WP: Todd Coffey (1-0)
LP: Aaron Cook (0-1)
SV: Trevor Hoffman (2)
HR: Miguel Olivo (1)
Talk about stealing a series win.
Doug Davis struggled early on, throwing 40 pitches in the first inning and putting the Brewers in an early 3-0 hole. Davis walked three batters in the first inning and didn’t retire a Rockie until he struck out Ian Stewart on a foul tip (Stewart was the 6th batter of the inning). Double D settled down after that, giving up only a flukey pop-up homer to Miguel Olivo that went off the webbing of Ryan Braun’s glove over the left field fence. The rough first inning wore on Davis, though, as he was only able to make it through 4+ innings, and was replaced by Todd Coffey after surrendering a leadoff double in the 5th inning.
The bullpen was lights-out from there, allowing only 2 hits in the next 5 innings and working out of a jam in the 7th inning. The 1-2 combo of LaTroy Hawkins and Trevor Hoffman worked to perfection again, and Hoffman was able to effortlessly nail down career save #593.
Credit has to go to the Brewers’ offense after crawling back into the game without the use of the longball. Alcides Escobar got the Brewers on the board with an RBI double after George Kottaras got on base thanks to an error by Jason Giambi committed with two outs. Kottaras brought in the second Brewers run in the 4th inning on a groundout that allowed Jim Edmonds to score, and Rickie Weeks continued his hot hitting with an RBI single the following inning to cut the deficit to 4-3.
The rally was completed the next inning, as the Brewers tied it at 4 on a sac fly by Kottaras, and took the lead the very next at-bat by way of a Jody Gerut pinch-hit RBI double.
Carlos Gomez went 0-for-3, making him 0-for-7 since starting the season 4-for-5. So that’s why we can’t get too excited about early season performance, huh?
The 5-4 win gives the Brewers their first series win of the season, and stealing a game like this is sure to pump some confidence into this team heading into a weekend series against the Cardinals. You have to feel bad for the Rockies, though, who didn’t really deserve to start the season 1-2. Sure, it was only 3 games, but I can see why so many people were high on them in their preseason picks — they can really hit, and their pitching isn’t bad at all. I feel lucky that the Brewers were able to pull out wins the past two days.
It’s almost enough to make me forget that Jeff Suppan will be the team’s 5th starter. Talk about a bittersweet day.
Thursday is an off-day, but I’ll have a series preview for the Cardinals.
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