MILWAUKEE — William Contreras had time to admire his moon shot.
In the seventh inning Friday at American Family Field, the Milwaukee Brewers catcher clubbed a 1-2 pitch from Chicago Cubs reliever Jayden Murray that sailed 449 feet to left-center field. Contreras watched it fly from home plate before rounding the bases.
The two-run shot broke open what had been a tight contest in the opener of a three-game series. The Brewers went on to a 6-2 victory, extending their NL Central lead over the Cubs to 7½ games.
With the bullpen overworked from a busy week — which featured a doubleheader Wednesday — manager Craig Counsell said Friday wasn’t the time to be aggressive.
“We had some tired relievers,” Counsell said. “It wasn’t the game to chase with where our bullpen is at, unfortunately.”
The Cubs had been fresh off a four-game sweep of the New York Mets. Starting pitcher Colin Rea held the Brewers scoreless through five innings.
But things fell apart from there.
Center fielder Garrett Mitchell gave the Brewers a 2-1 lead in the sixth inning with a two-run home run off reliever Ethan Roberts, hitting a hanging cutter 407 feet to right-center. Rea was charged with one of those runs.
“Unfortunately we made a bad pitch,” Counsell said. “Give Mitchell credit, that just flipped the game.”
Roberts walked the next hitter, Cooper Pratt, before giving up a run-scoring triple to David Hamilton. Hamilton, a lefty, sliced a ball into left field that tailed away from a diving Ian Happ deep in the corner. Pratt scored from first on the play, putting the Brewers up 3-1.
An inning later, Contreras blasted his two-run home run off Murray to make it 5-1.
“They’re tough,” Rea said of the Brewers hitters. “They don’t really chase a ton. They put together good at-bats. They foul off good pitches, so they make you work, get your pitch count up. So you’ve really just got to come with your A-game.”
The Cubs bats — which scored 33 runs in four games against the Mets — were quiet Friday, thanks in large part to Brewers ace Jacob Misiorowski. From the get-go, the 24-year-old was throwing fire.
His third pitch of the evening hit a career-high 105.5 mph and tied the third-fastest pitch ever recorded in the pitch-tracking era (since 2008).
Only former Cubs reliever Aroldis Chapman has thrown harder, reaching 105.8 mph in 2010 and 105.7 in 2016. Misiorowski previously topped out at 104.5 mph.
Somehow, Pete Crow-Armstrong managed to foul off Misiorowski’s record-setting pitch, but he wound up striking out in the at bat.
Misiorowski didn’t give up a hit until Seiya Suzuki broke a scoreless tie with a home run to lead off the fifth inning. Misiorowski allowed only two hits over six innings and 107 pitches. He struck out eight and walked four.
The Cubs loaded the bases with two outs in the inning against him. It was perhaps their best chance to do some real damage, but Happ struck out to end the inning.
“He’s hard to square up,” Counsell said of the flame-throwing righty. “He’s been hard to make contact against. We did do a nice job. Basically we had an at-bat at the end of his game, Ian had an at-bat, that’s kind of the at-bat where if you make something good happen there — whatever, a walk, anything — maybe we can tack on there.”
The Cubs added a run in the eighth inning on a sacrifice fly from Suzuki, but they managed only three hits in the game.
“His fastball was really good today,” Suzuki, speaking through an interpreter, said of Misiorowski. “So was his offspeed and breaking pitches. He’s aggressive in the zone with all the pitches. Today my approach was get up in the box and not really pick one pitch. Just kind of see the ball and try to hit it.”
Suzuki became the first player to homer twice off Misiorowski since the pitcher’s MLB debut in 2025, according to ESPN Insights. Suzuki took him deep in the NL Division series last fall.
The Cubs will try to rebound Saturday with left-hander David Peterson, acquired this week in a trade with the Mets, making his first start with his new team.
