Greinke Takes the Mound

MILWAUKEE- Zack Greinke pitched for the first time at home for the Brewers at Miller Park this year on Monday night where he struck out nine and earned the 4-3 victory.

The 2009 American League Cy Young award winner Greinke pitched six innings and struck out nine batters and allowed only five hits and two earned runs in a 4-3 victory for the Milwaukee Brewers(http://milwaukee.brewers.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=mil) over the San Diego Padres.

Greinke struck out at least one batter of every one of his six innings pitched.

Greinke came out to pitch the first inning to 27,058 fans waving their white Zack Greinke towels that were handed out to every fan that entered Miller Park.

This was Greinke’s first win of the season after losing his first start of the season on Wednesday to the Braves at Atlanta in which he only pitched four innings and gave up four runs.

The Brewers bullpen kept the lead partly because of a big double play made in the eighth inning by Yuniesky Betancourt and Rickie Weeks. Then the Brewers closer John Axford ended the game in the ninth to record the save

The Brewers acquired Greinke during the offseason in a trade with the Kansas City Royals in December in a six player deal.

Brewers received

• Zack Greinke SP
• Yuniesky Betancourt SS
• Cash considerations

Royals received

• Alcides Escobar SS
• Lorenzo Cain OF
• Jake Odorizzi P
• Jeremy Jeffress RP 

This was only Greinke’s second start of the season so far due to an offseason rib injury from playing a pick-up basketball game.  For the Brewers and their fans this was a good time for him to come back after going 2-8 on their last road trip.

“It was important to see Zack Greinke get the win tonight everybody went home excited and all the fans were ready for tomorrow’s game,” said Zach Ketzer a Brewer fan who just turned 21 from Racine Wisconsin after the game.

The Brewers are hoping that with the addition of Greinke to go along with Yovani Gallardo and other off-season acquisition Shaun Marcum that they will have one of the better pitching rotations this year.

“Our rotation could end up being one of the best in the National League this year,” said Kris McDonald a Brewer fan at the game about the Brewers pitching rotation and its potential this year.

This is the first time the Brewers have made a big move like this to get a big name pitcher since 2008 when they traded for CC Sabathia during the 2008 season.  That trade led the Brewers to the playoffs in 2008 fans are hoping that Greinke can have the same affect.

“Hopefully it has the same effect as CC Sabathia back in 08 when we got him for a half a season but we do have him for the full season now and we have him for next year so that gives us a lot of hope for this year and the year coming,” said McDonald.

The playoff appearance in 2008 was the first time the Brewers made the playoffs since they lost the World Series in 1982 to the St. Louis Cardinals so making it to the playoffs again is big deal for Brewer fans.

“I’ve been a Brewer fan my whole life so it was actually really nice to see the brewers actually pick up somebody in the offseason another star pitcher to try and get us to the playoffs,” said Dan Vanderwielen a Brewer fan at the game.

Greinke also recorded his first hit as a Brewer in the second inning of the game with Brewers catcher Jonathan Lucroy on first base.  He started out trying to bunt Lucroy over but when he evened the count to 2-2 he swung at a pitch and got an infield single.

Defensive play of the night

In the eighth inning Kameron Loe the Brewer’s relief pitcher put a runner on first and third with no one out leading 4-2.

That’s when Jason Bartlett of the Padres hit a ground ball up the middle in which Betancourt fielded it and flipped behind his back in his glove to Rickie Weeks at second base who bare handed it and through it to first to complete the double play.

While that happened the runner scored from third to make it 4-3 game.

The crowd went into a frenzy after the play and after the inning was over the replay was shown on the Brewers new HD screen that got another round of applause and cheers from the crowd.

Rickie Weeks’ big night

Rickie Weeks the Brewers second baseman went 2-4 in the game and had two runs batted in and scored a run to go along with his double play he helped turn in the eighth.

Weeks singled to left in the second inning to score the Brewers catcher Jonathan Lucroy who was on second base after being hit over by Greinke in the previous at bat.  That made the score 2-0 at the time.

Then in the 5^th inning Weeks hit his 7^th home run of the season to right center field.  It was a solo home run that gave the Brewers a 3-1 lead that they didn’t lose.

The rest of the season

After this game the Brewers are now 15-20 and are second to last in their division, the National league central, but are only five games behind the first place St. Louis Cardinals.

After the bad road trip, going 2-8, the Brewers are hoping that Greinke getting this win in the first game of the home stand will start to turn things around for the Brewers and in the future get back into the playoffs.