Lee Delivers Sweep for Crew

The Brewers are back to .500 tonight thanks in large part to Carlos Lee. Carlos delivered a one-out, two-run homer to propel the Crew to a 6-3 victory over the Indians today. It was the third victory in as many days for the Brewers, who swept Cleveland in the weekend series. Let's recap.

FRIDAY

Chris Capuano pitched probably the best game of his career Friday night, tossing seven outstanding innings, limited the Tribe to only six hits, two runs, and recorded a career-high 12 strikeouts. In those seven innings, he threw 109 pitches, 74 for strikes. Friday's game marked the 14th quality start of the season for Chris. Incidentally, he know holds the record alone for the most quality starts in MLB, as Mike Mussina got tagged for six ER's in 5.2 innings of work on Thursday. Mussina is now 13 for 15 in quality starts, and Cappy is 14 for 15. Good job, Cap!

Chris was definitely on top of his game Friday, and has picked up more than his share of the slack left by the ailing Sheets and Ohka. Apparently he changed his between-starts routine, and it seemed to have worked like a charm. Congrats, Chris!

Another positive I noticed was Rickie Weeks' lack of errors in recent games. Could it be that he's finally worked out whatever was causing his fumble fingers? Only time will tell, but it's encouraging so far that he hasn't committed an error since June 4. Keep it up Rickie!

I'm sure many of you remember the day that Brady Clark was called out for having part of his foot outside the batter's box a couple of weeks ago. Well I noticed Friday night that Travis Hafner had his entire foot outside of the box on every at-bat. I guess no one else really follows that rule, huh? Too bad for Brady that day that he didn't have Joe Brinkman behind the plate. I've included a photo of Hafner in the batter's box. It's not a great shot, but I'd be interested to hear anyone else's thoughts on the foot placement.

SATURDAY

Dave Bush continued the pitching mastery on Saturday night, going eight innings for the Crew, allowing only two runs on four hits. Bush has struggled with consistency a bit this season, so it was great to see him pitch so well. He didn't strike out twelve, but he kept his team in the game. Bush was tough tonight, and it sucked he couldn't get the win. He threw 75 of 110 pitches for strikes, fanned 6, and walked only two. The win went to Jose Capellan, who pitched a scoreless 9th, allowing only two hits.

The team got the win, though, thanks to a laser beam shot to right field off the bat of Geoff Jenkins in the bottom of the 9th. I must admit I groaned a bit when Geoff came up to bat, because he has been so streaky lately, and prone to strikeouts. But he delivered big time on Saturday, and clinched the series win with his big one-out single. Guess he felt like he needed to do something to get the crowd to stop booing him.

The defense was strong again, and no errors for anyone. Gotta keep that up!

SUNDAY

Bill Hall hit a walk-off home run on Mother's Day, and Carlos Lee countered with one of his own on Father's Day, securing the three-game sweep for the Crew. This series marks the first time the Brewers have swept the Indians since 1989.

Zach Jackson wasn't particularly sharp today, lasting only three innings. But he did manage to get out of a couple of jams, and allowed only two runs on eight hits. He wasn't pitching badly; 50 of his 78 throws were for strikes, but I think Ned thought it best to get him out of there while the getting was still good. He did record his first major league (and first professional) hit of his career, and scored his first run when Corey Koskie hit one out to right field.

Geremi Gonzalez managed to hold the Indians down during his three innings of work, allowing only one run on two hits. Dan Kolb and Brian Shouse each tossed a scoreless inning, and Derrick Turnbow finished it off, striking out the side to record the win.

As I predicted on Thursday, this was a great series, and every game came down to pitching. For a change, thankfully, our guys got it done better, and got run support when it counted. The whole team contributed offensively throughout the series, and played tight defense as well. Our pitching staff seems to have further stabilized, and finally, finally, thank goodness, Rick Helling is ready to come off the DL.

It's not yet clear what his role will be once a change is made, but Tuesday's pitching roster has been changed from Villanueva to "to be announced." Based on that, it looks like Helling will get the start on Tuesday, but you never know. It was announced originally that Jackson would get the start on Monday, which meant Davis would have started today. But Ned decided Saturday to switch it around so that everyone would get five days rest instead of four.

HERE COME THE TIGERS

I'm actually glad that he made that change. The Detroit Tigers come to town for a three game series starting tomorrow, and this team currently has the best record in MLB. Not that I doubt Jackson's ability, but I much prefer having veterans going up against a team like Detroit. If Helling does get the start on Tuesday, (Tuesday's schedule on Yahoo! sports lists Helling as the starting pitcher), then we'll have Davis, Helling and Capuano taking on the Tigers.

This is going to be a tough series for the Brewers, but they seem to play well against teams that are doing well, so maybe that will be the case again this time. The pitching matchups look to make for some interesting games. Doug Davis, (4-4, 5.07) faces Jeremy Bonderman, (6-4, 5.07) tomorrow night, Rick Helling, (no stats) possibly takes on Zach Miner, (2-1, 2.65) on Tuesday, and Chris Capuano, (7-4, 3.30) will duel with Nate Robertson, (7-3, 3.43) on Wednesday afternoon.

Zach Miner could be the reason for the Villanueva-Helling switch, if that is in fact the case. Miner has appeared in only three games for Detroit, tossing seventeen total innings. Perhaps Ned thinks this would be a good match up for easing Helling back into the rotation. I don't know, but it should be interesting.

But all in all, this was a fantastic weekend for Brewers baseball. They swept the Tribe, made it back to .500, and have their most experienced pitchers on the mound to face, at least statistically, the best team in baseball. Let's all head out to the park and show some support! Until next time, go Brewers!