Brewers 4, Rockies 5: K-Rod K-Flawed (10 innings)

Win: LaTroy Hawkins (1-0)
Loss: Francisco Rodriguez (0-1)
Save: John Axford (1)

HR: Adam Lind (1), Corey Dickerson (2), Carlos Gonzalez (1), Wilin Rosario (1)

Fangraphs WPA Chart
Boxscore

The Brewers had a lead today! That's good! There was even some great excitement in this game, which was also lacking from the last two games when the Brewers were pretty handily beat. That's fun. But it still ended with a loss, and even a little more heart-breaking loss given Milwaukee even had a shot to win.

For the first time this season, the Brewers got a solid pitching performance: Wily Peralta lasted seven innings, allowing two earned runs on seven hits while striking out two. The strikeout numbers still aren't there like you would expect given a hard-throwing pitcher like Peralta, but he's effective despite that and did a great job keeping Colorado from scoring much.

The Brewers also scored first blood, with both their runs coming off an Adam Lind homer in the third inning that also plated Jonathan Lucroy. The home run was the first of the year for both Lind and the Brewers. After batting .321/.381/.479 with eight homers for the Blue Jays last year, Lind is off to a blistering start in 2015. After a 2-3 day with two walks tonight, Lind is now 6-10 with three walks, two doubles and a homer. After the last two seasons of whatever first basemen the Brewers could string together, I am so into Lind.

Nolan Arenada led off the fifth inning with a double for Colorado and eventually came around on a Nick Hundley single for the first Rockies run of the game. In the seventh, a Corey Dickerson home run -- his second of the series -- tied the game up.

The very next inning saw Colorado take the lead against Jonathan 'Fastball' Broxton as Carlos Gonzalez squared up and hit a ball off the scoreboard in center field for a two-run shot to take the lead.

But then, in the ninth, the Brewers got runners to second and third with two outs, and called on Ryan Braun to pinch-hit for maximum drama. A couple of big swings later, and Braun hit a soft roller to third that Nolan Arenado couldn't quite handle in time, bringing the Brewers within a run. A Carlos Gomez hard roller between second and first got through to bring in Jean Segura and the Brewers were back in the game, having tied it up.

That excitement was short-lived. The Brewers called in Francisco Rodriguez for the tenth inning to keep the game tied and, yeah, he didn't do that. You know how everyone was worried about all the home runs he gave up last year and everything? Wilin Rosario took him deep to center field for the 5-4 lead and that would be it. Former Brewer John Axford came on in the bottom of the tenth and picked up a save and, yeah.

So the Brewers season has started off about as poorly as you could have guessed. A series sweep to a Rockies team that wasn't expected to be very good, though they do have a potent offense. A Ryan Braun injury. And everyone except Adam Lind not getting much going at the plate. The good news is it's only the first series and the Brewers have 159 games to come back from it. It only took them something like 30 games to blow their division lead last year, so they've got plenty of time. Plenty of time. I hope.

Up next are the Pirates and a whole lot of other NL Central games. This'll be an important month to deciding if the Brewers can contend. They'll need to play much better.