Brewers: Brandon Woodruff Shines in Final Tune Up as Gold Team Wins

Sunday’s scrimmage had a familiar look as the Gold Team won game five of the Brewers Blue-Gold World Series. Here are some rapid reactions from the contest.

Game five of the Brewers Blue-Gold World Series may have been three innings longer than the first matchup, but it followed a similar script. Brandon Woodruff turned in a great performance and Omar Narvaez hit yet another bomb to lead the Gold Team to a 4-2 victory.

That win would give the Gold Team the series victory by conventional scoring standards, but the team will still play their two final scrimmages to round out the series. Here are some quick observations from the fifth intra-squad matchup.

Woodruff ready for Brewers Opening Day Start

As they say, the Brewers can wrap Brandon Woodruff up in bubble wrap and throw him on the plane because he is clearly ready for the regular season to begin. The team ace gave up just an unearned run on four hits over five innings pitched in his Sunday start, striking out five and walking none.

In a move that surprised basically no one, the team announced two days ago that Woodruff would be the club’s Opening Day starter against the Cubs on Friday. His solid performance on Sunday left little doubt that manager Craig Counsell’s decision to throw Woodruff in the opener was one of the easiest decisions he’ll make all year.

Yelich ready to see some non-Brewers pitching

The performance of the game’s superstars during Spring Training, or in this case Summer Camp, can usually be taken with a grain of salt. Still, Christian Yelich will probably be happy to move on and face some pitchers from a different team for a change, and he’ll be especially happy he no longer has to go up against Woodruff.

Yelich struck out in three of his first four at bats on Sunday, then asked for one more in the ninth to get some extra work in and struck out yet again. Should we be worried that Yelich only has one hit in the scrimmage series so far? Of course we shouldn’t. All that matters is that he is healthy and will soon be unleashing his wrath against the opponents who count.

Black leaves game late with a possible injury

The Brewers have been mostly lucky on the injury front in this scrimmage series and even had one of their dinged up players return on Sunday when Keston Hiura came back from a brief absence to start at designated hitter. However, the team may have been bitten by the injury but late in the most recent scrimmage.

Relief pitcher Ray Black exited the game in the eighth when he was pulled by Craig Counsell after facing just three batters. It was noted on the webcast that Black’s fastball velocity had dropped to 90 mph on his previous pitch, far below normal for him. There is no word yet from the team on whether the move was just precautionary.

Two games remain for the team to prepare for their opening series on the road against the Cubs. Follow along with us as the Brewers continue their trek towards Opening Day’s first pitch.