Well, this should be interesting.
At 2:05 today, the Ace of Brewers Present (Yovani Gallardo) takes on the Ace of Brewers Past (Ben Sheets) at Phoenix Municipal Stadium.
Follow the jump for today's pitching matchup, starting lineup and conversation on today's game!
I'm not sure what I can tell you about Ben Sheets that you don't already know. Sheets has spent his entire major league career (2001-2008) as a Brewer, is the franchise leader in career strikeouts (1206), and is in the top five among Brewers all time in wins (5th, 86), starts (3rd, 221), innings (5th, 1428). He was the Brewers' first round pick in 1999 (tenth overall, one pick after Barry Zito, and two before Brett Myers). As a career Brewer, he's never faced the Brewers.He'll face off against Yovani Gallardo (13-12, 3.73 in 2009). Gallardo's 13 wins last season matched Sheets' career high as a Brewer, and his 204 strikeouts were the fifth most in the NL. He just turned 24 last weekend and has already logged 320 career innings, becoming just the 26th player in the 2000s to pitch that many innings at such a young age.
(With that said, Felix Hernandez pitched 905 innings before his 24th birthday.)
According to today's travel roster, the Brewers only have seven pitchers along on the trip, so we could see multiple inning outings from Tim Dillard, LaTroy Hawkins, A.J. Murray, Mark Rogers, Mitch Stetter or Carlos Villanueva.
Via klwillis, here's today's lineup:
Rickie Weeks, 2B
Carlos Gomez, CF
Ryan Braun, LF
Jim Edmonds, RF
Gregg Zaun, DH
George Kottaras, C
Alcides Escobar, SS
Adam Heether, 3B
Steffan Wilson, 1B
Enjoy the game!