Brewers 4, Marlins 3

By: Big Rygg

What an 8th inning. Just when you thought that we were looking toward our last at-bats in the 9th for any hope of avoiding extra innings, Corey Hart showed that he is healthy and J.J. Hardy showed one more time that he is breaking out of his slump.

Admit it. When Craig Counsell and Tony Graffanino are the first two hitters of your inning, you just expect two outs. I did last night. I was right.

What I didn't expect was for Corey Hart to be so danged hot. He laces a double down the left field line and just like that we've got a guy in scoring position. J.J. Hardy then decides that since Francisco Cordero has been warming up "just in case", that Cordero needed "just in case" to turn into "here we go." Hardy singled in the go ahead (and eventually winning) run. In a show of incredible baseball smarts, he also took an exaggerated turn around first base to tempt the infielders (in this case the catcher himself) to abandon trying to throw out Hart at home and instead make sure that they got out of the inning by getting Hardy in a rundown. Very smart baseball play.

Yost waited until the 9th was officially underway, and then went out and got Carlos Villanueva (2 IP, 0 R) in favor of Coco.

One lovely *CLICK* *CLICK* *BOOM!* later, and the Brewers have all of a sudden won two of their last three. The bats seem to be coming back around a bit, and the team is heading in the right direction.

To get to the 7th, we saw Claudio Vargas doing his best to reinforce a potential nickname for himself. That nickname, a la Cal Naughton, Jr., would be "The Magic Man"; so-called for his ability to work out of impossibly tough jams.

Very solid outing by Vargas. He was rewarded with a tick in the "quality starts" column even though he wasn't the pitcher of record.

One more note...I realized that I tend to bypass Prince Fielder's home runs lately. It's not that I think they should be downplayed, but because they've happened so much lately, I think I'm subconsciously believing that you guys already know that they continue to happen.

Regardless, Prince Fielder did hit his Major League tying 19th home run of the season. He also set a Brewers' record for the most home runs hit in a single month, breaking a four way tie he entered into last night. He is truly coming into his own as a hitter. Within a year, everyone will be referring to him as simply Prince Fielder, and never as Cecil Fielder's son.

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In other news, as broken by me to Usinger's Real Baseball Postgame Show, Rickie Weeks was officially listed as disabled (15-day) tonight after the game. His wrist continues to bother him. While he visits the doctor that performed his surgery, the Brewers made the move to recall right-handed relief pitcher José Capellan from AAA Nashville.

Capellan's problems this season are well documented, so I won't get into them again, but suffice it to say that Capellan's promotion would've happened a lot sooner if not for his attitude. That being said, I think that he can help this team win and that he deserves a chance to show us all what he's still got.

With the move, the Brewers are back to 12 pitchers and 13 hitters on the 25-man roster. I personally think that we need another move. We don't need 6 outfielders on this team, especially when a couple of them are no longer currently helping us win. I think it might be time to option somebody down out of the OF and call up a man that can truly help this team out in a multitude of areas: Vinny Rottino.

A backup for Prince Fielder? Check.
An emergency 6 backup for the OF? Check.
An offensively-capable backup for Ryan Braun? Check.
A third catcher "just in case"? Check.

What's not to like about this guy again?

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Tomorrow night is the 5th "Retro Friday" of the 2007 season and is Don Sutton 5-inch bobblehead doll night. I will once again be in attendance at the game. My wife and I will be in Section 427, Row 15, Seats 5 & 6. Feel encouraged to stop up and say hello. Hopefully I'll have a new digital camera for tomorrow night's game. My mom said she's buy me one for my birthday, but that's not for another month and a half. I need to start taking some more pictures!

Tomorrow is one of only two games that I have pre-bought tickets for as a part of my 20 Game Pack for this year. It's my lightest month at the ballpark, though I might end up going to Sunday's game too in order to get a Prince Fielder bobblehead.

I'm making up for a light June by blitzkreiging the park post-All Star game. I've got tickets to July 13th, 19th, 20th and 31st, August 3rd, 4th, 5th, 17th and 31st, and September 3rd, 14th, 25th, 28th and 30th. I'll probably wind up at August 14th as well as that's a special night too.

Yup...a LOT of baseball left to be played and a LOT that I'll be seeing in person.

In case you were curious, I'm officially 4-3 on the year in game attended thanks to the Brewers beating the Braves this past Tuesday night.

Anyway, I'll see you at Miller Park!

GO BREWERS!!!!!