As has been noted multiple times in the past, the 2012 Brewers' slow start is not unprecedented. At this point last year they were still under .500, although they took a big step in the right direction on this day.
Facing the Rockies at Miller Park the Brewers went back and forth for eight innings, taking a 1-0 lead but falling behind 2-1 before tying the game at 2 in the fourth and 4 in the eighth (on a Casey McGehee home run) that eventually sent the game into extra innings.
After that, however, things got quiet for a while. Neither team scored in the ninth, tenth, eleventh or 12th, before the floodgates opened in the 13th. The Rockies scored a run in the top of that frame on Seth Smith's RBI triple, but the Brewers answered back with Yuniesky Betancourt's solo homer to lead off the bottom half. The Rockies scored again on Dexter Fowler's RBI single in the 14th, but the Brewers answered and sent the home crowd happy with this walkoff blast:
This is the longest extra inning game the Brewers have played since 2004. It was also the first of six consecutive wins and the start of a 17-5 stretch that pushed the Crew all the way up to 38-28 and first place.
Tonight is also the anniversary of a handful of small other footnotes in franchise history: I collected four of them and looked at them briefly in this space last year.