It’s been so long, I forgot what it was like to see the Brewers win a home game.
How long has it been? Their win over Houston was their first at Miller Park since April 26 (the 17-3 trouncing of the Pirates) — almost a full month. To find the home win before that, you have to go all the way back to Casey McGehee‘s walkoff homer against the Cardinals on April 11.
The Astros could prove to be just what the doctor ordered for most of the Brewers’ ailments: not being able to win games at home, bad starts from the rotation, home hitting woes — you name it, the Astros may be the Mighty MendIt.
Randy Wolf was able to pitch 7 scoreless innings against the punchless Astros offense, lowering his ERA for the season to 4.52 and becoming the first Brewers starter to go 7 innings since May 1st.
Ryan Braun entered tonight hitting just .222/.296/.317 at home this year, but was able to go 2-for-4 tonight, including a mammoth 2-run homer in the first inning off Paulino that bounced off the Miller Lite sign in center. While it was nice to see Braun break out of his home power slump, he wasn’t exactly patient while doing it — he saw a grand total of 9 pitches in his 4 at-bats tonight.
As much as Braun has struggled at home this year, Rickie Weeks has struggled even more (.186/.329/.271). Weeks snapped out of it tonight with a 3-for-5 night, hitting a rocket 2-run homer of his own in the 7th inning.
It may sound silly, but this was an important game for the Brewers to get tonight. The pitching match-ups for the rest of the series — Oswalt vs. Narveson, Myers vs. Bush — don’t look too promising from the Brewers’ perspective, so the fact that they were able to start the series with a win is big, even if it is the Astros.
W: Randy Wolf (4-4)
L: Felipe Paulino (0-7)
MIL HR: Ryan Braun (8), Rickie Weeks (6)
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