Series Recap: Brewers at Mets

After three disappointing games against the Reds, it was hard to imagine much good coming out of New York. Sure, Ben Sheets was pitching but he was going up against Johan Santana in his Shea Stadium debut. By the time Sunday afternoon rolled around, the rain stayed away and the Brewers came out with back-to-back road series victories. The first time since 1995 for the Crew.
The Good
Ben Sheets had his third quality start of the year and raised his record to 2-0. Sheets finally gave up his first runs of the season. He went 7 2/3 innings and struck out five despite giving up three runs.
Eric Gagne recorded his first back-to-back saves of the season. He looked very well in both outings. His fastball still isn’t up to his Dodgers standards, but he seems to be using his other pitches to get out of trouble.
The Bad
The rest of the rotation is still struggling. Manny Parra and Jeff Suppan pitched a combined eight innings and gave up a total of nine runs. Yovani Gallardo makes his final rehab start tonight and his return can’t come soon enough for a rotation that is still struggling to get deep into games.
The struggles continue for Prince Fielder. He went 2-12 with only one RBI. The Prince has still not hit a home run and along with Ryan Braun, they convinced Ned Yost to change the batting order to the 2007 form. Fielder will return to the clean-up spot and Braun will once again be in the three hole. Hopefully, success isn’t far away for both players.
Summary
The hot start continues for the Crew on the road. The Brewers now stand with a record of 8-4 without deep starting pitching and their top two sluggers doing much of anything this year. Braun, Fielder, Rickie Weeks and JJ Hardy are all performing well below expectations to this point. With the return of Gallardo this weekend in Cincinnati and with the players being happy in the batting order, things might start picking up for the Brewers.
The Crew are using Monday as a travel day to head to St. Louis to face the Cardinals for a three game series before heading to Cincinnati to finish off the road trip.