Yovanni & Bullpen Deliver

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Milwaukee 4 - San Fransisco 2

Although Milwaukee's new ace (soon to be) has only pitched one outing since last April, Yovanni Gallardo looked excellent in last night's win. Not only did the kid throw the ball hard, he also blasted a 3-run hommer that eventually led to Milwaukee first win of the season. Both he and Mike Cameron went the distance.

Most impressive was the fact that Randy Johnson (45 years old) intentionally walked Jason Kendall in order to get to the "inexperience pitcher". Mistake. Jonnson even gave a noticeable head-knod to catcher Benji Molina notifying him of a high fastball to see if Yo would chase. Well he did...and smacked it over the leftfield wall.
-Yovanni on Randy:
"Growing up watching him pitch, he's a great pitcher," Gallardo said of Johnson. "Not many people get the opportunity to do that. Going around the bases, I was very excited."
-Randy on Yovanni
"He's arguably theire best pitcher and he's got a great future ahead of him," said Johnson. "I wanted that pitch higher. You just tip your hat to him." -jsonline.com

Both Yovanni and Randy Johnson had pretty good outings. The grizzly veteran threw 5 innings with a couple of big mistakes. One was hanging one in on Mike Cameron that led to a solo-shot homerun, Milwaukee's first of the year. The other was going high in the strike zone on Yo. Johnson was still effective, striking out 7 batters and allowing only 4 earned runs on 4 hits. He only walked two batters.

Yovanii went 6 2/3 innings giving up 6 hits, striking out 6, 2 walks, and 2 earned run. He only slipped once when he beamed Fred Lewis with a wild pitch.

The bullpen threw 7 1/3 hitless innings and sealed the deal for Gallardo. Todd Coffey (hold) looked solid as did Carlos Villanueva (save) in his first game as a closer striking out two batters. Ken Macha pointed out that if it were allowed by the rules, there would've been two saves. Crazy-ass Macha.

The offense was held to only 5 hits that was led by Ryan Braun and Billy Hall's eaching hitting a pair of doubles.

Notes:
I was only able to watch the first 5 innings before turning it in. Since I dropped Dish and signed up with Charter, I have been learning the buttons on my remote. Apparently I screwed up in trying to record the remainder of the game. So I have yet to see the last 4 innings.
My note on that is Charter has not lived up to it's advertised value.

Ken Macha has done an about-face with his base runners. He said that they would be conservative, especially while in scoring position. Well, Braunie didn't get the message and got thrown out while trying to steal third....while PRINCE FIELDER was up to bat. That didn't impress me much (like Shania Twain).

Does anybody else cringe when they see Braunie slide while stealing or getting back to first? I do. With that strained oblique injury he had only weeks ago, one can't help but look past that. After all that's what limited him last year in September and October.

BTW...have you seen Ken Macha move his feet at all? He twists the torso to talk to his players and coach, but has cemented feet. He may also have a cemented mouth, the damn thing never moves. No fascial expression. He slightly smurked when Yo hit the homer. He reminds me of the a Catholic nun-teacher. Someone who has a ruler in hand ready to smack you in you get out of line. Which is good for this young team.

The three benchmen (Duffy, Nelson, and McGehee) are all waiting for their at-bats. Patience, your time will come.

Trevor Hoffman says he's almost ready. My only quelm about that is if Villanueva has impressive outings. Why fix something that's not broken? Was that included in TH's contract? That he had to close? Or could he set-up? Yes, it's only been one game. But TH won't be back for at least a week and if Carlos is throwing well in the closing role....

Casey McGehee donned a #52 jersey throughout spring training. When asked what number he wanted to wear in the regular season, Casey didn't care. He's just happy to be there. So the club had #14 hanging in his locker on Tuesday. Kind of nice. '

Cool story on Wisconsin Timber Rattlers' hitting coach Matt Erickson, who's an Appleton native.

Jerry Augustine looked really tired on FSWisconsin last night....really tired. He was rusty, but did have some good info. I miss Jeff Cirillo.

Antigo-native Justin Berg, who donns the #64 jersey (after hwy 64 that connects Merrill to Antigo) was sent to AAA already (Des Moines). Pretty impressive for the kid. He's already pitched at Yankee stadium!

Jordan Zimmerman will start in Syracuse (AAA) for the Nationals this season. He begins play today. He is a UWSP alumni.