NorthIowaToday.com

Founded in 2010

News & Entertainment for Mason City, Clear Lake & the Entire North Iowa Region

Brewers beat Cubs 7-4

By Todd Rosiak, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel –

CHICAGO — A day after making things way more interesting than manager Ron Roenicke would have liked, the Milwaukee Brewers’ bullpen picked up starter Chris Narveson and closed the door on the Chicago Cubs.

(PHOTO: Chicago Cubs starter Paul Maholm pitches in the 1st inning against the Milwaukee Brewers at Wrigley Field in Chicago, Illinois, Tuesday, April 10, 2012.)

Marco Estrada, Kameron Loe, Jose Veras and Francisco Rodriguez combined for four strong innings of relief to lock down a 7-4 victory on a frigid Tuesday night at Wrigley Field.

Estrada pitched a scoreless sixth, Loe a scoreless seventh and eighth, and Veras and Rodriguez combined in the ninth to help the Brewers to their second straight win over the Cubs.

A five-run first inning by Milwaukee’s bats — sparked by a three-run home run from Alex Gonzalez — wound up being enough offense to last the Brewers the rest of the evening.

With a game-time temperature of 40 degrees and winds blowing steadily from left to right for the second consecutive night, it didn’t appear as if the conditions would be conducive to many big innings.

Yet thanks to a nightmarish first inning for Cubs starter Paul Maholm, the Brewers sent five across before Chicago even had a chance to respond.

“It was cold,” Roenicke said. “I know one thing: I was really cold sitting on the bench.”

Rickie Weeks walked to lead things off, went to third on a Carlos Gomez double and scored on a sacrifice fly to center by Ryan Braun — the Brewers’ third in their previous 10 innings — to make it 1-0.

Gomez, who also went to third on the play, then scored on a fielder’s choice by Aramis Ramirez in which he used a terrific slide to avoid Geovany Soto’s tag attempt at the plate to make it 2-0.

Maholm hit Corey Hart five pitches later to put two on for Gonzalez, who has been one of the Brewers’ hotter hitters. He responded by crushing a homer to left, stretching the lead to 5-0.

Things got even worse for Maholm when he followed up by hitting Mat Gamel and walking Jonathan Lucroy — prompting visits to the mound by manager Dale Sveum and pitching coach Chris Bosio — but he got himself off the hook without further damage by striking out Narveson and retiring Weeks on a groundout.

“That was pretty good,” Roenicke said of the Brewers’ offensive explosion. “These guys talk a lot of times about how you pitch to the elements. We did a nice job.”

Milwaukee added another run in the third on a booming solo homer to left-center by Lucroy.

Chicago halved that lead in the bottom of the third by taking advantage of some poor location by Narveson and some uncharacteristic poor fielding by Gonzalez at shortstop.

After Maholm struck out to lead off, David DeJesus and Darwin Barney singled and Narveson walked Starlin Castro to load the bases. Alfonso Soriano followed with a sharp single up the middle to score DeJesus and Barney and get the Cubs on the board.

Narveson appeared to help himself by getting a tailor-made double-play ball from Ian Stewart, but Gonzalez clanked it for his second error in as many games to once again load the bases.

Jeff Baker followed with a sacrifice fly to right to make it 6-3, and it might have been worse immediately after that were it not for a tremendous defensive play by Weeks, who was playing to the left of second base with the Brewers shifting over against Soto.

Soto smoked a ball up the middle, but Weeks vacuumed up the ball behind the bag with a full-length dive, got up quickly and fired to first to get Soto and end the threat.

Narveson wound up finishing out the fifth, leaving after surrendering six hits, two earned runs and two walks while striking out four to pick up his first win of the season.

Estrada and Loe got through the sixth, seventh and eighth with relatively little trouble. Milwaukee’s offense picked up another run for them in the meantime, with Lucroy singling home Ramirez with two outs in the eighth to make it 7-3.

“Estrada comes in, we’re in a tough spot whether to put him back out there to hit and let him go another inning or get him out,” Roenicke said. “Kam was good. The sinker was working; he threw a couple of nice breaking balls and a nice changeup to get an out. He threw the ball well.”

The score remained that way into the ninth, when Roenicke chose to go with Veras — normally the seventh-inning specialist — rather than either Rodriguez or closer John Axford, who’d accrued high pitch counts in each of the Brewers’ previous two games.

“We had talked before the game and I didn’t really want to use him,” Roenicke said of Axford.

Veras surrendered a solo homer to Soto and a walk to pinch-hitter Bryan LaHair sandwiched around a strikeout of Marlon Byrd before Roenicke had seen enough and made the call to the bullpen for Rodriguez.

K-Rod, who was one of the game’s best closers before coming to Milwaukee last year in a trade, came on and struck out DeJesus looking for the second out and then induced a game-ending groundout to shortstop by Barney for his first Brewers save.

“It’s great,” Roenicke said of being able to use Rodriguez in that situation. “Huge advantage for us.”

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Even more news:

Watercooler
Copyright 2024 – Internet Marketing Pros. of Iowa, Inc.
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x