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Winning Pitcher: Yovani Gallardo
Losing Pitcher: David Price
SV: Francisco Rodriguez
So baseball is stupid and awesome and sometimes the inexplicable happens. For example. In the first two games of this series the Brewers scored all of two runs. In today's game they scored 2 runs in the second inning off of David "FREAKING" Price. Aramis Ramirez lined a single, Rickie Weeks and Mark Reynolds drew back to back walks to load the bases for Martin Maldonado who drove in two runs on a liner to center.
The Brewers tacked on another run in the third. Jonathan Lucroy scorched a grounder up the middle for a single. Then Braun grounded to shortstop, but Yunel Escobar bobbled the play and each runner was safe. Then Ramirez lined his second single of the game, this time for an RBI. An ill advised contact play derailed the inning forcing the Brewers to settle for the one run.
Remember about 160 words ago when I said sometimes inexplicable things happen in baseball? Well in the sixth inning Martin Maldonado drove in his third run of the game off David Price with a scorching line drive to center. That was the only run of the inning, but it gave the Brewers a 4-0 lead!
Remember about 40 words ago when I reminded you about the time about 200 words ago when I said sometimes inexplicable things happen in baseball? Martin Maldonado batted in his fourth RBI fo the game in the top of the eighth inning with another line drive. Brewers would take a 5-0 lead.
Yovani Gallardo gave up a hit in the first inning. Then he gave up 2 hits in the seventh inning. That was it. He did allow 1 walk but zero runs were scored while he pitched. He produced and excellent 68.4% ground ball rate. It used to be Gallardo was at his best when he struck out a lot of batters. He did strike out 5 today, but I think now he's best when he's inducing those high ground ball rates. We need more time to tell for sure, but I really believe that Gallardo is transforming himself into an excellent pitch-to-contact ground baller.
Jeremy Jeffress pitched the eighth inning. The first batter reached on a single, but was erased when the next batter grounded into a double play. The inning ended after the third batter also grounded out. With a 5 run lead, Ron Roenicke decided to let Jeffress come back out for the ninth. He got a fly out before allowing a base hit. A wild pitch would then send Matt Joyce to second base. Another base hit that snuck through the right side of the infield put runners at the corners and drove Jeffress from the game in favor of Zach Duke.
Duke struck out Loney, but he walked Logan Forsythe. Magical sparkly fairies or faeries then appeared and anointed it a save opportunity. Accordingly, Ron Roenicke put in Francisco Rodriguez. *Sigh* K-Rod did get the quick strikeout to end the game, but sometimes I just have to shake my head at these silly rules/guidelines about saves and closes
The Brewers are off tomorrow. Friday they travel to St. Louis to face Adam Wainwright. With today's win the Brewers guarantee they'll stay in first place at least until then.
Other notes:
I think it should be acknowledged that despite losing the series, the Brewers 3 starters were excellent giving up three runs in 20 innings, including 7 shutout innings by Gallardo.
