Friday- An overshadowed win

 
Some things to read while cutting back (h/t AaronGleeman.com).

For the first time in the month of September, the Milwaukee Brewers are winners of back-to-back games. On Thursday night, they beat the Marlins 4-2 behind home runs from Ryan Braun and Matt Clark, and Derek Harvey of Brew Crew Ball has a recap if you missed it.

Unfortunately, the final result was not the big story from Thursday’s game. Instead, the game’s most notable event came in the fifth inning when a pitch got away from Mike Fiers and hit Marlins star Giancarlo Stanton in the face. Stanton had to be taken off the field on a stretcher and has been diagnosed with a facial laceration, multiple facial fractures and dental damage.

The tone of the game went from scary to ugly quickly when Fiers, visibly shaken from the previous incident, threw another pitch up and in to pinch-hitter Reed Johnson. Johnson was ruled to have swung at the pitch and was called out, but not before both benches cleared and Marlins manager Mike Redmond and third baseman Casey McGehee were ejected. Marlins reliever Anthony DeSclafani and bench coach (and acting manager) Rob Leary were also ejected in the sixth after DeSclafani hit Carlos Gomez with a pitch.

As you might expect, the Stanton HBP was a major topic of conversation after the game, both in Milwaukee and around baseball:

• Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel collected comments from Fiers, Marlins manager Mike Redmond and third baseman Casey McGehee, and Ryan Braun after the game.
• Adam McCalvy of MLB.com has many of the same comments but also notes from Jonathan Lucroy, Ron Roenicke and home plate umpire Jeff Kellogg.
• Fiers sent multiple tweets to Stanton Thursday night apologizing for the incident and wishing him well going forward.
• Eric Stephen of SB Nation captured an outpouring of support on Twitter from Stanton’s teammates and others around baseball.
• David Schoenfield of ESPN used Stanton’s situation to highlight the danger batters face on a day-to-day basis.

Other notes from the field:

• Marlins outfielder Marcell Ozuna homered again on Thursday, went deep once in each of the four games in the series and also homered when the teams last met in Miami on May 25. He’s only the fifth player ever to hit a home run in five consecutive games against the Brewers, and @joe_block notes it’s only the third time all five games have come in the same season.
• The Brewers’ first run scored on a solo home run from Ryan Braun, the 230th of his career. Braun is now tied with Prince Fielder for second on the organization’s all-time list (h/t Brew Crew Ball).
• @alecdopp notes that Braun homered off a fastball with a velocity above 96 MPH for the first time since July 22.
• Gerardo Parra went 1-for-4 on Thursday while playing left field in place of Khris Davis, who is dealing with soreness in his right forearm.
• Giancarlo Stanton and Reed Johnson both being hit by consecutive pitches that they swung at was enough to attract the attention of You Can’t Predict Baseball.

The Brewers have just six home games remaining, including the first of three against the Cincinnati Reds tonight. Kyle Lohse will face Mat Latos in a 7:10 p.m. first pitch, and Cody Ulm has the MLB.com preview.

Not that long ago, Matt Clark was a minor league free agent after being released by the Mets. On Thursday, he homered in his second straight game for the Brewers, and Noah Jarosh of Brew Crew Ball is wondering if he should be a candidate to play at first base long term.

Francisco Rodriguez recorded his 41st save of the season on Thursday, retiring the side in order for the 19th time this season. Bill Chuck of Gammons Daily notes that K-Rod entered play Thursday fourth in all of baseball in “clean saves,” outings where a save was recorded without allowing a baserunner.

Despite back-to-back wins, the Brewers still have a lot of work to do to recover from a stretch in which they lost 13 times in 14 games. Scott Lindholm of Beyond the Box Score is the latest to look at the Crew’s sudden fade and ask if they can still turn it around.

In the minors:

• Yesterday, we mentioned that the Brewers and Reds had officially completed the Jonathan Broxton trade, sending minor league pitchers Barrett Astin and Kevin Shackelford to the Reds as the players to be named later in the deal. Today, John Sickels of Minor League Ball has scouting reports on both pitchers and concludes that both “have flashed the ability to be useful major league relievers if they develop more consistency with their secondary pitches.”
• Elsewhere in scouting reports, Nick Melotte of Minor League Ball has a preview of the Arizona Fall League’s Glendale Desert Dogs, a team that will feature top Brewers prospects Tyrone Taylor, Tyler Wagner and Nick Ramirez.

Today in power rankings:

• Nats Insider has the Brewers as baseball’s 13th-best team, down two spots. 
• Tim Brown of Yahoo dropped them even further, moving the Brewers from eighth to 15th.

If you’d like more Brewers coverage today but you’re sick of reading, I’ll be making my weekly appearance on The Sports Den with Downtown Ollie Burrows on Sports Fan 100.5 in Wausau at 5:30 p.m. Follow that link to listen in live.

We don’t have any transactions to report again today, so let’s go around the NL Central:

• Thursday’s game of the day was played in Cincinnati, where Johnny Cueto won a pitchers’ duel with Lance Lynn in a 1-0 Reds win over the Cardinals. Lynn pitched a complete game and allowed just three hits in a losing effort.
• The Pirates got eight shutout innings from Francisco Liriano in a 4-1 win over the Phillies. Liriano recorded 12 strikeouts in the victory.
• The Brewers, as you likely know, beat the Marlins 4-2.
• The Cubs were off on Thursday.