The Brewers' brass thought it would be a good idea to hand out white towels for the first 30,000 fans to cross the turnstyles last night. Unfortunately, there were only 27,000 and change in attendance but the atmosphere was pretty much there.
Greinke came out rolling with two Ks in the top of the first. Obviously, we were a little late arriving to Miller Park and kind of lost track of time while slamming beers and eating raw chicken in the parking lot so we missed the top of the first...barely. Zack made up for our stupidity though by striking out two more in the second inning on his way to 9 Ks for the night in six innings of work.
He was getting a little shaky by the sixth with his velocity dropping and things of that nature but he punched out the Padres' Brad Hawpe with men on with two outs in the sixth. At first, I thought they should have left him in but after thinking about it, Roenicke made the right decision getting him out. Of course, it's easy to say that when the bullpen holds up their end of the deal.
Kameron Loe got into a jam in the 8th when he immediate put men on the corners with no one out. Then Yuni Betancourt (a man not known for his leather) made the best play I've ever seen in person.
He tracked down a sharp grounder up the middle, did the ol' backhand flip to Weeks from his glove in which Weeks bare-handed and tossed to Prince at first for the double play. A run did score but he may have saved the game with that play. The crowd gave him a standing ovation for his web-gem.
It was nice to see John Axford come in and work a fairly clean ninth for the second time in three days. He worked around a one out single to earn his sixth save of the year in eight chances.
Greinke picked up his first victory (of many) and looked fairly sharp last night. You have to take it with a grain of salt since it was against the Padres who have been shutout 8 times this year and don't have any three-hundred hitters. It was good to see though.
