Brews cruise in home opener, 13-4

The Brewers opened their home portion of their 2008 season Friday with an impressive 13-4 demolition of southpaw Jonathan Sanchez and the San Francisco Giants.
The Crew spotted their starter, Carlos Villanueva, with an early 3-0 cushion in the bottom of the first, after Prince Fielder drove in Rickie Weeks, and lated scored on Bill Hall’s first homer of the season.
Villanueva struggled a bit through the next four innings, but pitched well enough to keep the Giants off the board through the 5th. But the Brewers’ offense continued to pound away at Giants’ pitching–first by plating four more earned runs off of Sanchez, thanks to RBI singles by Gabe Kapler and Prince Fielder, followed by another Bill Hall homer–this time a 3-run shot. Villanueva surrendered a pair of earned runs in the top of the 6th, and left with a line of 2 ER over 5.33 IP, 8 hits, 2 walks, and 6 K’s. The Giants wound up with 10 hits on the day, but only scored 2 more runs, both earned, off of Brewers’ reliever Salmon Torres over the last three innings.
Only Ryan Braun and J.J. Hardy had any difficulties with the Giants’ pitching–Braun went 0-for-5 with 2 K’s to lower his BA on the year to .211, while Hardy went 0-for-4 with 2 K’s to drop his BA for ’08 to .059.
Manny Parra, (0-0. 0.00) gets his turn on against right-hander Kevin Correia (0-0, 0.00) Saturday at 12:05 p.m.