W: Kameron Loe (4-7)
L: Matt Lindstrom (2-2)
HR: Fielder (32), Braun (28)
MVP: Fielder (.176), Axford (.228)
LVP: Casey McGehee (-.218)
In the game thread, folks were pretty frustrated with Braun and the fact that he'd been spending too much time with Yuni since he was swinging at so many first pitches. In his post-game interview, Braun called it his worst game of the season until his final at-bat.
He made it up to everyone in the 11th inning on an ten-pitch battle of an at-bat that ended with him launching a game-winning home run.
The defense did Zach Greinke no favors tonight as it took him 116 pitches to get through five innings. Errors by Rickie Weeks and Casey McGehee in the third upped the count and Ryan Braun misreading a fly ball in the fourth led to a Rockies run.
If you missed the top of the third inning, you missed all the excitement. Greinke struck out Dexter Fowler to lead off the inning, but it all went wonky from there. Mark Ellis singled to Weeks, who fielded it cleanly but then threw is past Prince at first. Carlos Gonzalez then hit one to Casey, rushed his throw and bounced it past Prince. Two errors, two on. During his at-bat, Troy Tulowitzki his one of the wires that run in foul territory. Corey Provus said he'd never seen a ball go so high with the roof closed. Braun tried to do some acrobatics to catch it, but the ball was ruled out of play. Tulowitzki went on to strike out, but Ellis and CarGo executed a double steal.
Greinke walked Todd Helton next to load the bases. The next at-bat is where it gets real interesting. With Seth Smith batting, Greinke put a slider in the dirt. It bounced off Lucroy's chest plate and back towards the mound, but Lucroy thought it went behind him and turned around. Mark Ellis broke from third with the wild pitch. Greinke came off the mound to pick up the ball and toss it to Lucroy to put Ellis out at home.
Lucroy had a great night behind the plate. He took a throw from McGehee and blocked the plate to get Ellis out in the first. There was the great play in the third mentioned above. He had a picture-perfect caught stealing of Smith in the sixth. He also secured a strike out and had a couple of blocks behind the plate.
Prince Fielder hit a bomb of a home run to straightaway center that hit in the middle of the batter's eye to put the Brewers on the board in the sixth. Corey Hart had three walks in the game, but the guy's behind him in the order couldn't seem to do anything with that.
LaTroy Hawkins, Takashi Saito and Francisco Rodriguez each pitched a scoreless inning.
John Axford pitched both the ninth and tenth, his first multi-inning outing since September 15, 2010. He got out of the ninth with just eight pitches, so he went back out. He got three strikeouts in his two innings.
Kam Loe struggled a bit in the 11th, but stranded two and got out of the inning without allowing a run.
The magic number is down to 8.