Milwaukee Brewers: 250 Words or Less 5/13/11

Despite the fact that the Brewers historically dominate the Pirates, Pittsburgh insisted on playing the game out and were soundly defeated 5-2 at Miller Park on Friday night.  This story set up as a possible low scoring pitching matchup between James McDonald and Yovani Gallardo.

McDonald did a good job early of keeping Brewers hitters off balances with a nice mix of fastballs, curveballs, and changeups.  Eventually, Brewers hitters got up to speed and he was chased after allowing five runs in four innings.  For Gallardo, he was able to work out of a high leverage, bases loaded second inning jam without allowing any runs.  In all, he picked up the win and allowed two runs over six solid innings.

The fourth inning proved to be the difference in the game.  Gallardo hit the go ahead run scoring single and soon after Braun padded the lead with a two run double to make it 5-2.  Marco Estrada followed with two dominating innings and John Axford slammed the door for his eighth save.

Offensively for Milwaukee, Ryan Braun had three RBIs and Jon Lucroy had two more hits.  Surprisingly, Lucroy now has a slash line of .324/.378/.459.  Considering he is hitting out of the difficult eighth spot in the order, Lucroy has been a tremendous surprise and a spark offensively for the Brewers.

The series resumes tomorrow at 3:10PM.  Jeff Karstens (2-1,  3.62 ERA) squares off against Chris Narveson (1-3, 4.38 ERA) in what promises to be a beauty…

Tags: Chris Narveson, Jonathan Lucroy, Marco Estrada, Ryan Braun, Yovani Gallardo