Shohei Ohtani hit a ball to the moon and the Milwaukee Brewers struggled to hit one anywhere there was open grass.
On a Sunday afternoon with little offense, a towering solo home run off the bat of the Los Angeles Angels superstar served as the big swing with the Brewers offense shut down by left hander Jose Suarez in a 3-0 loss to the visitors at American Family Field.
The Angels jumped in front with a pair of two-out solo blasts against Brewers starting pitcher Colin Rea.
Box score: Angels 3, Brewers 0
Ohtani’s skyscraping blast in the third inning threatened to hit a cable strung from the roof on its way out to center field and gave the Angels a 2-0 lead one inning after Jake Lamb golfed a first-pitch curveball just over the right field fence with two outs in the second.
Those two swings put a damper on what was an otherwise crisp outing from Rea.
Making his fourth start of the year, Rea struck out a career-high nine, including two swinging strikeouts of Mike Trout. Rea allowed only one other hit and a walk over his five innings, an effective day of work that could have led the Brewers to a win had they been able to sniff any offense against Suarez and company.
Coming off an outing in which he allowed five homers to the league-worst Oakland Athletics, Suarez, who also owned a 10.26 ERA coming in, gave up only two hits over five innings. The Angels lefty struck out six and worked out a pair of threats – first and second with one out in the second and a leadoff double by Brian Anderson in the fourth.
The Brewers were 0 for 12 with runners on base overall, including two double-play grounders.
Things didn’t get any better for Milwaukee after Suarez left the game. Chris Devenski, Chase Silseth and Matt Moore faced just one over the minimum over their four innings of shutdown work as the Brewers got nothing going against a bullpen that leads the majors with seven blown saves.
Our subscribers make this reporting possible. Please consider supporting local journalism by subscribing to the Journal Sentinel at jsonline.com/deal.
DOWNLOAD THE APP: Get the latest news, sports and more
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Shohei Ohtani homers, Brewers offense gets shut out in loss to Angels