12-11: Milwaukee finally rips a win away from the Red legs.

The 1st place Milwaukee Brewers beat the 2nd place Reds last night!

What a crazy game last night. Marco Estrada continued to show Wisconsin why he should be the #5 starter. At this point, many fans are starting to see that there is a competition for the fifth spot between Marco & Chris Narveson. Of course, Chris is the #5 starter and it's his to lose. But it certainly puts the pressure on him. On the flip side to that, Marco Estrada is facing the inevitiable; batters from opposing teams are going to start taking him more serious and studying up on him by watching his videos. Regardless, he's been a welcomed addition/fill-in while Zack Greinke is on the mend.
Estrada, in just his fifth major league start, gave up only 2 runs on 2 hits which consisted of an infield hit by Mike Leake and a 2-run longball by Brandon Phillips. Joey Votto and Jay Bruce were silenced by the effective Estrada. His velocity was there during his entire 103 pitch outing (64 were strikes) that last 7 innings. Despite not earning the decision, he left the game in good hands with the potent 1-2 punch of Kameron Loe & John Axford. Loe (2-0) earned the win while Axford recorded his 5th save of the season in a 1,2,3 ninth inning.
Most impressive was the power that Milwaukee brought to the park lats night. First off, Ryan Braun (9), Prince Fielder (4), and Rickie Weeks (6) all homered for the home team. Weeks' shot provided the go-ahead run in the 8th inning. Betancourt contributed a pair of hits.

Prince Fielder & Ryan Braun are the most explosive tandem in baseball. The pair lead the league with 23 and 21 (44) RBI. I don't see them keeping this treacherous streak up the whole season, but they are pouring it on when the Crew needs them most. Like I said going in to the season, Milwaukee needs to finish .500 in April in order to have a shot. If they fell in to a whole due to the onslaught of injuries, they may be out of it before you know it. Is any team out of it in April? No, but Milwaukee did a good job of trying to prove that theory to be true last season when Hoffman had all of those blown saves. So here we are with 3 more games left to be played in April. If they finish above .500, they over-achieved this month.

Corey Hart came of the DL early last night and was eligible to pinch hit, which he did (0-1). This was due to the surprise injury to Erick Almonte during BP. He was hit under the right eye from a throw (when he wasn't looking). Almonte was the first player in MLB history to go on the newly created 7-day DL. In order to get paced on there, he had to fail a number of tests administered by MLB. Hopefully he's ok and this isn't a nagging injury like Corey Koskie or Justin Morneau's. Hart will start in todays rubber match at 1:05pm (Wednesday).

Sam Lecure will take to the mound today against Yovani Gallardo. Lecure, RHP, is coming off of 7 days rest as the Reds' swingman.

Milwaukee already sold 2 million tickets as of today, beating last years mark. The franchise record for "fastest to 2 million" was in 2001 when Miller Park opened.

Today in Brewers history....the CHAD MOELLER cycle. Not be be overshadowed by the Jody Gerut cycle.

Cutter Dykstra, the ex-Brewer prospect that was traded to DC as part of the Nyjer Morgan deal, did an interview on his father.