W: John Axford (8-1)
L: Matt Lindstrom (2-5) HR: Rickie Weeks (27), Ryan Braun (22), MVP: Ryan Braun (+.384) LVP: Casey McGehee (-.152) Win Expectancy Graph and Star of the Game voting Today I left work early so I could get home and watch the game. Normally I would just TiVo it and watch it when I got home but today’s game is special—I’m the guest recapper for Brew Crew Ball. Thanks for having me, BrewCrewBallers. As I headed to my car in the parking garage today, a confused looking lady got in the elevator with me. She bent over until her face was about two inches from the elevator buttons and ran her hand over the buttons clearly looking for a particular floor. She then turned to me with a distressed look on her face. Anticipating her question, I said, "I’m going down to level B-2. Did you mean to get in the up elevator?" "No, I need to go to level A," she said. "Are you sure it was level A because there is no level A in this building," I said as I started to exit the elevator. She returned to her position in front of the buttons and started to run her hands over them in an orderly fashion again and said, "No, it was definitely A. I’ll just have to keep looking for it." You can look all you want, but you’re not going to find something if it was never there. Today’s finale against the Astros started with a bang. Rickie Weeks smashed a leadoff homer to deep centerfield off J.A. Happ. Corey Hart followed with a double and Ryan Braun knocked one off the train tracks in left field to stake the Brewers to a 3-0 first inning lead. Milwaukee would tack on two more runs in the fifth inning on a double from Hart and a single from Prince Fielder. After scoring just six runs in the previous five games, it was a welcome offensive explosion. Meanwhile, Dave Bush pitched four perfect innings before giving up a leadoff single to Carlos Lee in the fifth inning. Chris Johnson followed with a single. Houston’s first run of the afternoon came when a sharply hit ground ball skipped past Prince Fielder’s glove. Instead of one out with runners on the corners, there were no outs with one run in and runners on second and third. You can look for solid defense from our first baseman all you want, but Prince Fielder is still out there. Things went downhill quickly after the error. In all, Bush allowed five straight base runners and the first seven of eight batters to reach base. By the time Ken Macha went to the bullpen for Kameron Loe, the Astros had tied the game at 5-5. Loe then gave up the go-ahead run on a single to Hunter Pence. The Brewers got out of the inning only when Carlos Lee decided to jog out his ground ball. Craig Counsell double-clutched and then double clutched again and still managed to get Lee by two steps at first. You can look all you want, but you aren’t going to find Ken Macha making sound pitching changes. You can look for hustle all you want, but Carlos Lee is still hitched to a plough. Fortunately, the offense wasn’t done for the Brewers. Milwaukee tied the game in the top of the ninth on back-to-back doubles by Hart and Braun. John Axford pitched a scoreless ninth to send the game into extra innings. Carlos Gomez led off the tenth with a bunt single. Gomez would eventually end up at third base with no outs, when he successfully stole second and went to third on a throwing error. How fast is Gomez? Gomez is so fast that he was able to steal second base, lay on the ground and call for time, realize that the ball was in the outfield, pop up and still slide into third with no throw. You can try all you want, but Carlos Gomez is never going to make sense. Gomez scored on a ground-rule double by Mat Gamel, and Gamel scored on a single by Jonathan Lucroy for an 8-6 lead. Axford pitched the ninth and tenth innings to pick up the victory and avoid the sweep. Shameless self promotion: If you like your Brewers recaps with more beer and less stats or if you want to see how Yovani Gallardo is like my favorite cashier, check out my blog, Hang with ‘em Brewers!