MILWAUKEE (AP) — Rhys Hoskins, Jake Bauers and Joey Ortiz each homered to cool Sonny Gray as the Milwaukee Brewers defeated the slumping St. Louis Cardinals 7-1 on Thursday night.

It was the fifth straight loss for the Cardinals, who opened a four-game series with the NL Central-leading Brewers.

William Contreras and Christian Yelich each went 3 of 4 for the Brewers. Jared Koenig (4-1) earned the win after pitching two scoreless innings of relief and working his way out of a bases-loaded, no-out jam in the fifth.

Gray (4-2) has been one of the last-place Cardinals’ few bright spots since signing a three-year, $75 million contract in the offseason, but the 2023 Al Cy Young Award runner-up couldn’t stop St. Louis’ slide.

Through his first five starts, Gray allowed a total of six runs, and only three were earned. His 0.89 ERA was the lowest since 1910 by any Cardinals pitcher in his first five appearances with the organization.

The Brewers scored six runs off Gray on Thursday during his five-inning stint. Gray had given up just one homer all year before the Brewers went deep against him three times.

Milwaukee took the lead for good by scoring three runs in the first inning. It was the first time this season Gray had allowed a run before the fifth.

A two-out wild pitch from Gray brought home Contreras, who singled earlier in the inning. Hoskins, whose dog was watching from the stands as part of the Brewers’ “Bark at the Park” promotion, followed with a two-run homer over the wall in right-center field.

Bauers extended the lead to 4-0 by leading off the second with a 417-foot shot into the second deck of the right-field stands. After St. Louis’ Lars Nootbaar homered in the third, Ortiz made it 5-1 by delivering a 408-foot drive to center with two outs in the fourth.

Ortiz, who didn’t play in the Brewers’ 6-4 loss at Kansas City on Wednesday, has homered in each of his last two games.

The Cardinals wasted a couple of chances to get back into the game.

St. Louis brought the tying run to the plate with no outs in the fourth while trailing 4-1, but Dylan Carlson grounded into a double play and Masyn Winn struck out. The Cardinals then loaded the bases off Tobias Myers to start the fifth, but Koenig came out of the bullpen and got the next three outs without letting anyone score.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said “everything went well” in catcher Willson Contreras’ surgery Wednesday. Contreras broke his left forearm Tuesday when he was hit by a swing from J.D. Martinez in the Cardinals’ 7-5 loss to the New York Mets. Contreras is expected to return sometime after the All-Star break.

UP NEXT

LHP Robert Gasser is expected to make his major league debut for the Brewers on Friday. RHP Lance Lynn (1-0, 3.28) is pitching for the Cardinals.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Milwaukee Bucks guard Patrick Beverley was suspended by the NBA on Thursday for four games without pay to begin next season for his actions during and after the final game of an Eastern Conference first-round playoff series with the Indiana Pacers.

The league announced the suspension and said Beverley was getting punished for “forcefully throwing a basketball multiple times at spectators and an inappropriate interaction with a reporter during media availability.”

This suspension was handed down one day after Indianapolis police said they were investigating an “NBA player and citizen” altercation that happened during that May 2 game without mentioning anyone by name.

Beverley threw a ball at fans in the closing minutes of Milwaukee’s 120-98 Game 6 loss at Indiana that knocked the Bucks out of the playoffs. Cameras showed him sitting on the bench and tossing a ball into the stands, hitting a fan in the head with about 2 ½ minutes left. After a different fan threw the ball back to Beverley, who was holding his arm out for it, the Bucks guard fired it back at that spectator.

Beverley spoke about his behavior on an episode of “The Pat Bev Podcast” that was released Wednesday. He said he was called a word that he’d never been called before, but added that his actions were “still inexcusable.”

“I will be better,” he said. “I have to be better, and I will be better. That should have never happened. Regardless of what was said, that should have never happened. Simple as that.”

Beverley added the atmosphere in Indiana “was great” aside from “a handful of fans” who crossed the line.

“I ain’t bringing a basketball on the bench no more,” Beverley said. “That … threw my whole vibe off.”

After the game, Beverley wouldn’t allow ESPN journalist Malinda Adams to ask him a question in a group interview in the locker room. He said it was because she didn’t subscribe to his podcast. Beverley told her to get her microphone out of his face and then eventually asked her to leave the interview circle.

The next day, Adams said on X that she had received apologies from both the Bucks and from Beverley himself.

On his podcast, Beverley said he had asked that of reporters who interviewed him ever since he launched his podcast. Beverley said he told Adams that “it was never my intent to disrespect you.”

A day after the game, Bucks coach Doc Rivers said Beverley’s behavior was “not the Milwaukee way or the Bucks way.”

“We’re better than that,” Rivers said. “Pat feels awful about that. He also understands emotionally — this is an emotional game and things happen — unfortunately, you’re judged immediately and he let the emotions get the better of him.”

The Bucks acquired the 35-year-old Beverley from the Philadelphia 76ers at the trade deadline. Beverley was playing on a one-year deal, making him an unrestricted free agent heading into the offseason.

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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA

Marking his first solo U.S. exhibition, Idris Khan’s “Repeat After Me” at the Milwaukee Art Museum is an impressive and expansive overview of the artist’s creative evolution thus far. Beginning with his early digital work in photography, video and sculpture, leading us into his more recent work in painting, and culminating in a new collection of watercolor works created specifically for the show, viewers are given a masterfully curated insight into the artist’s unique creative language. Khan’s work uses repetition as the main recurring motif regardless of medium, exploring themes such as time, memory and loss. Following a chronological timeline, each gallery is both an exciting departure and a continuation from the last as we travel along with Khan in discovering how repetition can be used to better understand time and remembrance.

The show begins with Khan’s early work in photography in which he takes existing media of a similar subject matter and meticulously layers them all into one large file. The resulting images are blurred, overly saturated and difficult to comprehend—and they are meant to be. Khan has stripped away the preconceived understanding that photography produces clear, carbon copy images of one moment in time and instead has created deeply layered and complex works exploring time itself. His works such as “every…William Turner Postcard from Tate Britain” (2004) feel deeply familiar yet distant almost as though they are the result of closing your eyes and conjuring up a William Turner painting from memory.

Idris Khan, “Overture,” 2015, oil on glass with aluminum frame, 96″ x 78″ x 156″/Photo: Idris Khan and Sean Kelly

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Following his work with photography, we move onto his text-based work. Applying the same methodologies from before, Khan combines every scanned page of a book into one single image. Just as with the subject matter of the photographs, the “subject” or text becomes impossible to discern. However, it is not the text itself that is important but rather the resulting powerful visual story. This is furthered once again in the next room in which the text from literature is replaced with musical compositions. It is here that his exploration of time really begins to resonate as each musical score exists in its entirety simultaneously.

The first half of the exhibition features Khan working primarily with pre-existing media. In one of the largest departures in the show, we now enter into an exciting place in his practice in which he begins to create pieces created solely by his own hand. It is also where we begin to see his work with sculpture and painting. Repetition remains the driving force behind his art but we are introduced to it being shown in a new light. His work “Overture” (2015), a large-scale sculpture featuring seven large panels of glass hanging vertically, one in front of the other, introduces his work with stamps and his exploration of global crisis and displacement. Each panel of glass is stamped repeatedly with his own writing, creating densely layered abstract shapes where the writing is illegible except for the edges of shapes where broken phrases start to become visible. The repetition becomes deeply personal in his work “My Mother,” a cast of around 360 stacked photos representing his mother’s entire life in photographs.

Idris Khan, “The Seasons Turn,” 2021, oil on mounted paper, twenty-eight panels, each: 25 1/2″ × 21 1/2″/Photo: Idris Khan and Sean Kelly

The exhibition once again takes new form as we begin to view Khan’s work with painting in “The Seasons Turn,” a collection of twenty-eight (seven for each season) watercolor works created during the COVID-19 pandemic. Each painting features colors specially chosen to represent a particular season and is stamped with the music of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons.” Through these works, not only do we see a continuation of his work with musical compositions and repetition, but we are also introduced to a new caliber of his artistic skill—his masterful use of color. When viewed together as one large piece, the colors converse with one another in a symbiotic relationship.

The final room features a new collection of paintings Khan has created specifically for the exhibition. Taking inspiration from five master paintings in the museum’s collection, he has created colorful reinterpretations of paintings stamped with musical compositions created with a digital program directly using the colors from each historical painting. The show is deeply compelling and brilliantly curated to create a powerfully intimate viewing experience. If you were to enter the show not knowing anything about Idris Khan, you will leave a fan excited and eager for future work.

“Idris Khan: Repeat After Me” is on view at Milwaukee Art Museum, 700 North Art Museum Drive, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, through August 11.