Turn it up to 11: Brewers hammer Skenes, Pirates

MILWAUKEE — Sal Frelick and Brice Turang homered off Paul Skenes, and the Milwaukee Brewers pounded the Pittsburgh Pirates 14-0 on Tuesday night for their 11th consecutive victory.

Christian Yelich, Andrew Vaughn and Caleb Durbin also went deep as major-league-leading Milwaukee improved to 27-5 in its past 32 games. Freddy Peralta (14-5) pitched six innings of three-hit ball in his second straight win.

The Brewers’ 11-game winning streak is their second of the season and the second longest in franchise history. They are the third team since World War II with multiple win streaks of at least 11 games in a season, joining Cleveland in 1954 and the Toronto Blue Jays in 2015, and the Brewers are the first National League team to accomplish the feat since the 1935 Chicago Cubs.

Skenes (7-9) permitted four runs and six hits in four innings. The ace right-hander struck out four and walked two. He had allowed a total of four runs in his previous four starts.

It was Skenes’ first loss since July 11 and the largest defeat in a start in his career, surpassing an 8-3 loss to the Cubs on May 1.

Skenes had gone 24 starts this season without allowing a first-inning run, the second-longest streak to begin a season in MLB history. (Bob Shawkey went 27 starts for the New York Yankees in 1923.)

Frelick hit a leadoff drive in the first for his ninth home run. Turang added a solo shot in the fourth for his 12th homer, lifting the Brewers to a 3-0 lead.

Yelich’s 23rd homer — a two-run drive off Yohan Ramirez in the fifth — made it 6-0, and Vaughn capped Milwaukee’s six-run sixth with a three-run shot. Durbin tacked on a two-run homer in the eighth against Pirates infielder Jared Triolo.

The Brewers have a major-league-high 23 homers in August. Six of those have come from Turang, doubling his season total.

Coupled with the Cubs’ loss in Toronto, Milwaukee increased its NL Central lead to 7½ games — the largest cushion in the majors.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.