MILWAUKEE – Milwaukee baseball trailed 9-2 through 7 1/2 innings and were able to score five runs over the final two frames, but it was not enough as Oakland evened the weekend series at a game apiece with a 9-7 win.
 
Tyler Bickers, Charlie Marion, and Thomas Otto each had multi-RBI games, as Bickers hit his second home run of the season and Otto connected on his fifth round tripper of 2025.
 
Aric Ehmke got the start for Milwaukee and allowed four runs over five innings of work with three strikeouts.
 
Milwaukee's bullpen struggled to find any consistency for much of the remainder of the game. Riley Peterson came on and struck out the final batter in the top of the seventh, while Aiden Fishnick pitched a scoreless ninth as the duo were the only two to not give up a run on the day.
 
"Their offense shrunk the zone a little bit and we gave them some freebies," said head coach Shaun Wegner. "Their offense is predicated on getting on base and causing pressure and they got the big three-run double early before tacking on against our bullpen."
 
The Panthers led 1-0 on a base knock by Marion in the first, but two innings later a bases-clearing double in the third gave Oakland a lead it did not relinquish. The Golden Grizzlies scored runs in four-straight innings to build up the 9-2 advantage heading to the bottom of the eighth.
 
Q Phillips reached on a single with one down before Teige Lethert had a pinch single. Gabe Roessler was hit by a pitch to load the bases, followed by an RBI walk by Tate Schmidt. Bickers added an RBI single and Marion added another run on a ground ball, but the Panthers stranded a pair.
 
"The pressure situations where they were able to drive some runs in and push them across and we weren't able to do the same in those spots," Wegner noted on the team stranding 13 runners on base.
 
Otto's two-run home run in the ninth got Milwaukee within two, but the Panthers were unable to get any closer.
 
Oakland starter Grant Garman tossed 7 1/3 innings and struck out five to earn the win. Matthew McGann was 2-for-4 and drove in three, while Carter Hain drove in a pair for the visitors.
 
"I give Garman credit … he pumped the zone and came at us," added Wegner. "We hit some balls hard today and had some outs that were recorded, but that's just how this game goes sometimes."
 
Milwaukee and Oakland will play the rubber match of the series on Sunday afternoon with first pitch set for 1:00 p.m. at Franklin Field.