March 31 - April 3, Milwaukee Brewers vs. Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ballpark. The 2011 season started where the 2010 season ended. The Reds won the NL Central in 2010 and are viewed upon many to repeat this year, and they proved those people right by starting out 3-0 by sweeping the Milwaukee Brewers right out of town. Despite 2 games that were very winnable the Brewers struggled with closing the door in Game 1 and scoring runs in Game 2. As for Game 3? Well we don't talk about Game 3 and the comical stinker that Randy Wolf called pitching. The Reds totally owned us last year (when they won like 11 of 14 games) and are up on us 3-0 this year. In order to win the division we need to beat the other teams in our division, and the opening series of the year didn't prove that we could. But it was only 3 games and there are still 159 to go, so anyone that was jumping off the bandwagon or joining the Sportsradio 1250 "Done Club" is an idiot. Did it suck? Hell yeah. Was I crushed? You bet. Was I so fucking angry that I thought I was going to turn into the Incredible Hulk? You bet. Did I get over it? Of course. And the series against the Atlanta Braves definitely helped me to do that. Milwaukee Brewers record: 0-3.April 4 - 7, Milwaukee Brewers vs. Atlanta Braves at Miller Park. Call me an stupid, alone in my principles or unwilling to buy into the hype (but don't call me late for dinner yuk yuk yuk) but the Atlanta Braves are my pick to win the NL East. Yep, that's right I pick them to finish the season with a better record than the Philadelphia Phillies. I think they have a real wild card of a team filled with unpredictable young players that have more potential to win games versus the proven veteran Phillies. Pitching was the story in this series. On the Home Opener Chris Narveson went 6 scoreless but Takashi Saito gave up 2 solo homeruns in the 8th inning and the Brewers lost 2-1 to start the season 0-4. Yovani Gallardo then tossed a complete game, 2 hit shutout gem in a must win game to stop the losing streak and get the Brewers win #1 on the season. #5 starter (for now) Marco Estrada needed the offense to back him up, and they finally showed up in Wednesday's game and the Brewers won 5-4. On Thursday Shaun Marcum rebounded from his 5 walk performance at Cincinnati and earned his 1st win as a Brewer and the team won the series 3 games to 1 against the Braves and things were starting to look up after that 0-4 start. And now the casual fans are backing away from the ledge and jumping back on the bandwagon. Us real fans knew that an 0-4 start wasn't the end of the world when there were still 158 FUCKING GAMES LEFT IN THE SEASON! But the Brewers showed some life and the ability to forget the past and move on. Milwaukee Brewers record: 3-4.
There was a lot of emotion from me in the 1st week as I went from excited to depressed, angry to disappointed, relief to happiness and nervous to balls to the walls joy. I'm such a fan that I sometimes do take the games too seriously and ride an emotional rollercoaster with every pitch, at bat, inning and game. While it is a lot of stress to constantly change the way I feel I can't help it because aside from my family and friends, there isn't anything I love more than the Milwaukee Brewers. With all the hype going into 2011 (and seriously, this team really is that good) and the possibility of winning the NL Central and going to the World Series, I really wanted to see them get off to a good start. And although I know that it is a long season, in the end every game is going to matter because the other teams in our division (well, mostly Cincinnati) should be in the race in September and we need to make sure we have more wins than they do. Simple idea right? But it becomes painful if something so easy gets so complicated towards the end of the year and we miss the playoffs by a few games thanks to these early losses. But there is no reason to dwell on that now, because there is so much baseball left to play and the weather is just starting to turn around for the better.
I want to hand out awards at the end of each of these wrap ups. And although several players got off to a hot start in Cincinnati, Rickie Weeks is the MVB (most valuable Brewer) of the series as he led of the series and the season with a homerun and returned to Milwaukee with 2 homeruns, 4 RBIs and a .308 batting average. If Weeks puts up numbers close to last year's, it's going to be one hell of a year for the Milwaukee Brewers offense.
I really wanted to give the MVB to Nyjer Morgan for his outstanding defense, plate discipline and baserunning as well as showing us what Carlos Gomez could be like, but the award has to go to pitcher Yovani Gallardo for pitching a complete game, 2 hit shutout when the team was desperate for a win to end the losing streak. He also got the 1st base hit of the game and scored the only run in a 1-0 win. I predicted that in 2011 the Brewers would not lose more than 5 games in a row, and they were dangerously close to doing that in the first week of the season. Pitching wins games, and in this series that couldn't have been more evident as every game was decided by 2 or fewers runs.
Next up the hated Chicago Cubs and their asshole fans head North to Miller Park for a weekend series. The Cubs are probably going to be shitty this year but they will probably be a thorn in the Brewers' side because if there's anything I learned over the years is that there is no way to predict the outcome of a Brewers/Cubs game. Anything can happen, and it usually does.
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