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Brewers beat 6/30
Fielder puts slow start behind him
MILWAUKEE — Prince Fielder has quickly made his slow start a thing of the past.
Fielder is just trying to do what works best for him, and it’s working pretty well right now. On the Brewers’ current homestand, Fielder has four home runs and eight RBIs, increasing his season totals to 17 homers and 35 RBIs.
With his recent power barrage, including a pair of long balls Tuesday night, Fielder leads the Majors with 10 home runs in the month of June. The key, according to Fielder, is just doing what he’s always done.
“I’m just trying to swing like I swing,” Fielder said. “I’ve never been a guy to swing easy. When you’re not getting results people want you to do different things.
“The only thing I’ve been trying to do different is swing the way I swing. I’ve never been a guy that hits singles to left field. That just happens.”
Fielder remains fifth on the team in RBIs with 35, but it has more to do with timing than with Fielder’s production. While he has 10 homers this month, he also has just 16 RBIs.
Including a two-run shot in the third inning on Tuesday, only four of Fielder’s 17 home runs this season have come with runners on base. None of them has been with more than one runner on base.
By comparison, out of Fielder’s 46 home runs in 2009, nearly half (24) came with runners on base, including nine with two or more runners on base.
Still, with Fielder hitting home runs, the Brewers’ offense, which leads the National League in home runs, total bases and extra-base hits entering Wednesday’s game, is only going to get better.
“His RBI total has gone up, too,” Brewers manager Ken Macha said. “However he wants to knock them in — solo homers, base hits — it’s OK with me.”
Milwaukee pitchers providing some offense
MILWAUKEE — Facing the Brewers, the No. 9 spot in the batting order is hardly an easy out. Yovani Gallardo reaffirmed that on Tuesday night, going 1-for-1 with a solo homer and a walk.
With a .219 batting average, Brewers pitchers lead the National League. Milwaukee’s pitching staff is tied for first with 33 hits and 14 runs. Brewers pitchers also rank first in home runs (3), RBIs (14), doubles (8), on-base percentage (.261), slugging percentage (.331), and OPS (.592).
Along with their success, the Brewers staff has even coined a phrase to describe it.
“These guys have got a quote in here in the dugout,” said Brewers manager Ken Macha. “They say, ‘Pitchers rake.'”
While the hurlers’ ability to swing that bat has come in handy quite a bit of late, Macha would like to see them improve on another aspect of the game at the plate: bunting.
The Brewers rank last in the NL with just eight sacrifice bunts, while they have more than four times as many hits.
“We’ve been working on our bunting,” Macha said. “We’ve got more hits than we do sacrifice bunts. So we’ve been putting some time in on the bunting, because eventually we’re going to need to move [a runner] up.”
Still, on the current homestand, Brewers pitchers have been even better at the plate than their season average of .219. More than double that even.
With eight hits in 18 at-bats, the pitching staff had posted a .444 batting average entering Wednesday’s final game of the homestand. Along with that .444 mark, the Brewers have gotten two RBIs, five runs, a walk and a home run out of the pitcher’s spot.
Each of the Brewers’ five starters — Gallardo, Randy Wolf, Dave Bush, Chris Narveson and Manny Parra — has contributed at least one hit, while all of them except Bush have either scored a run, driven in a run, or both.
“We have some pretty good [hitting] pitchers,” Gallardo said. “We have a lot of fun up their hitting. [Wolf], [Bush], Narveson and Manny, we take it serious. For certain situations, you can only help yourself out. I think that’s what we try to do.
“We joke around out there when we hit BP, but you never know when it’s going to come in handy.”
Offense struggles with shadows at home
MILWAUKEE — The shadows aren’t going anywhere, deal with it.
That quote, from Rickie Weeks in 2009 about the shadows during Miller Park day games, was recalled by manager Ken Macha on Wednesday when asked about the effect they’ve had on the Brewers’ offense.
Even so, the Brewers have not hit well during the day at home.
In 14 home day games, the Brewers have just a .238 team batting average, with just 51 runs scored and 15 home runs.
“Get it out of your mind and go up there and bear down the best you can,” Macha suggested before Wednesday’s game. “I hate the saying, but it is what it is. The other teams play in the same thing.
“Does it make it tougher? Yes, it does. But there are shadows in Anaheim, there are shadows in Boston, almost every stadium’s got the shadows.”
On the season, the Brewers have been nearly 30 points better overall than in home day games, with a .267 batting average. With 96 home runs in 77 games, the Brewers average 1.24 homers per game.
That rate goes up slightly at night, as they hit 1.29 per game. During the day, however, it dips to just 1.07 homers per game.
Some hitters, however, perform even better during home day games. Weeks and Casey McGehee are hitting .320 and .308, respectively, during home game days. Even more impressive is Carlos Gomez at home during the day, with a .303 average, compared to just .239 overall this season.
Most affected by the shadows seems to be left fielder Ryan Braun. In 53 at-bats during home day games, Braun has just eight hits, good for a .151 batting average.
Braun entered Wednesday having not hit a home run at home during the day, while collecting just three doubles for a .208 slugging percentage. With a .207 on-base percentage — boosted by three walks — Braun has just a .415 OPS in home day games.
Of all hitters with at least 25 at-bats in home day games, Braun’s average, slugging percentage, on-base percentage and OPS rank last.
With that in mind, day games at Miller Park may seem like a good time for a rare day off for the Brewers’ left fielder. For Macha and the Brewers, however, the current roster situation and recent pitching matchups have not allowed for such a move.
“At a later date I might give him a day off when we have a day game,” Macha said. “Today, we’ve got a lefty going. The last day game, they had a lefty going.
“My roster is what it is, too.”
Davis has successful rehab outing
MILWAUKEE — He was not as dominant as in his last rehab start, but Doug Davis was effective on Wednesday as he took the mound for Class A Wisconsin in Appleton.
Davis tossed seven strong innings, surrendering just one run on six hits. He hit a batter, walked three and recorded four strikeouts. The lefty tossed 96 pitches — four shy of his targeted total of 100 — with 63 going for strikes.
Following the start — Davis’ last rehab outing — he will meet the Brewers in St. Louis. Davis is expected to pitch again during the Brewers’ four-game home series with the Giants next week. On normal rest, his next start would coincide with that of right-hander Dave Bush.
Jordan Schelling is an associate reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
Narveson twirls gem to give Brewers victory
MILWAUKEE — Chris Narveson may not need to find a clubhouse assistant to pitch the first inning for him after all.
Instead, Narveson just pitched the first inning in the bullpen.
After taking his initial warmup easy before Sunday’s 3-0 victory over the Mariners, Narveson and catcher Jonathan Lucroy simulated the first two batters he would face in the bullpen before heading out to the mound. The idea was to shake the struggles that accounted for a 12.27 first-frame ERA this season.
And it worked. Narveson responded by going out and turning in a career-best performance for his seventh win of the season.
The southpaw tossed eight scoreless innings, allowing just five baserunners on four hits and one walk while recording seven strikeouts as the Brewers took the rubber match at Miller Park.
“Just mentally being prepared for them to play my game rather than seeing how they would react to my stuff,” said Narveson, referring to what he changed in his approach on the mound.
“I wanted to put the pressure on them and try to command the strike zone so they were hitting my pitch, instead of falling behind and have to maybe come into their pitch.”
After a two-out double in the first by left fielder Milton Bradley, the Brewers lefty responded quickly by getting third baseman Jose Lopez to fly out. That began a stretch of nine consecutive retired batters.
Through three innings, Narveson — who entered the game with a 5.76 ERA — had retired nine of the 10 batters he faced. He extended that streak to 11 of 12 before giving up a single to Lopez in the fourth.
“He did a nice job of getting ahead of our hitters,” said Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu. “After that, I thought we helped him out quite a bit with pitches outside of the zone.”
Before a sixth-inning single by second baseman Chone Figgins, Narveson had retired 17 of 19. Through seven innings, Narveson sent down 21 of the 24 batters he faced.
To complete the deviation from the norm, Narveson’s last inning was his worst, as he allowed two Seattle batsmen to reach base — on a leadoff single by shortstop Jack Wilson and a walk to Ryan Langerhans. Thanks to an inning-ending double play, though, Narveson escaped with his scoreless outing intact.
“He was awesome. He mixed his pitches well and threw his strengths to the hitters’ weaknesses,” Lucroy said. “He’s just keeping the ball down. All of his pitches were working today. Whenever the pitcher has that ability to mix all of his pitches and locate them and keep them down, it’s very rare that a guy gets beat doing that.”
A leadoff home run by Rickie Weeks provided all the offense Narveson and the Brewers needed.
Weeks was not done, however, as he finished the day 4-for-5, adding a double in the third and a pair of singles in the fifth and seventh. After opening the game with a homer, double and single, Weeks came up a triple shy of the cycle.
The four hits tied a career high, and it was Weeks’ fourth-career four-hit game. He last recorded four hits in a game on Sept. 2, 2008, against the Mets.
“It feels good,” Weeks said. “It’s just another day for me I guess. For the most part, you just try to get on base and you try to score runs to help the ballclub win.
“That’s my job — to get on base and try to score some runs.”
The Brewers added a pair in the fifth as Alcides Escobar scored on a Corey Hart double and Hart came around one batter later on a sharply hit Prince Fielder single to right.
With the RBI, Fielder made it four consecutive games in which he’s driven in a run.
While his numbers are still down from a year ago, the Brewers first baseman now sits second on the team with 15 home runs and fifth with 31 RBIs.
The Brewers improved to 5-1 on their current homestand with three games remaining against the Astros. Milwaukee is seven games under .500 at 34-41, and the Brewers sit 7 1/2 games behind the first-place Cincinnati Reds.
According to skipper Ken Macha, the Brewers are doing what they need to if they want to get out of their self-dug hole.
“What I put a lot of stock in is winning series,” Macha said. “That’s a step in the right direction, winning the series. The sweep [against the Twins] was a big plus, because that takes a couple other series out of the way that you have to win.
“If we had lost today, it would have been a step backwards. We want to just keep moving forward.”
Jordan Schelling is an associate reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
Wolf, Brewers done in by home run balls
MILWAUKEE — In baseball, momentum is the next day’s starting pitcher.
It’s a quote that’s been used several times this season by manager Ken Macha and it came true on Saturday for the Brewers as they lost, 5-4, to the Mariners at Miller Park.
Entering the game riding a season-high five-game winning streak, the Brewers looked to veteran lefty Randy Wolf to help guide them to a sixth consecutive win. Unfortunately for Wolf and the Brewers, the lefty fell victim to something that has plagued him much of the season.
“It was the home run ball again today for Wolfie,” Macha said. “Both those home runs were legit anywhere.”
Wolf (5-7) gave up a solo home run in the third to left fielder Milton Bradley, which put the Mariners on top 2-0 going into the bottom half of the frame.
Wolf answered with a one-out double, which sparked a four-run rally for the Brewers.
After Wolf, second baseman Rickie Weeks drew a walk and right fielder Corey Hart doubled to left, plating both Wolf and Weeks. It was after Weeks scored, though, when things got interesting.
Weeks leveled Mariners catcher Rob Johnson as Bradley’s throw reached the plate, allowing the ball to get away. On the throw, Hart advanced to third, forcing a throw from Mariners starter Doug Fister.
As Fister’s throw got away from third baseman Jose Lopez, an alert Hart scampered home just ahead of the throw, giving Milwaukee a 3-2 lead.
“I’m still tired; I wish there wouldn’t have been that many mistakes so I could’ve stayed there [at second],” Hart joked after the game. “I think my legs were giving out [approaching home plate] and I was going to fall down no matter what, so I just tried to look a little better than it would have been.
“[The ball] kicked back, but I think the third baseman was looking for the outfielder. So I took off because he was kind of in la la land.”
First baseman Prince Fielder followed with a blast deep to right-center field, making it 4-2 in the Brewers’ favor. With that, it appeared as though for the second consecutive game the offense had quickly turned around what looked like was headed for a Brewers loss.
Unfortunately for them, any momentum was quickly lost in the top of the fourth.
Wolf gave up a one-out walk to Chone Figgins, who scored one batter later on a Franklin Gutierrez double. Lopez came up next and belted a 1-0 fastball to left, putting the Mariners back on top, 5-4.
Afterward, the lefty saw a common theme with the two home runs.
“The first was a changeup I threw to Milton Bradley that just got too much of the plate,” Wolf said. “The next one was a fastball that got too much of the plate.”
Making matters worse for the Brewers was the Mariners’ ability to silence the bats of the home team from the fourth inning on. After putting up four runs on three hits in the third, the Crew managed just one hit and zero runs over the final five frames.
Much of the credit for that belonged to reliever Brian Sweeney, who was lights out in his first Major League appearance since Sept. 29, 2006. Sweeney (1-0) tossed four scoreless innings, giving up just the one hit while striking out four.
“It’s been a while,” Sweeney said with a smile. “This is what you grow up as a kid dreaming about. You want to pitch in the big leagues. To get back here again feels just as good as the first time around. It’s always satisfying, no matter what. Being here, being a part of this team. I felt today just as I did in 2003 when I got that call.”
Wolf’s performance was especially disappointing because both he and the Brewers pitching staff as a whole had been performing so well of late.
Entering the game, Milwaukee had gotten nine quality starts over its last 13 games with the starters posting a 3.06 ERA during the same stretch. Brewers starters had gone 7-4 over that period while the team was 8-5.
With Wolf’s performance included, Brewers starters have a 3.29 ERA, having given up 32 earned runs over their last 14 games.
Wolf personally had posted back-to-back quality starts, going seven strong innings in each while giving up a combined three runs on six hits with four strikeouts and seven walks. Perhaps more importantly, Wolf surrendered just one home run in his last two outings.
On Saturday, struggles with his fastball cost Wolf a third straight quality start.
“I didn’t locate my fastball as well as I have my last two starts,” Wolf said. “Pretty much everything rides off your fastball, and when you don’t have good fastball command it’s hard to be successful. That was the story today.”
Gallardo tosses five-hitter to cap sweep
MILWAUKEE — Through 5 1/3 innings on Thursday, Yovani Gallardo was perfect. After nine innings, the Brewers ace had turned in the best pitching performance of his career.
Gallardo (7-3) even had two hits of his own before allowing any Thursday as the Brewers beat the Twins, 5-0, to complete a three-game sweep at Miller Park. It was the first Milwaukee sweep of Minnesota since 1996, and the first one at home since 1995.
Entering the sixth, Gallardo was four innings away from becoming the third pitcher in the Majors this season and the first in Brewers history to toss a perfecto. Two batters later, an opposite-field single to right by Twins catcher Drew Butera broke up the perfect game.
In the end, Gallardo still tossed his third career complete game and second career shutout while tying his career high with 12 strikeouts. Gallardo, who tossed 122 pitches, gave up just five hits and did not walk a batter for the first time since April 24, 2009, at Houston.
“That was a pretty awesome display of pitching today,” Brewers manager Ken Macha said. “No walks, so that’s an indication what his command was. Twelve strikeouts, only five hits. Pretty awesome. And on top of that, he starts the [four-run, third-inning] rally with a double.”
Scoring runs in his at-bats in the third and fourth, Gallardo helped the Brewers provide more than enough offense against Twins starter Nick Blackburn (6-5), who lasted just 3 2/3 innings, surrendering five runs on five hits, walking three and striking out two.
Gallardo’s one-out double in the third led to a four-run inning for the Brewers, featuring two-run home runs by Rickie Weeks and Prince Fielder.
“We played good baseball today,” Gallardo said. “We were able to get some runs up there early and get some big hits.
“I’m just going up there trying to help myself out and get on base.”
Amid the excitement of Gallardo’s outing, second baseman Weeks extended his hitting streak to six games with a two-run home run — his 12th of the season — in the third while adding a walk and single in the fourth and sixth innings.
Fielder followed Weeks’ home run with a two-run blast of his own two batters later, his 14th of the season. Despite entering the game batting just a combined 2-for-13 against Blackburn, Fielder and Weeks took advantage of some mistakes by the Minnesota righty.
Macha said he planned to ask bench coach Willie Randolph after the sixth inning if he’d seen a perfect game in his career, but that was before Butera’s single broke up the bid for perfection.
While Gallardo said it was too early to think about it, Fielder acknowledged that it was easy to realize what was going on.
“I don’t know about the perfect game, but you look up there [at the scoreboard] and you saw no hits,” Fielder said. “You knew he was doing well. So, I just wanted him to keep it up regardless of what happens. I just wanted him to keep throwing like he was.”
Though Gallardo allowed five hits over the final four innings, he continued to impress. After striking out just five batters through five innings, Gallardo tallied seven strikeouts in the last four. Nine of Gallardo’s 12 strikeouts came over the final five innings.
Gallardo recorded his eighth career double-digit strikeout performance and his fifth of the season. The last time Gallardo had 12 strikeouts in a game was July 1, 2009.
Over his past six starts, Gallardo has allowed six earned runs on 29 hits in 44 innings of work. Gallardo’s ERA over that stretch is just 1.23, while he’s averaged one earned run on just under five hits per game.
“My command is getting a lot better,” Gallardo said of his recent success. “I’m able to throw my curveball for strikes, slider, changeup, and just mix everything in. … It makes a huge difference.”
Twins first baseman Justin Morneau, who was the only batter to hit safely twice in the game for Minnesota, was impressed by what he saw from Gallardo.
“He was definitely tough,” Morneau said. “He’s got a lot of late life on his fastball. The breaking ball is pretty good, [but] I think his best pitch is the fastball. That sets up everything else. It’s hard enough where you can’t just look offspeed and catch up to it. It’s pretty good.”
The Brewers’ sweep was their first of three or more games against the Twins since May 17-20, 1996, at the Metrodome and the first in Milwaukee since Aug. 24-27, 1995, at County Stadium.
Additionally, the club matched a season high with four consecutive victories, which it has done once previously in 2010, when it took the series finale at Washington and swept the Pirates in Pittsburgh from April 18-22.
Milwaukee also earned its third sweep of the season and its first at home. With six more home games to follow and 13 in their next 17 overall, the Brewers appear poised to make a run at getting back to the .500 mark.
“It’s big for us,” Gallardo said of the sweep. “We’ve got a great team here. It’s just a matter of getting things together, and we showed that these three games here at home. Hopefully we can continue it.”
Jordan Schelling is an associate reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
Brewers beat 6/24
Weeks’ surge helps get Crew going
MILWAUKEE — With his three RBIs on Wednesday, Brewers second baseman Rickie Weeks pushed his season total to 41 and took the Major League lead in RBIs from the leadoff spot.
Weeks’ 11 homers as the team’s leadoff hitter also ranks second behind Kelly Johnson of the D-backs, who has 12.
With right fielder Corey Hart batting behind Weeks, the Brewers have 29 home runs and 95 RBIs from their leadoff and No. 2 hitters, though much of Hart’s production has come from the No. 6 spot.
Brewers manager Ken Macha has said in the past that Weeks’ production is the true key to the club’s offensive success, even more so than sluggers Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder. But like the club’s sluggers, Weeks struggles at times with consistency.
“He’s like all the other guys, they ride the roller coaster a little bit,” Macha said. “You try to avoid the big dips. He had a pretty big dip there for a while.”
Weeks’ performance over the past month has been an offensive resurgence from the Brewers second baseman, who had been struggling when the club faced the Twins at Target Field in Minnesota last month.
That slump for Weeks came after he opened the season with a career-high-tying 10-game hitting streak, making him only the fifth player in franchise history to begin the season with a hit streak of at least 10 games.
“At the beginning of the year, he was extremely hot,” Macha said. “If I remember right, we played a Pittsburgh series where they pitched him a little differently, and it kind of got him off his game. He was trying to make adjustments and it wasn’t working.”
Over the past five games entering Thursday, however, Weeks had a five-game hitting streak in which he’d collected seven hits in 17 at-bats while scoring five runs and driving in seven runs with two doubles and a home run.
“As of late, he’s done some real good things. The double with the bases loaded in Colorado was a huge hit,” Macha said. “I keep preaching this: Up the middle and opposite field always is a good way to go. That big hit last night went up the middle.”
Macha has confidence in Lucroy’s defense
MILWAUKEE — When rookie catcher Jonathan Lucroy was called up a month ago, the Brewers were concerned with his ability to stop sharp breaking balls.
Though he let five wild pitches get by him on Wednesday night in a 5-3 win over the Twins, manager Ken Macha said he’s been satisfied with Lucroy’s defense since taking over the starting role.
“What were there, five wild pitches? He had a tough time with them,” Macha said. “But he’s been pretty good up until yesterday as far as stopping balls. He caught [Yovani Gallardo] up in Colorado and did a great job as Yo was throwing that hard breaking ball in the dirt.”
In addition to four wild pitches by left-handed starter Manny Parra, reliever Kameron Loe saw one get by Lucroy in the seventh. According to Lucroy, both Parra’s splitter and Loe’s two-seam fastball are plus pitches with a lot of break.
With that in mind, Lucroy was not worried about being unable to stop those five pitches.
“Sometimes those things happen. There’s not really anything I could do to stop them,” Lucroy said. “It’s hard, because they were on his splitter, and when he throws that thing you don’t know where it’s going. That’s why it’s so good, because it’s unpredictable.”
Macha acknowledged before Thursday’s game that he thought one of the wild pitches led to Parra being tentative with his splitter for a stretch, but Macha did not think it had a significant impact on the game.
“I think Manny just got a little streak, maybe three or four hitters where he got tentative,” Macha said. “He came back after that inning and threw the ball well.”
As for the Loe wild pitch, Lucroy said his two-seam fastball is even harder to stop than Parra’s splitter.
“His two-seamer is a hard, sinking fastball,” Lucroy said. “It just bit and went straight down to the ground. That happens. I can’t do anything about that and I can’t block a fastball. I can’t get down quick enough for that. All I can try to do is pick it, and I couldn’t grab that one.”
Braddock tends to have initial advantage
MILWAUKEE — One thing about the matchup between lefty reliever Zach Braddock and pinch-hitter Jim Thome in the Brewers’ 5-3 win over the Twins on Wednesday really stood out to manager Ken Macha: Thome had not previously faced Braddock.
Since calling Braddock up before the series finale at Target Field on May 23, the Brewers have seen the 22-year-old hard-throwing lefty enjoy plenty of success against hitters the first time he faces them.
“If you haven’t faced Braddock, you don’t realize how the ball jumps up on you,” Macha said. “The first time you face somebody like that … he hides the ball, it jumps on you.”
In Thome’s first at-bat against Braddock, the left-handed slugger went down swinging at a 1-2 slider.
After getting Thome to strike out to end the sixth, Braddock struck out another batter who had not previously faced him in center fielder Denard Span. Braddock followed that up with his third strikeout of the game, getting Orlando Hudson — who doubled off Braddock in Minnesota — to go down swinging.
Similar to Braddock has been reliever Kameron Loe, whose movement on his fastball has surprised even his manager at times.
“The movement of Loe’s fastball is off the charts,” Macha said. “I remember back to an at-bat somebody had in Florida and I thought they were all sliders — they were moving so much — but they were all fastballs.”
Loe saw some adjustments by hitters in his second inning on Tuesday night, but impressed by striking out third baseman Michael Cuddyer for the second straight night on Wednesday.
According to Macha, the key for Loe is to get the first-pitch strike.
“The at-bat against Cuddyer, strike one was very important,” Macha said. “That kind of forced Cuddyer to swing, because he took strike one. They know the ball’s sinking a lot, so strike one was very important for him.
“We’ll see how these guys progress as they get out there a little more in the scouting report.”
Worth noting
With a win Thursday, the Brewers would tie a season-long winning streak of four games. The club previously won four consecutive games from May 18-22. … A win would also give Milwaukee a sweep of the Minnesota, something the club has not done in a series of three or more games since May 17-20, 1996, at the Metrodome. … The Brewers’ last sweep of the Twins in Milwaukee came Aug. 24-27, 1995, when they took a four-game series at County Stadium. … The game on Saturday, July 3 at the St. Louis Cardinals has been changed to a 5:35 p.m. CT first pitch and has been added to the FS Wisconsin broadcast schedule. It was previously scheduled to begin at 3:10 p.m.
Jordan Schelling is an associate reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
Weeks helps Crew overcome wildness
MILWAUKEE — To be effective, Manny Parra has to be wild, to some degree. That was certainly the case for the Brewers lefty on Wednesday at Miller Park.
Despite throwing four wild pitches, Parra (2-5) effectively limited the Twins’ offense, giving up two runs during 5 2/3 innings as the Brewers took the 5-3 victory over the Twins.
Parra tied a club record with four wild pitches in a game, set by Ed Sprague on May 14, 1975, against the Rangers. According to both Parra and catcher Jonathan Lucroy, however, with a splitter like Parra’s, wild pitches are going to happen.
“With my split-finger, I’m bound to throw wild pitches,” Parra said. “I think last year, I shied away from it a little bit … but I’ve got to keep throwing that pitch, that’s the way I’m successful. I get guys swinging at some of those pitches.”
But as Lucroy was quick to point out, Parra only allowed two runners to score following a wild pitch — Twins first baseman Justin Morneau and third baseman Michael Cuddyer in the fourth.
“He did a good job of getting back in control and throwing some strikes,” Lucroy said. “The one thing you can take away from that is the way he bounced back and minimized the damage.”
Perhaps most importantly for Parra, though, the Brewers’ offense made the most of its opportunities, giving the lefty just enough run support to earn his first win since May 23, also against Minnesota, and his first win as a starter since Sept. 25, 2009, against the Phillies.
While the Brewers entered the game with a 5-19 record when not hitting a home run, they played small ball on Wednesday night to get the victory.
After both were stranded following a pair of singles to lead off the first, Rickie Weeks and Corey Hart combined to drive in four of the Brewers’ five runs. Weeks, who went 3-for-4 with three RBIs and two runs scored, played a role in all five Brewers runs on the night.
“We hustled to get our runs, we scrapped to get our runs,” Brewers manager Ken Macha said. “Sometimes, you have to do that. It’s not always on the big boys to do everything.”
Following a Weeks walk in the third, Hart ripped a double to the left-field corner, which scored Weeks from first.
One inning later, Weeks drove in a pair when he came up with a big two-run, two-out single to put the Brewers up, 3-2.
With Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun and Casey McGehee combining for a 0-for-10 night, with a lone RBI from Braun in the seventh on a fielder’s choice, the top of the Brewers’ order showed its run-producing potential.
“I don’t know if we would be 1-2 in most lineups, but we are in this lineup,” Hart said. “We try to get on base for the guys behind us. It’s nice to drive in runs, as well, but I think our goal is to get on as much as we can for Prince and Brauny.
“I’m not a power hitter. … I see myself as a guy that I role play to try to get going for those guys.”
Behind Parra, the Brewers’ bullpen was effective once again, giving up one run over 3 1/3 innings on four hits, while striking out five and walking just one.
Lefty Zach Braddock — who returned to the team after missing Tuesday’s series opener due to a death in the family — got a huge out for the Brewers in the sixth, entering in place of Parra to strike out pinch-hitter Jim Thome.
According to Twins manager Ron Gardenhire, the decision to remove starter Francisco Liriano, who had thrown only 77 pitches over five innings, was done to try to take advantage of a big opportunity in a National League ballgame.
“Got to try to win a ballgame. We’re losing. He’s probably got one more inning left in him, anyway,” Gardenhire said. “You’ve got a couple of guys on. Try to get him in a situation where, if he hits a double, score a couple runs.
“This National League stuff is different than it is over in our league. Have to take a chance when you can.”
After Braddock, the Brewers used Kameron Loe for one out in the seventh, Carlos Villanueva in the eighth, and John Axford closed it out in the ninth, earning the save.
“We got some big outs from the bullpen tonight,” Macha said. “Braddock coming in in the sixth inning, striking out Thome. Loe getting the strikeout on Cuddyer in the seventh. Good inning by Villa … and Ax made good pitches. He put the ball right where he wanted to.”
A Schelling For Your Thoughts 
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