Series 27 - Milwaukee Brewers @ Minnesota Twins June 27 - June 29 at The Hubert H Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis, MNI wanted to go up to Minneapolis for all 3 games, but ever since I started working at Mark Travel, I have worked every single Friday unless I took a vacation day or called in "sick" (like when I went to Las Vegas). When I call in "sick", they take my vacation time to cover the time that I missed. I can't have that, since I want to try and make it to as many days at Afterglow as possible. So I had to settle for watching this game once again on ESPN's gamecast from the not so comfy confines of my cubicle. Judging from what transpired during this game, I would've been very excited to be in attendance until the bottom of the 8th inning. McClung had a bit of a rough day, giving up 5 earned runs and only lasting 4 2/3 innings. The offense backed him up, but this one turned into a slugfest. The following players hot homeruns : Corey Hart (2 of them, actually), Russell Branyan, JJ Hardy, Alexi Casilla, Jason Kubel and Joe Mauer. Yeah, I know. It just really sucks that Mauer hit the final one out of those players, and it turned out to be the deciding factor in the game as the Twins won by 1 run. And who gave up that homerun? Current lightning rod and sports radio talk show fodder Guillermo Mota. Ouch. Final score Twins 7, Brewers 6.
Brewers record : 43 - 36
Game 2 (Tuesday) - Manny Parra (8-2, 3.95 ERA) vs Livan Hernandez (8-5, 5.22 ERA)Since both Joey Kany and I had to work Friday night, it was our goal to leave early Friday morning so that we could stop at Leinenkugal's prior to the start of the game (6pm cst). We were supposed to leave around 8:00 am, but that soon turned into 10:30 am. By the time we got on the road, I knew that there was no way that we would get to the game on time if we were to stop at Leinie's for the tour. We rolled into Chippewa Falls around 2:30, and found out that the next tour we could go one would be at 3:30, so we elected to stick around, since this tour was one of the big reasons that we came up here. When we left town, it was nearly 5:00, and we were a little over an hour from the Twin Cities. Thankfully we were able to get a Wisconsin station carrying the Brewers game, as the hilarious voice of Bob Uecker carried us through enemy territory. We found a place to park and entered the stadium around the 4th inning, which was significant because the Brewers scored all 5 of their runs during the 1st 3 innings. So we missed all of the Brewers offense. What a shame. What we did catch however, was a brilliant (although the walks are still an issue) start by Manny Parra. He went 7 innings and only gave up 2 hits while striking out 6, although he did walk 4 batters. Riske came in and kept the shutout intact, but Stetter gave up a homerun to Kubel in the 9th to break up that shutout. That did give those Twins fans something to shout about, but I just pointed to the scoreboard and they cried into their laps. We sat up by Mike and Katie, and our seats were waaaaaaaay up in the leftfield corner and halfway behind a support beam. I mean waaaaaaay up there. I wasn't too upset though, because I was in the company of good friends and I only paid $12 for these seats. They are normally $8, but this was one of those premiere marquee games where they find a reason to charge the fans more money because of all of the visiting fans. I can't be too mad, because we do the same kind of shit to the Cubs fans when they come to Miller Park. After the game, we went out to the 7 Corners, a popular watering hole on the fringe of downtown, which I would say most resembles our Water Street (only with less popped collared douche bags). There were a ton of Brewers fans out drinking, because drinking is what Milwaukee kids do best. I high fived a lot of people, and yelled out Go Brewers at every opportunity. We drank some good beers at some good bars (the White Russians at Town Hall were superb) and hung out with some good people. I really couldn't ask for anything sweeter. Final score Brewers 5, Twins 1.
Brewers record : 44 - 36
Game 3 (Wednesday) - Ben Sheets (9-2, 2.83 ERA) vs Kevin Slowey (5-6, 3.47 ERA)
I got a real nice start this morning, drinking a my breakfast (a Leinie's Sunset Wheat) and trying to avoid Wilson, Katie's Aunt's behemoth of a cat. I don't even know if cat can sum up this beast, I would liken it to a Yeti or to Bigfoot. Yeah, it's like that. You might think that I am joking, but bring this subject up to Joey Kanz someday and he'll back me up on it. We got a late start this morning, but we decided to go out to a local bakery anyway to grab some munchies. We met up with Jess and his girlfriend, and everyone ordered some food except for me. I went to the car and filled up an empty 1 liter bottle of Mountain Dew with a mixture of Leine's Red, Sunset Wheat, and Summer Shandy. So in essence I just continued drinking my breakfast. It wasn't enough to get me going, but I was hyped up enough when I entered the stadium, and I was prepped to do some hardcore cheering. Only there was nothing to cheer about. Ben Sheets had a bad day, and he picked a rough time to do it. It was only his 2nd loss of the year, but he just didn't have his stuff today. He gave up an uncharacteristic 5 runs off of 9 hits (struck out 7) and got no help whatsoever from the offense. Kevin Slowey once again rocked us (in Milwaukee on June 13, he pitched 8 innings and held us to 2 runs on 5 hits while striking out 5) by going the distance (9 innings) and hold us to 0 runs on 3 hits while striking out 8. Ug-ga-ly. My friend Shawn (who resides in Minneapolis) is a Twins fan so he had no problem rubbing the loss into my skull. I would've beat him up, but aside from being a Twins fan, he's a really cool guy, so I'll just be laughing when our team makes the playoffs and his doesn't. There's not much else to mention here, as the Brewers lose this series against the Twins and fall to 2-4 against them this year. Final score Twins 5, Brewers 0.
Brewers record : 44 -37
So it sucks that the Brewers lost the series, especially when I paid $60 to fill up Joey Kanz's gas tank to get up here. All in all, it was a great weekend, and although I spent plenty of money on food and beer, you can't really put a price on good times with good friends. I miss hanging out with Mike and Katie, and I hope that someday they will decide to move back down to the city. I really don't see that happening though, because Mike's forestry degree requires him to work in places where there are forests. I don't really that the Urban Jungle of Milwaukee qualifies as the forest, but I'll seek some clarification on that by contacting my State Senator. This weekend was almost perfect, but since we missed out on the first few innings of Saturday's game, we missed all of the Brewers' offense in the series. Oh well, at least the Brewers are now 3-3 on this roadtrip, with a 4 game series against Arizona coming up. If they split that, then they have a successful roadtrip (playing .500 on the road is great for any team, even the mighty Red Sox), but if they win 3 of 4, then we have ourselves a winning road trip. That would be beautiful, but I'm perfectly fine with .500 ball on the road because we get The Keg rocking back in Milwaukee.
Next up - Milwaukee Brewers @ Arizona Diamondbacks June 30 (Monday) - July 3 (Thursday) at Chase Field in Phoenix, AZ
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