On this day in 2003 the Brewers and Cardinals played a Wednesday night game at Miller Park that was over early as St. Louis scored four in the first and four more in the second en route to a 9-1 win. All eight of those early runs came against Brewer starter Glendon Rusch, who had one of the worst outings in franchise history.
Rusch actually retired the first batter he faced on the day before allowing three singles, a walk, a sac fly, another walk and a single to plate four runs in the first. In the second he walked the leadoff man, gave up a home run, allowed a single and two more walks before being lifted. Despite recording just three outs, Rusch threw 62 pitches in the game. Since pitch counts became an official stat Rusch's 62 are the most a Brewer has ever thrown in an outing of one inning or less:
| Pitcher | Date | Opponent | IP | H | R | BB | K | Pitches |
| Glendon Rusch | June 18, 2003 | Cardinals | 1 | 6 | 8 | 5 | 1 | 62 |
| Matt Williams | April 29, 2000 | Astros | 1 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 50 |
| Josh Butler | September 27, 2009 | Phillies | 1 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 48 |
| Mike Misuraca | August 11, 1997 | Mariners | 1 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 48 |
| Marshall Boze | May 31, 1996 | Indians | 1 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 48 |
It's worth noting that this outing was something of a turning point for Rusch's season. He appeared in 17 more games as a Brewer (four starts) and posted a 2.87 ERA over 47 innings. He went on to pitch five more seasons in the majors as a Cub, Padre and Rockie.
With help from the B-Ref Play Index, happy birthday today to Waterford, Wisconsin native Charlie Ganzel. He played 14 major league seasons between 1884 and 1897 as a member of the Boston Beaneaters (Braves) and four other teams and would have turned 150 today.
Today is also the anniversary of Tommy Harper becoming the first player in franchise history to steal four bases in a game. We covered that event in this space last year.