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W: Vogelsong
L: Thornburg
HR: Minicozzi (1), Gindl (1)
If yesterday's game didn't get you back into the spirit of baseball, perhaps tuning in to hear Bob Uecker proposing catcher ice shanties as an alternative to baseball's new catcher collision rules - if you can knock it down, you get the run - did the trick.
Today the Brewers returned to the airwaves behind Yovani Gallardo, who matched Madison Bumgarner for two scoreless frames in the first inning. Joe Block seemed impressed, for what it's worth:
Yovani Gallardo's reinvigorated curveball looks good
— Joe Block (@joe_block) February 28, 2014
The contact play took its first victim of the preseason in the top of the 3rd: after leading off the inning with a triple, Jeff Bianchi got cut down at the plate after on a sharp grounder by Scooter Gennett. Any thoughts, Yuni?
The Giants made a bit of noise facing Tyler Thornburg in the 3rd, scoring two runs on a solo homerun by Mark Minicozzi and a sacrifice fly from Angel Pagan, which drew a throw from Khris Davis, who according to Block, has improved his arm; again - for what it's worth. Thornburg continued his fly ball-inducing tendencies in the following inning, allowing a double to Hunter Pence and getting two outs on fly balls to end the inning. It's too early to determine anything about anything, but it's a bug that's bit Thornburg in the past. Something to watch.
Caleb Gindl cut the lead in half with his first spring homer in the 5th. Brandon Kintzler worked around a couple singles in a clean 4th. Lyle Overbay missed an opportunity to tie the game with a bases-loaded strikeout in the top of the 6th, and Gindl grounded out to 1st to end the threat.
Brandon Kintzler and Michael Blazek worked scoreless innings in the 5th and 6th, but Jose De La Torre ran into some control issues in the 7th, walking two and plunking one, allowing two runs on an error and another sac fly. De La Torre needed help from Dustin Molleken to finish the inning, and the Brewers had two innings to make up three runs, heading to the 8th trailing 4-1.
Alfredo Figaro pitched a squeaky clean 8th to keep the deficit at 3, and the Brewers made it interesting with a couple of runs courtesy of RBIs from Hector Gomez and Matt Pagnozzi, but the rally fell just short when Kevin Mattison popped out to end it at 4-3.
There was no other individual performance that would have any effect on the roster bubble (I would hope, anyway). Mark Reynolds started and had the prototypical 3TO kind of game: 2 strikeouts and a walk. Elian Herrera played 6 innings at shortstop and went 0-3; Jeff Bianchi handled 3rd and went 1-3 with the aforementioned triple; Irving Falu walked in his only AB; Sean Halton flew out; Juan Francisco struck out.
The Brewers split up and play two tomorrow: split squad team A hosts the Brewers' first game in Maryvale tomorrow at 2:05 - which will be broadcast on FSN Wisconsin - and split squad team B heads to the Salt River Fields at Talking Stick to face the Diamondbacks five minutes later at 2:10 - to be broadcast on WTMJ (for the entire spring broadcast schedule, click here).
