Series 28 - Milwaukee Brewers @ Arizona Diamondbacks June 30 - July 3 at Chase Field in Phoenix, AZThese 4 games are the conclusion of the 10 game, 11 day, 3 city road trip. After winning 2 in Atlanta and dropping 2 at Minnesota, we could either post a losing record, winning record, or tying record based upon the outcome of this series. So it's that important to win as many games as possible. Now I know that kind of sounds like an obvious understatement, but it's mega important for us to win as many games as possible on the road since we have historically been a horrible road team. It would be a high order to win 3 of the 4, since we would be going against some tough pitchers in Doug Davis, Randy Johnson and Brandon Webb, but I held out hope because the Arizona offense is pretty terrible. Over the past few years, the starting rotation has been their strength, so if we can overcome that, we should have no problem winning a few games down here. I'll be just fine with a series split, because it would give us a .500 roadtrip, but anything else would be icing on the cake or gravy on the mashed potatoes. Take whatever food analogy that you want, and feel free to invent your own, but I'm going to get away from that and continue on with the wrap-up.
Game 1 (Monday) - Dave Bush (4-8, 5.06 ERA) vs Doug Davis (3-3, 3.79 ERA)
This game got off to a promising start, with Rickie Weeks taking a walk, JJ Hardy scoring him on a double, then Prince Fielder knocked him home on a single and the Brewers got off to a 2-0 lead. Unfortunately, it all kind of went down hill from there. The Diamondbacks responded by scoring 2 runs in the bottom half of the 1st inning and grabbed the lead for good with a 3 run outburst in the 5th inning. Dave Bush has been really good lately, and while he wasn't horrible today, he gave up 5 runs off of 9 hits in 5 innings of work. The road woes for the Brewers continue and the Diamondbacks anemic offense did enough to work the scoreboard in their favor. This was a pretty average road game for the Brewers that featured mediocre offense, defense, and pitching, which is why they usually lose these games. There's not too much more to talk about here, but hopefully tomorrow we'll rock Randy Johnson like we did back on June 3rd at Miller Park. Final score Dbacks 6, Brewers 3.
Brewers record : 44 - 38
Game 2 (Tuesday) - Jeff Suppan (5-6, 4.30 ERA) vs Randy Johnson (4-7, 5.46 ERA)
Randy Johnson started off the season going 4-0, but is now riding a 6 game losing streak going into tonight's game. The Brewers touched him for a loss back at Miller Park, but when he left in the 6th inning, he still gave the Dbacks a chance to win it. It would be a totally different story today, as the future hall of famer wasn't very sharp today. The Brewers knocked him around for 7 runs off of 8 hits and 3 homeruns, including 2 by JJ Hardy and 1 by Joe Dillon. It was Dillon's first homerun of the year, which makes him the last non pitcher on the roster to hit a homerun. Yes, even Craig Counsell and Jason Kendall have hit homeruns this year. It's pretty significant because it was his first in the majors as a Brewer, and in his minor league career (spanning 10 years) hit hit 152 homeruns, and was among team leaders at AAA Nashville in 2007 when he hit
20 homeruns. He was always viewed as a power hitter, but until today, he had yet to display that power with the team. Hopefully this is the 1st of many to follow. Enough about Joe Dillon (I still don't know why people are so high on him) - let's talk about JJ Hardy. Lately, he has just been tearing the cover off of the ball and regaining his power stroke. He hit 2 homeruns today, and finished 2 for 4 with 3 RBIs and 3 runs scored. If you're scoring at home, he singlehandedly accounted for about half of the offense today. The Dbacks made a push to win the game, but the Brewers bullpen (with the exception of Mota, who gave up a run in the 8th) was able to hold onto the lead and escape with the win. Final score Brewers 8, Dbacks 6.
Brewers record : 45 - 38
Game 3 (Wednesday) - Seth McClung (5-3, 4.18 ERA) vs Yusmeiro Petit (0-1, 3.29 ERA)
Micah Owings was supposed to pitch today, but he was scratched due to a "tweaked gluteus muscle". Isn't the gluteus area your ass? How do you tweak your ass? It takes a real winner to teak an ass muscle. I don't ever claim to be an athlete, but I still don't understand how you can tweak an ass muscle by running, jumping, diving, and swinging a bat. If there are any doctors or athletic trainers out there who know how this is possible, please let me now. I'm not much of an ass man, but this idea intrigues me because I previously didn't think that this was humanly possible. So instead of going against Micah Owings, we have to face this cat Yusmeiro Petit. That sucks, because we really roughed up Owings in Milwaukee on June 4th to the tune of 5 runs off of 8 hits in 3 innings. So that's the bad news. But the bad news continued when Petit pitched more like Pettitte (Andy, of the Yankees) and shut us down for 1 run (2 hits) over 6 innings. The good news is that the resilient Brewers battled back for 3 more in the final 3 innings, including a pinch hit homerun by Rickie Weeks in the 8th inning. Torres came on for the save in the 9th inning, and stayed perfect for his 15th save of the season. Oh, and McClung once again pitched well today. Wait...you thought that I would do a wrap-up of a series that featured Seth McClung and not mention how much of a surprise that he has been since he joined the rotation? You don't know me then. Shame on you. Final score Brewers 4, Dbacks 3.
Brewers record : 46 - 38
On the 3rd of July, I spend the day out in Veterans Park with my family in preparation for the fireworks at night. If you're not aware of this, let me be the one to inform you that the city of Milwaukee holds it's July 4th celebration on the 3rd of July, complete with a grand fireworks show at night. I have been going down to the lakefront with my family for close to 25 years now, but the high point of the last few years has been crowding around the radio with friends and family and listening to Uecker and Powell call the Brewers game. I was really looking forward to this game because the Brewers had already won 2 in the series, and they had a chance to go for the win against perennial Cy Young Candidate Brandon Webb. Talk about an uphill climb. Hardy and Cameron each hit homeruns off of Webb, who gave up 5 runs off of 9 hits in 6 innings of work. But the Brewers roughed up Webb (which is very rare) and nothing to show for it, despite a magnificent performance my Manny Parra, who allowed 4 hits and no runs in 6 innings. Stetter pitched a scoreless 7th inning, then Gagne, fresh off of the disabled list, pitched a scoreless 8th inning. We were up 5-0 in the last inning of the game, and we were 3 outs away from the series victory. And then Cinderella's glass slipper fell off. I told my Uncle Gary during the commercial break that we would win this game as long as they didn't put in Guillermo Mota. And what did Ned Yost do? He put it Guillermo Mota. The result? The Brewers lost, and in grand fashion. Mota, Shouse, and the infallible Torres combined to give up 6 runs off of 6 hits while recording 0 outs. It was simply heartbreaking, and extremely disappointing to listen to. I could imagine how bad it would have been if I was actually watching the game. My Uncle Gary brought up a good point - he said that the Brewers never win on July 3rd when we're hanging out at the Lakefront, which isn't true because they last posted a victory in 2006. I think he was just too clouded by today's game and last year's 6-2 ugly loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates where the Brewers committed 4 errors in one of Capuano's 12 losses on the year. This one hurt, really bad, and no amount of alcohol could make it hurt any less. Slapping the bag of box wine later that night with Jenny and Paul certainly helped a little bit, but it stings now that I have to write a wrap-up of this game. I've got to move on from this one, or else I'll be hitting the bottle hard in just a few minutes. Final score Dbacks 6, Brewers 5.
Brewers record : 46 - 39
What could have been a winning series turned out to be a series split in just 1 inning out of 36 total innings of the series. That 1 inning left a super sour taste in the mouths of all Brewers fans, and although there is still a lot of games to be played this year, I have no doubt that this one will go down as one of the worst losses for the year. The only possible thing that can clean this distaste out of my mouth is a kick ass homestand, and thankfully we are playing some sucky teams in Pittsburgh, Colorado, and Cincinnati. Following this 10 game roadtrip, we have a 10 game homestand. There's no doubt in my mind that they can go 7-3 on this homestand, but stranger things have happened in the past. One thing that I know for sure is that I get to work the games on July 4th and 6th, so I'll be there in person to watch at least two games that we should win. Come see what's brewing, because the Brewers are brewing up a barrel of fun.
Next up - Milwaukee Brewers vs Pittsburgh Pirates July 4 (Friday) - July 6 (Sunday) at Miller Park in Milwaukee, WI
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