Brewers 24, Dodgers 9: Yes, you read that correctly

• The Milwaukee Brewers defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers 24-9 in a chaotic Cactus League game.
• Dodgers pitchers threw 250 pitches, nearly a record for a nine-inning game in the pitch-tracking era.
• The Brewers scored 10 runs in the fifth inning and another nine runs in the seventh inning.

GLENDALE, Ariz. – It was a full-fledged, unabashed cacophony of Cactus cuckooness. The kind of game where you just pray someone’s mom calls “Dinnertime!” and mercifully ends the whole thing. The kind of game that’s such a football score on the scoreboard that the manager started scheming up a run-pass option offense in the eighth inning.

The kind of game that perfectly sums up spring training in mid-March in the valley of the sun.

“Only in the Cactus League,” Pat Murphy said after the Milwaukee Brewers’ 24-9 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers on May 16 at Camelback Ranch-Glendale.

In all there would be 466 pitches thrown, 207 of them balls. Of those 466, 250 were from Dodgers hurlers; only once in the pitch tracking era since 2008 has a team thrown more pitches in a single nine-inning game than that. That game on July 16, 2021, saw the Washington Nationals chuck 258 mostly hapless-pellets toward the plate in, coincidentally, a 24-8 loss.

By the time the Dodgers were walking in a carousel of runs late, Murphy was talking off the ear of coaches Jace Peterson and Daniel Vogelbach about his machinations of an RPO offense. Peterson, a former cornerback at McNeese State, would be a viable quarterback or running back in Murphy’s scheme; it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to determine what position Vogelbach would play.

“My concentration went away from me,” Murphy said.

The pitchers, too, perhaps.

Before the afternoon turned into a live action role play of the Baseball Bugs episode of “Looney Tunes,” it had every semblance of another spring dud for the Brewers, who have their fair share of clunkers in meaningless endeavors.

One day after nearly being on the wrong end of a perfect game against the Giants, the Brewers fell behind, 7-0, as opening day rotation member Chad Patrick got pummeled for a pair of home runs.

Then, the parade began. Dodgers pitchers stopped finding the zone, their fielders stopped gloving the ball and the Brewers bats were scorching hot under the Arizona sun. 

First, it was a 10-run fifth that lasted 32 minutes. Then, a nine-run seventh that spanned 29 minutes. Brandon Lockridge hit a grand slam. There was a three-run sacrifice fly. Eleven Brewers walked over the final five innings. Three of those came consecutively with the bases loaded. A pinch runner came back around to bat in the same inning he entered as a runner – and he homered. Nearly four hours elapsed.

Lockridge finished 3 for 5, while Jett Williams and Luis Rengifo also had multi-hit days. 

Prospect Brady Ebel was the pinch-runner-turned-batter in the seventh, and homered against the team his dad, Dino, is third base coach for. Ebel, the 32nd overall pick by the Brewers in last summer’s draft, spent his formative years at Dodger Stadium taking grounders and hitting batting practice with his father.

It was the second time that Brady has gotten in a game this spring against his dad’s team, although in both instances Dino, who’s serving as the third base coach for the United State in the World Baseball Classic, wasn’t in the opposing dugout. 

Sixty pitches were thrown in the top of the fifth. That was the most in a single inning in the Cactus League this spring …until two innings later when Dodgers pitchers Jack Dreyer, Kelvin Ramirez and Evan Shaw combined to throw 62. 

And yet it somehow got even worse.

The real backbreaker for those with dinner plans came in the top of the ninth. Lucas Wepf, a Class AA reliever, started the inning on the mound and went walk, single, single, walk, walk. He was offered clemency by Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, who took the ball from him and handed it to Robby Porco, a 12th rounder a year ago who’s yet to make his professional debut, to inherit another bases-full mess.

Porco walked the first batter he faced. On four pitches.

The real hero of the day wasn’t Lockridge or Ebel or any of the hitters who hung 24 runs on the board, but rather a minor-league free agent signing named Joe Corbett, whose heroics included a three-up, three-down bottom of the ninth, bringing to an end the 3-hour, 54-minute goat rodeo.

At least it was so late that by the time all the patrons got home, mom did, after all, have dinner ready.

Prospect watch

Seeing as it was a full-on circus, just about every last member of the travel roster got into the game. Ebel, Luke Adams, Cooper Pratt, Mike Boeve and Braylon Payne were among the notable prospects to enter the game. 

Brewers spring training schedule

Off-day Tuesday.

Brewers (split squad) vs. Angels, 3:10 p.m. Wednesday: Milwaukee LHP Aaron Ashby vs. Los Angeles TBA. Radio – 620 WTMJ.

Brewers (split squad) at Mariners, 3:10 p.m. Wednesday: Milwaukee LHP Kyle Harrison vs. Seattle RHP Emerson Hancock. Broadcast – Brewers.TV.