Brewers' Counsell rips 'bad umpiring' on crucial strikeout calls

Milwaukee Brewers manager Craig Counsell was blunt in his postgame assessment of the umpiring during Monday's loss to the Houston Astros.

"It's two awful calls. I have to say it," Counsell said, according to Adam McCalvy of MLB.com. "It's the magnitude of the spot; it's the hitter. It's bad calls. It's bad umpiring."

Milwaukee had the tying and winning runs on base when Christian Yelich stepped to the plate in the bottom of the 10th inning.

The reigning National League MVP took a 1-2 pitch that appeared to be high, but he was rung up by home plate umpire Ben May. It was the second time in the game that he was called out looking on a pitch above the strike zone.

Yelich came through with the game-tying home run in the ninth to send the contest to extras, but the pair of strikeouts lingered in his mind instead of his 43rd long ball of the campaign.

"I don't want to say anything that will get myself fined," Yelich said. "All I'll say is go watch (the called third strikes) yourselves, make your own judgments, see what happens. At the end of the day, it's not going to matter. It won't change anything that happened. It's just how it works. We have to accept it and that's it."

With the loss, the Brewers dropped to 70-67 on the season. They trail the NL Central-leading St. Louis Cardinals by seven games and sit four games back in the middle of a logjam in the wild-card race.