W: Jeff Gray (1-0)
L: LaTroy Hawkins (0-1)
SV: Carlos Marmol (3)
CHC HR: Geovany Soto (1)
MIL HR: None
There have been other games in this short season in which Ken Macha has made some questionable decisions, but whether or not he directly caused a loss was up for debate. There’s no debating this one — the Brewers got Macha’d today in Chicago.
Things were going well for the Brewers until the two outs in the bottom of the 8th inning. After getting Marlon Byrd to ground out and Chad Tracy to strike out, LaTroy Hawkins ran into a whole lot of trouble. First it was a single by Jeff Baker. Then it was back-to-back walks to Geovany Soto and Tyler Colvin. Ryan Theriot singled to bring Baker and Soto home, Theriot stole second, and Kosuke Fukudome singled to bring in what would be the winning two runs.
It was a surprising meltdown from a guy who had been lights-out up until that point, but a lot of the blame in this one falls on Macha. Yes, Hawkins only had one more out to get in all of that mess, but why not start putting together a back-up plan when you saw Hawkins walk the bases loaded? Instead, he sat on his hands, and by the time Theriot stole second, you just knew Fukudome was going to end up driving in the go-ahead runs.
When the Brewers came back up to bat in the 9th, it looked like they were just as shocked as we were. Corey Hart, Ryan Braun, and Prince Fielder all struck out swinging to end the game, dropping the Brewers to 3-5.
Things could certainly be a lot worse than 3-5 with the way the starting pitching has performed, that’s for sure. But this loss really hurts when we know that Jeff Suppan is going to start tomorrow’s game, and he had trouble getting guys out while making a rehab start with the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers. Sure, tomorrow’s game still has to be played and anything could happen, but right now fans are upset because it’s looking like a Cubs sweep.
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