Boxscore

The Brewers have been the epitome of a team playing for this year. They traded away their best prospect for a half-season rental of a starting pitcher. They fired their longtime manager with two weeks to go to jump start the team. And they routinely had their rental starter pitch on short rest. So it should come as no surprise that they picked Yovani Gallardo to pitch the opening game of their best of 5 against the Phillies.

Gallardo spent the vast majority of the year on the DL. He started 2 games in April, 1 in May, and then nothing until right before the season ended in September. Surely, he’s not rusty. No, what a nonsensical notion.

The crazy thing is that Gallardo was effective. He threw 4 innings and allowed no earned runs. But it was the defense and the unearned runs that doomed Milwaukee yesterday. The Brewers converted a bunt that should have been a double into no outs. And then Mike Cameron compounded problems when he misjudged a fly ball in the wind. All this allowed 3 unearned runs to score in the 3rd, and the Brewers never came back against the Phillies Cole Hamels.

It’s always tough to come back from a game 1 loss in a short series–most teams don’t–but most teams don’t have the inhuman C. C. Sabathia starting game 2. We’ll see if there’s more peeing in Milwaukee’s future.