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W: Yovani Gallardo (4-5)
L: Cole Hamels (1-9)
SV: Francisco Rodriguez (2)
HR: Domonic Brown 2 (14, 15), Jimmy Rollins (4), Jonathon Lucroy 2 (4, 5)
MVP: Jonathan Lucroy (.346)
LVP: Yovani Gallardo (-.206)
After a clunk of a start courtesy of a first-inning three-run homer from Domonic Brown, it appeared Yovani Gallardo and the Brewers were in for another frustrating night with Cole Hamels toeing the rubber for the Phillies with a quick three-run lead.
However, the Brewers chipped away in the 2nd with an RBI double from Jonathon Lucroy and an RBI groundout from Jeff Bianchi to cut the lead to one. In the 3rd, the Brewers channeled the Cardinal mojo and scraped together a mix of infield hits, tappers, and broken bat hits to overtake the Phillies and extend the lead to 6-3, snapping an incredible 61-inning streak without having a lead in a game.
Jimmy Rollins, Jonathan Lucroy, and Domonic Brown socked solo homers in the middle innings (Brown's second) as Yovani Gallardo cobbled together an extremely typical scratch-and-claw-llardo (puns are good, right?) kind of outing, exiting after 5.2 excruciating innings.
After Burke Badenhop cleaned up Gallardo's mess with a strikeout of Kevin Frandsen to close out the 6th, the bullpens settled in for a couple clean innings, highlighted by a tremendous performance from left-hander Michael Gonzalez.
After a Quintero rifle caught Carlos Gomez trying to steal in the top of the 9th, Lucroy took insurance matters in his own hands, making it a career night with his 5th hit, a booming HR off former Brewer Mike Adams to give Francisco Rodriguez a 3 run cushion.
K-Rod alleviated all of our nervousness with a squeaky clean 9th, including two strikeouts. With the save tonight, he is only 4 away from reaching 300 for his career.
More importantly, the Brewers finish a miserable month of May with a satisfying win. The disaster ends at 6-22.
The Brewers will wake tomorrow relieved to discover it isn't May anymore - Wily Peralta (3-6, 6.35 ERA) will lead them into June against right-hander Tyler Cloyd (1-1, 5.74) at 3:05 CDT for game 2 tomorrow afternoon.