Ben Sheets pitched well in the All Star Game, but he has not pitched particularly well in any of his last few regular season starts.  Perhaps an injury exists that he is playing through but not admitting, but whatever the reason, it appears as though CC Sabathia is Milwaukee’s only true ace for the time being.  Sheets scuffled on Saturday afternoon, yielding four runs (two earned) in five shaky innings.  He surrendered a whopping nine hits to the Giants, and was in line for the loss, but the Brewers simply would not give this one away, as they came roaring back to win 8-5.  To give his club a 1-0 lead, Sheets, a light-hitting pitcher hit a double down the left field line to score Jason Kendall. In the bottom of the fourth, things got ugly when San Francisco scored four times.  A Jose Castillo RBI single, an Omar Vizquel RBI single, an run-scoring fielding error by J.J. Hardy, and a Eugenio Velez RBI double gave the G-Men a 4-1 lead, and with talented southpaw Jonathan Sanchez dominating on the mound (eight strikeouts through the first five frames) it appeared as though the Crew would fall.

But the bottom half of Milwaukee’s lineup came alive at a critical time.  With one out, Corey Hart doubled, Bill Hall and Mike Cameron walked, and while catcher Jason Kendall was batting, new pitcher Keiichi Yabu let one get away from him and Giants’ backstop Bengie Molina did the same.  The wild pitch scored Hart easily, but Molina’s toss to his pitcher sailed down the third base line and Bill Hall slid in to make the game very interesting.  Kendall then was plunked, pinch hitter Craig Counsell was retired, and with one of his biggest hits of the year, Rickie Weeks drove in Cameron and Kendall to give Milwaukee the lead 5-4.  In the sixth, left-handed relief pitcher Mitch Stetter yielded a run to knot the game up at 5 apiece.

Prince Fielder didn’t waste much time in atoning for Stetter’s mishap.  He crushed the first pitch from Osiris Matos, and when the ball came down, there were no fans scrambling to grab it…there were sailboats scrambling to grab it.  It touched legendary McCovey Cove and the Boys in Blue secured a lead they never lost.  Corey Hart scored on a Cameron RBI groundout, and Fielder drove in Ryan Braun in the ninth to give the Brewers’ their last piece of insurance.  Carlos Villanueva, David Riske, and Salomon Torres, did not disappoint, as they hurled 3.1 scoreless frames to seal the deal.  Torres earned his career best 16th save of 2008.

My Take:

Offensive outburst aside…way to go Riske!  The comeback, encouraging as it was, did not surprise me as much as David Riske’s dominant eighth inning of work.  He walked one batter, but fanned three to bridge the gap to Salomon Torres in the ninth as well as any Brewer has done so far this year.  Over the course of his career, he has proven to be much stronger in the second half of seasons, and if that trend continues, the Milwaukee bullpen will benefit greatly.  This would mean that if the Brewers fail to acquire Huston Street from Oakland (if the rumors regarding their interest in him are true) they may not have a glaring hole late in ballgames.  One good performance does not mean he has turned the corner fully, but it is a good sign nonetheless.