MARYVALE, AZ (LEARFIELD-WSAU) The Milwaukee Brewers split their squads yesterday in Arizona and lost a pair of Cactus League exhibitions, 5-to-2 to Oakland and 12-5 to Texas.
Barry Zito, who took a year off from the game, threw four scoreless innings for the A’s. Ryan Braun struck out twice in his first appearance after missing three games with the flu. Braun is now 0-for-10 in Cactus League play, while fanning four times. The 36-year-old Zito retired all but one of the 12 batters he faced.
Milwaukee’s Jonathan Lucroy caught for five innings and homered in his second spring training game since recovering from a bad hamstring.
In the other split squad game, Brewers’ starter Taylor Jungmann (young-man) gave up seven runs to the Rangers in the first game. Mitch Moreland had a two-run single, and Jake Smolinski belted a two-run triple during that first-inning rally.
Carlos Gomez hit his first homer of the spring for the Brewers.
Milwaukee dropped to 3-and-9 in the Cactus League. They’re off today, and will play San Diego tomorrow.
