So much for that.
Starter Jeff Suppan missed his spots through one of the poorest starts of his career, and Derrick Turnbow struggled just as mightily in mop-up duty, surrendering 14 earned runs between them in the Brewers’ 19-5 loss to the Cubs on Wednesday night at Wrigley Field.
Left fielder Ryan Braun drove in three runs before he and first baseman Prince Fielder were lifted in the fifth with the game “out of hand,” as Braun put it. The Cubs scored mostly in bunches, getting six runs off Suppan (1-1) in the first inning, five more in the fourth against Suppan and reliever Brian Shouse and six more in the eighth against Turnbow.
In a quiet clubhouse after the game, the Brewers tried to forget about it.
“That’s all you can do,” Braun said. “It does no good to dwell on it or focus on it or make it anything more than what it is.”
Said Jason Kendall, who caught all 217 Brewers pitches in a three hour, 33 minute game: “What’s done is done. We’ll just try to win the series.”
It was a rout reminiscent of last Aug. 8, when Brewers pitchers surrendered 19 Rockies runs on 23 hits at Coors Field, 11 of the runs and 12 of the hits off starter Yovani Gallardo, who hopes for better luck against the Cubs in Thursday’s series finale.
On Wednesday, the Cubs scored their 19 runs on 17 hits. They jumped to a 6-0 lead before Suppan recorded his second out, and extended the lead to 12-1 with five more runs in the fourth. Rookie catcher Geovany Soto hit a three-run home run in both innings and set a career high with six RBIs.
Suppan was charged with a career-high 11 runs, though three were unearned because of a fourth-inning error by third baseman Bill Hall. Eight of Chicago’s nine starting players had a hit off Suppan, including Cubs starter and winning pitcher Ryan Dempster (4-0), who allowed three Brewers runs on four hits in six innings and worked around five walks. “It definitely was a tough one,” Suppan said. “They were on the attack and I kept missing down the middle. It’s my job to keep us in the game and I really didn’t do that from the get-go. It comes down to location, and the more time you give a team, especially one like the Cubs, opportunities to swing at balls that are belt-high, then they can do a lot of damage.”
Suppan surrendered hits to the first four Cubs batters he faced, falling into a 3-0 hole on consecutive doubles by Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez. Kosuke Fukudome made the first out when he hit a line drive to left field. Braun nearly misplayed it, but made a leaping catch. Mark DeRosa then drew a walk, and Soto followed with his fourth home run of the season for a 6-0 Cubs lead.
The Brewers scored in the third on the first of Braun’s run-scoring hits, but the Cubs answered right back in the bottom of the inning when Fukodome doubled off Suppan’s right foot — the baseball caromed past Fielder at first base — and DeRosa followed with an RBI single. In the fourth, DeRosa hit another RBI single to knock Suppan out of the game, and Soto greeted Shouse with another three-run homer.
“Games like that can get away because, like they say, hitting is contagious,” said reliever Seth McClung, who followed Shouse in the game and walked four batters, but limited the damage to one run on one hit. “It’s almost like a phenomenon in baseball. Teams get going and it’s hard to knock them off.”
As McClung entered the game, manager Ned Yost sent up a symbolic white flag when he lifted his best two hitters. Mike Rivera, who later hit a two-run homer, replaced Fielder at first base, and pinch-hitter Tony Gwynn, Jr. remained in the game as a left-field replacement for Braun, who had just lined a two-run double.
The Brewers trailed, 13-5, when Yost handed the ball to Turnbow for an inning of mop-up in the eighth. He couldn’t close the door, issuing four walks and allowing four hits and six Cubs runs, forcing Yost to use left-hander Mitch Stetter for the final out. Turnbow has issued at least one walk in each of his nine appearances, and his ERA is up to 15.63.
“I didn’t want to use Shouse or Stetter, but they were for ‘short looks,’ a third of an [inning] apiece,” Yost said. “It was just the way the night went. I don’t think we ever got settled in as a pitching staff.”
What did Yost say to Turnbow?
“I don’t say anything to him,” Yost said. “He had a rough night. He knows he had a rough night. He wasn’t the only one.”
“He’ll be fine,” Kendall said. “It was just that kind of night. He still throws the [heck] out of the ball.”
Right-hander Ben Sheets returned from an arm injury and won without his best stuff, and outfielder Mike Cameron returned from his suspension with two runs scored and two driven-in, leading the fully-stocked Brewers to a 10-7 win over the Cubs on a frigid Tuesday night at Wrigley Field.
“When you go out and score 10 runs in that cold weather, it says a lot,” said shortstop J.J. Hardy, one of four Brewers with three hits in the game — a group that included Cameron.
The Brewers set a season high with 17 hits, 10 of them coming against Cubs starter Jason Marquis (1-1). The offense was a boost to Sheets (4-0), who had skipped his last start because of stiffness in his triceps and managed to last five innings, holding the Cubs to three earned runs and four hits despite issuing a career-high seven walks.
Cameron helped give Sheets an early cushion. Coming off a 25-game suspension, Cameron doubled the third pitch he saw from Marquis high off the left-field wall and finished 3-for-4 with a walk.
“I had a little bit of the jitters until I got in the box,” Cameron said. “After that, everything goes into cruise control.”
Cameron, Hardy, Bill Hall and Corey Hart had three hits apiece, and Cameron, Hall and Prince Fielder drove in two runs apiece as the Brewers beat the Cubs for the third time in four meetings this season.
“It was nice to have ‘Cam’ back,” Brewers manager Ned Yost said. “The offense broke out and he was a big part of it. I think we were ready to [break out]. We had a good frame of mind coming into this game. I think the off-day [Monday] relaxed everybody and refreshed everybody.”
Getting a healthy Sheets back into an every-five-day routine would surely add to that state of relaxation. He began feeling tightness in his triceps during a April 12 win in New York, then had to leave an April 18 start at Cincinnati with the ailment.
The Brewers decided to bump Sheets from one start to give the arm time to heal. Head athletic trainer Roger Caplinger checked in through Tuesday’s grinder and reported to Yost.
“No stiffness, no tightness, no pain,” Yost said. “Just a little, ‘heavy,’ and that’s probably from missing a turn and [from the] cold weather. We were checking with him every inning. Roger [Caplinger, the Brewers’ head trainer] had strict orders to talk to him, and we talked before the game to make sure that we were on the same page in terms of communicating how we feel.”
Sheets was admittedly off throughout his five-inning stint and rarely topped 90-91 mph with a fastball that typically reaches 93-94 mph when he finds a groove. He limited the damage by allowing only three Cubs hits, and though the walks surely contributed to at least two of the three earned runs against Sheets, none of the batters who worked free passes managed to score.
The Cubs also scored an unearned run in the third inning after errors by first baseman Fielder and third baseman Hall, who atoned at the plate. Those miscues forced Sheets to throw 12 extra pitches in the inning, one of three frames in which Sheets walked a pair of batters.
Was he rusty?
“Are you kidding me?” Sheets asked. “Have you ever seen me walk that many batters, throw that many balls? Yeah, I felt rusty. I felt real rusty. … I would say that’s as bad as I’ve pitched, location-wise, probably ever.”
The Brewers’ offense helped cover Sheets’ wildness. They had managed only one hit in their last 30 at-bats with runners in scoring position entering the third inning of Tuesday’s game, but then went 5-for-12 the rest of the way.
“We’ve got a good team. They back you up,” Sheets said. “And we made some good pitches when we had to. Jason [Kendall, the catcher], I can’t say enough about the job he did back there. He didn’t give up on any of my pitches. He kept confidence in me, even if I didn’t have it.”
Sheets dodged questions about how his arm felt by saying twice that he felt “no pain at all.”
“I don’t know what was bothering me. Something was bothering me,” Sheets said. “Maybe it was my arm slot not being right. I don’t know. It was kind of weird. … I’ve pitched plenty of games at 90-91 [mph]. For me, the most frustrating thing was not being able to throw a strike.”
He added: “I threw enough.”
And the Brewers hit just enough. Ryan Braun’s RBI groundout in the sixth inning snapped a 4-4 tie, and the Brewers tacked on three more runs in the seventh on a bases-loaded walk by Kendall and a two-run, bloop single by Cameron that gave Milwaukee a 9-4 lead.
Cameron’s third hit loomed large when Cubs second baseman Mike Fontenot ripped a three-run double off Salomon Torres in the bottom of the seventh inning. Torres surrendered four hits in the inning but two of them never left the infield, and Matt Murton’s broken-bat single that loaded the bases barely made it past the pitcher’s mound.
Brewers closer Eric Gagne pitched the bottom of the ninth for his eighth save, atoning for an Opening Day appearance against the Cubs in which he surrendered a game-tying, three-run home run to Kosuke Fukudome.
Dear: President
Can you please stop slavery; look the slaves don’t even want to eat, because of what happened in the ship. They also smell like urine and pixies, so is hard to be around them to tell them what to do. The slaves don’t even do their work; I could do my work faster with out them. So please stop slavery.
Sincerely:
Elio Alvarado
MILWAUKEE — Brewers reliever David Riske stood at his locker Thursday and essentially proclaimed, “My bad.”
“I blew it,” Riskie said. “It’s unacceptable.”
Riske was upset after consecutive two-out hits on 0-and-2 pitches in the eighth inning, including a two-run double to red-hot Phillies outfielder Pat Burrell that forced the Brewers to settle for a 3-1 loss in front of 23,905 fans at Miller Park. The teams split a two-game series.
Riske may have been a bit too hard on himself because a quiet Brewers offense also played a part in Thursday’s loss. Milwaukee starter Jeff Suppan limited the Phillies to a run in seven strong innings, but his hitters scored only once in Suppan’s defense despite nine hits off five Philly pitchers, including three hits apiece by Ryan Braun and Bill Hall.
Left-hander Jamie Moyer scattered six of those hits including Braun’s RBI single in six-plus innings of work. Tom Gordon escaped a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the seventh, J.C. Romero and Ryan Madesn teamed on a scoreless eighth and Brad Lidge took the ninth for his fifth save.
It’s a team game, but Riske took the blame.
“The team played great and my inning was going great [before the] 0-and-2 hits,” said Riske. “That can’t happen. I don’t care who you are, who was up there. I don’t care if it was Babe Ruth or Barry Bonds. You can’t give up 0-and-2 hits.”
Riske might have been pitching with a cushion had the Brewers not missed a prime scoring opportunity in the previous half-inning. With the score knotted at 1 in the bottom of the seventh, Hall, who entered the day in an 0-for-18 slump, doubled for his third hit off Moyer. Hall moved to third on a J.J. Hardy single that prompted a call for the right-hander Gordon, a dramatic change from soft-tossing lefty Moyer.
The move prompted manager Ned Yost to lift Suppan, who might have stayed in the game to bunt had Moyer remained. Gordon struck out pinch-hitter Tony Gwynn Jr. looking at a curveball.
“I had a job to do at that particular time and I didn’t do it,” Gwynn said.
Jason Kendall followed with a walk that loaded the bases with one out. But Rickie Weeks struck out looking at a fastball and Gabe Kapler grounded into a force out that ended the inning.
“We just couldn’t get that run across,” Yost said.
The Phillies quickly took advantage of the Brewers’ missed opportunity. Riske relieved Suppan and struck out the first two hitters of the eighth inning, then walked Greg Dobbs.
The walk did not irk Riske as much as the next two outcomes. Against both Chase Utley and Burrell, Riske got ahead in the count, 0-and-2. But he tried to spike a split-fingered fastball to Utley and missed up, allowing Utley to poke a single the opposite way. Then he missed his spot with an up-and-in fastball to Burrell, who yanked a go-ahead hit to left.
“You can’t do that on 0-and-2 counts to both hitters,” Riske said. “Suppan pitched great, the team played great and I blew it. You can’t make those pitches in that situation.”
Of the offering to Burrell he said, “It was a really bad pitch.”
The two earned runs ballooned Riske’s ERA to 7.36 in 10 appearances since he signed a three-year free agent contract. He has walked eight batters in 11 innings and surrendered 13 hits. Over his last three appearances, Riske has allowed seven earned runs in two innings.
“Today was actually the best I’ve felt all season [in terms of] my stuff,” Riske said. “I felt kind of back to normal. It was just two bad pitches. … You can’t even do that in rookie ball or high school ball. You can’t do that. You can’t give up two 0-and-2 hits.”
Suppan worked seven innings and allowed a run on five hits, including Jayson Werth’s solo home run leading off the sixth inning. The Phillies’ leadoff man reached safely in each of the first three innings, but Suppan induced a double play each time to avoid early damage.
Dating to last season, Suppan is 5-1 with a 3.69 ERA in his last 11 starts. He has surrendered two or fewer runs in four of his five starts this year but remains 1-0.
“I’ve only pitched five games,” Suppan said. “The idea is to go out and keep making pitches. That’s what my plan is. … We just didn’t come out on top.”
The Brewers ran into some key outs on the bases. Twice Moyer picked off a runner breaking from first to second base — Weeks in the first inning after a leadoff walk, and Hall in the fourth after a single. Hall’s hit would have driven in a run had Corey Hart not tried stretching a leadoff double into a triple. He was thrown out easily at third base.
After Hall was picked off, J.J. Hardy worked a walk. That meant the Brewers’ first three hitters in the inning reached safely, yet no one batted with a runner in scoring position.
“We were trying to get some stuff going [against Moyer],” Hall said. “He just continues to read. We tried to wait as long as we could to get him to commit, and obviously our two tries didn’t go so well for us.”
Eastern Conference
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Western Confernce
(Nuggets vs. Lakers)
(Mavericks vs. Hornets)
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Hillary Rodham Clinton ground out a gritty victory in the Pennsylvania primary Tuesday night, defeating Barack Obama and staving off elimination in their historic race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Milwaukee, WI (Sports Network) - Gabe Kapler singled home the game-winning run in the 12th inning as the Milwaukee Brewers came away with a 9-8 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals to split their two-game series at Miller Park.
Gabe Gross, who scored three times, earned a one-out walk in the 12th and, after several pickoff attempts, stole second to put himself in scoring position. Kapler then drilled a Jason Isringhausen curveball into center field and Gross eased home for the win.
“Against a guy like Isringhausen, you usually try to get a good pitch to hit,” Kapler said. “Allow the ball to travel, see the ball a long time, then use your hands. There are certain pitchers around the league, most of the time they’re closers, you go up to (in) a grind mode.”
The Brewers blew a five-run lead in the game, but managed to snap their two- game losing streak. Rickie Weeks was 2-for-5 with a triple, two runs scored and three RBI, while Ryan Braun plated two and Prince Fielder reached base five times to go along with a sacrifice fly.
Gross finished 2-for-4 with a pair of doubles, and was actually traded after the game to Tampa Bay for pitching prospect Josh Butler.
Brewers starter Manny Parra only lasted five innings, giving up three runs on nine hits and two walks. Seth McClung (1-0) picked up the win after throwing a perfect 12th.
Albert Pujols finished 2-for-6 at the plate with a run scored and two batted in for the Cardinals, who have lost three of their last four. Aaron Miles recorded four hits, while Skip Schumaker and Troy Glaus notched three hits apiece.
Kyle Lohse, who came into the game with a 1.48 ERA, had his first rough outing of the season for St. Louis, allowing four runs on eight hits and two walks in just four innings on the hill. Isringhausen (1-1) was credited with the loss after only recording one out before the game-winner.
Lohse helped his own cause in the bottom of the second with an RBI single to right, as Ryan Ludwick scored from third for a 1-0 Cardinals lead.
St. Louis added another run in the third, but could have had more. After Ludwick’s one-out single plated a run, Glaus followed with a liner to left field. Pujols was waived around from second, but Braun came up firing and nailed Pujols on a close play at the plate.
Braun again came through in the bottom of the inning with a two-run double to knot the game at two apiece. Corey Hart followed two batters later with a single and the Brewers had their first lead of the game, 3-2.
In the fourth, Parra got a knock of his own with an RBI double down the right field line. But he gave the run right back the next inning as Pujols doubled and scored after a balk and wild pitch.
Leading 4-3, Milwaukee seemed to break the game open in the sixth with a four- run frame. Cardinals relief pitcher Brad Thompson loaded the bases and surrendered a bases-clearing triple to Weeks, who later scored on Fielder’s deep sacrifice fly to center for an 8-3 score.
The Brewers relievers barely hung on to the lead in the seventh. After David Riske loaded the bases, Brian Shouse came in and promptly allowed an RBI single and sacrifice fly to make it a three-run ballgame. Two more RBI singles were sandwiched around a strikeout and the Cardinals trailed by just a run.
In the top of the ninth, with Eric Gagne on the mound, the Cardinals completed the comeback to tie the game. Pujols hit a one-out grounder with runners on the corners, but Fielder couldn’t handle Weeks’ throw from second to complete the double play. Cesar Izturis scored and the game went to extra innings.
“Gagne threw the ball good,” Brewers manager Ned Yost said. “He was out of it. We didn’t turn a double play for him…we just didn’t turn it.”
Game Notes
St. Louis pounded out 16 hits, and Milwaukee tallied 15…The Cardinals are 31-21 versus the Brewers since the start of the 2005 season…The Cardinals ran out of position players in the ninth and had to move Pujols to second base for the first time in his career…Gabe Gross scored twice for Milwaukee…On Wednesday, the Cardinals head to Pittsburgh for another two-game set, while the Brewers host Philadelphia for back-to-back affairs…Game time was 4:28…Milwaukee outfielder Tony Gwynn was recalled from a rehab assignment and will be reinstated from the 15-day disabled list on Wednesday.
http://www.sportsnetwork.com/merge/tsnform.aspx?c=sportsnetwork&page=mlb/news/news.aspx?id=4146048
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Skip Schumaker doubled in the go-ahead run in the ninth and the St. Louis Cardinals overcame a fielding blunder in the eighth to beat the Milwaukee Brewers 4-3 on Monday night in the opener of a two-game set.
Brian Barton, who pinch hit for reliever Ryan Franklin, doubled off embattled Brewers reliever Derrick Turnbow (0-1) to start the inning and Schumaker drove him in with a double to the wall after a sacrifice bunt.
Turnbow, frustrated since he’s no longer the setup man, has failed to inspire confidence for the Brewers, who lost for the 10th time in 13 games against the Cardinals.
Franklin (1-1) got the win despite giving up an unearned run by limiting the damage in the eighth, and Jason Isringhausen earned his seventh save in eight chances with a perfect ninth.
It appeared the Brewers had all the momentum before Franklin stopped them cold.
With St. Louis leading 3-2, Ryan Braun doubled to start the eighth inning and right fielder Ryan Ludwick charged hard on a fly ball from Corey Hart, but slipped and lost the ball in the lights.
It nearly hit him in the head, but instead bounced harmlessly behind him for a triple that left Hart shaking his head in disbelief at his RBI that tied it at 3 after he made an errant play himself in the top half of the inning.
But Franklin didn’t allow Milwaukee to take the lead as Hart was caught in a rundown when he tried to score on contact off a chopper by Bill Hall and J.J. Hardy grounded out to end the inning.
In the top half of the eighth, St. Louis went ahead 3-2 as a result of Hart’s gaffe in right field on Ludwick’s fly ball that hit the webbing of Hart’s glove to put Ludwick on third with no outs.
Reliever Brian Shouse walked Albert Pujols — he had three of St. Louis’ seven in the game — and got Rick Ankiel to pop out, but reliever Guillermo Mota couldn’t keep the Cardinals off the board after walking Troy Glaus despite having him down 0-2.
With the bases loaded, Adam Kennedy’s sacrifice fly gave St. Louis a 3-2 lead.
Cardinals starter Adam Wainwright and Brewers starter Carlos Villanueva each pitched brilliantly over seven innings and each allowed two runs in the third inning. Wainwright, who retired 11 in a row at one point, has a career 2.02 ERA in 11 appearances against Milwaukee and struck out six while allowing four hits and four walks.
Villanueva retired 13 of 14 from the third through seventh innings, allowing three hits, walking four and striking out one.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gpfx4tHWHiPHTS6tawbS9iaXrJlAD906LLHO0
