Ladies and gentlemen, join us tonight as the 2010 Milwaukee Brewers continue their attempt to make history.
In all of 2010, the Milwaukee Brewers have not yet managed to win more than four consecutive games. They enter play tonight having beaten both the Twins and Astros (in the same week!), and now are halfway back to that epic summit.
Can they keep the streak alive?
Current Series
Brewers lead the series 1-0
| Tue 05/25 | WP: Randy Wolf (4 - 4) LP: Felipe Paulino (0 - 7) | 6 - 1 win |
Houston Astros Wednesday, May 26, 2010, 7:10 PM CDT Roy Oswalt vs Chris Narveson Partly cloudy. Winds blowing in from center field at 5-10 m.p.h. Game time temperature around 75. Complete Coverage > | ||
| Thu 05/27 | 12:10 PM CDT | |
Follow us after the jump for tonight's pitching matchup, lineup and more!
Chris Narveson (4-1, 5.17) is coming off of his second quality start of the season, a 6 inning, 3 run outing against the Pirates on Thursday. Since becoming a member of the rotation Narveson has been pretty serviceable: He's pitched at least five innings (but no more than six) in each of his five starts, struck out 28 and walked just ten in 28.1 innings, and posted a 4.45 ERA. The Brewers are 3-2 in his starts, which is pretty impressive when you consider the fact that the Brewers are 6-14 in other starts since he joined the rotation.
Hopefully Narveson's workload won't become an issue: Despite never having thrown 100 pitches in a major league game before this season, Narveson has thrown 130 and 112 in his last two starts. He works in the upper 80's but throws his fastball just 47% of the time, relying heavily on a curve (20.1%), changeup (17.5%) and slider (15.4%). Lance Berkman is the only Astro who's faced Narveson more than three times: He's 2-for-5 with a double and a home run.
For the Astros, it's new trade candidate Roy Oswalt (2-6, 2.66), making his first audition for other teams since requesting to be traded over the weekend. Oswalt is about as good and reliable as a starting pitcher can be: He's thrown at least 200 innings in six of the last eight seasons, and posted an ERA under 3.20 in five of them. He's provided a quality start in each of his nine appearances this season, but the Astros are just 3-6 with him on the mound, scoring an average of 1.99 runs per game in his starts.
Oswalt has a low 90's fastball (92.7 mph according to FanGraphs) that's above average, along with a very good slider and changeup and an excellent curveball. In other words: Good luck. Five current Brewers have faced him ten times or more, and two have had impressive results:
| Player | PA | AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS |
| Prince Fielder | 35 | .147 | .171 | .265 | .436 |
| Craig Counsell | 32 | .258 | .281 | .323 | .604 |
| Rickie Weeks | 21 | .105 | .143 | .263 | .406 |
| Corey Hart | 18 | .500 | .556 | .938 | 1.493 |
| Ryan Braun | 16 | .500 | .563 | 1.286 | 1.848 |
Braun's line against Oswalt: 7-for-14 with a triple, three home runs and a walk. He's one of only eight hitters who have taken Oswalt deep three times, and has done it in the fewest ABs:
| Hitter | HR | AB | AB/HR |
| Ryan Braun | 3 | 16 | 5.33 |
| Phil Nevin | 3 | 17 | 5.67 |
| Alfonso Soriano | 3 | 42 | 14 |
| Albert Pujols | 5 | 80 | 16 |
| Adam Dunn | 4 | 69 | 17.25 |
| Aramis Ramirez | 4 | 70 | 17.5 |
| Corey Patterson | 3 | 53 | 17.67 |
| Derrek Lee | 3 | 61 | 20.33 |
Via the Brewers on Facebook, here's today's lineup:
Rickie Weeks 2B
Carlos Gomez CF
Ryan Braun LF
Prince Fielder 1B
Casey McGehee 3B
Corey Hart RF
George Kottaras C
Alcides Escobar SS
Chris Narveson P
And in the bullpen:
Todd Coffey pitched 1 inning (22 pitches) last night.
Carlos Villanueva pitched 1 inning (17 pitches) last night.
Marco Estrada pitched 3 innings on Sunday
Zach Braddock pitched 2 innings on Sunday
John Axford pitched 1 inning on SundayTrevor Hoffman pitched 1 inning on Sunday
Jeff Suppan pitched 3.2 innings on Friday
Claudio Vargas pitched 2 innings on Friday
Enjoy the game!