and we drove them out of the park. That's fun. You can win a game hitting five home runs."
Maybe, too, it was the knowledge that the Brewers, now 63-59 and visibly bouncing back from that four-game sweep by the Pirates at PNC Park last month, are built not only on big bats but also former Pirates.
Two of Milwaukee's five home runs were banged by Keon Broxton, who was virtually given away by Neal Huntington -- along with a suddenly promising Class A starting pitcher named Trey Supak -- in December of 2015. Huntington's return was Jason Rogers, a journeyman infielder whose kind is available on waivers seven times a day and who's spent all of this season in Japan after the Pirates cut him.
This was Broxton's 18th home run of the season ...
... and this was his 19th, as well as his third of this series:
Then there's Neil Walker, the Pittsburgh kid who was shipped away for a few months of overpaying Jon Niese, then a few more months of overpaying Antonio Bastardo and ... yeah.
Walker took Cole deep in the third, a two-run shot that closed the Pirates' lead to 4-3 on the heels of Broxton's first home run earlier that inning:
"With Keon coming up big, I think that inning was huge for us in that it gave Jimmy a chance to settle down," Walker said, referring to Milwaukee starter Jimmy Nelson. "We're playing inspired baseball right now. You can feel it. I'm enjoying this."
For the series, Walker, who'd cleared waivers over the weekend and was available to all suitors, went 3 for 6 with a home run, two RBIs and two walks.
Broxton seemed most tickled by having roared back against a pitcher the caliber of Cole.
"Against that guy, coming back from four down ... that's not easy to do," Broxton said. "He's a great pitcher with great stuff. You just have to take advantage of his mistakes. Even though we came back, I still think he had a good outing."
Jared Hughes, the third of the Pirates to be tossed out for nothing -- he was released after spring training, with Huntington having warned him that he'd cost too much if he had a poor Grapefruit League -- allowed one of his two inherited runners to score in the seventh but retired Andrew McCutchen to stop the threat there.
But hey, the Pirates did pluck Jhan Marinez from Milwaukee earlier this year, so ... yeah.
DK'S THREE THOUGHTS
1. How was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?
Cole pitched six innings and mostly acquitted himself as he has for a while now. He stayed down in the zone, revved up the velocity, worked in the breaking pitches, struck out nine, walked only two ... and was tagged for three more home runs.
Crazy, right?
That's 26 against Cole this season, ninth-most in Major League Baseball, and one more than his number of starts. Which stopped being acceptable in any context many months ago.
"I thought so, too," Hurdle came back when I shared an observation that it looked like Cole was OK other than a couple of the home runs.
Cole seemed to think so, too, but what evidently stung him the most was squandering the 4-0 lead his teammates had handed him through the top of the third. The Broxton and Walker shots in the bottom half made it 4-3.
