Smoke Leaves Town Thanks to Braun's Blast

Yesterday in the Milwaukee area was a strange day as the temps dropped and smoke filled the air...from fires in Minnesota. The massive collective exhale from the gathering remaining at Miller Park and Brewer Nation as a whole seems to have pushed the smoke out of town today thanks to an epic blast off the bat of Ryan Braun.

Reminiscent of Braun’s walk-off grand slam in late September of 2008 against the Pirates, last night’s game winner may have been even bigger. The Cardinals and Braves had already won and the Diamondbacks would go on to win their own extra inning affair with the Dodgers. The Brewers meanwhile were doing their normal job of making some unheard of pitcher look like Roy Halliday with no runs until Prince Fielder hit the team’s first home run in three days and only his second in the last 15 games to tie the score at one.

Rockies pitcher Esmil Rogers entered the game with an ERA above 6.00 and a streak of allowing at least 4 runs in less than 7 innings over his last five starts. His previous outing against Arizona saw him give up 8 hits, 5 walks and 2 HR’s in 5 1/3 innings. The Brewers were just the tonic he needed to look like a world beater as they flailed away at sliders in the dirt. The perfect picture of the Crew’s struggles was Corey Hart swinging at a 2 – 0 slider that started a foot off the plate and required the catcher to practically lay out to stop it.

Braun himself called the first 10 innings his “worst of the year”. He entered the at bat 0 – 4 with a strikeout and left three runners stranded. He compounded his struggles at the plate by misplaying a line shot to left that led to the Rockies only run off of starter Zach Grienke who kept his team in it for 5 innings despite clearly not having his best stuff. The rest of the team also was scuffling with no hits between the Fielder and Braun home runs.

Braun was up 3 – 0 in the count before Matt Lindstrom got a call from home plate umpire Timothy Reid McClelland. (I use his full name as he obviously is the most important umpire in the game with his pompous attitude and pathetic pauses on strike and out calls) that kept Braun at the plate. Braun fouled off the next five pitches before the bomb to the second deck in left field.

Braun let all the frustrations and struggles loose as he tossed his bat and reacted vehemently pumping his fist and letting out the biggest beast “scream” of the year. Those still at the park and fans across Milwaukee joined in. Utter joy after a couple weeks of struggles.

"I was definitely excited. It's fun to play meaningful games this time of year," Braun said. "Obviously, we understand what's at stake, and we really haven't been playing good baseball for the last week or so and the trend kind of continued tonight. But we found a way to win, and for me personally, I had plenty of pent-up aggression before I hit that ball."

The win dropped the Brewers’ magic number to just 8 with 13 games remaining. All of those games are against sub-500 teams and even a 6 – 7 finish would force the Cardinals to win out to catch them. St. Louis plays a wrap-around series this weekend in Philly and Matt Holliday was sent back to St. Louis earlier today with a hand injury so the odds are again stacked heavily in the Brewers favor.

Up next is the final game of this two-gamer with Colorado and Shawn Marcum is on the mound. A win today and a good weekend in Cincinnati combined with a few wins by the rampaging Phillies and the Crew might get a chance to wrap things up in Chicago early next week.

This Brewer fan would love to see that scenario play out and have a second bunch of 2011 Cheeseheads celebrating victory on Chicago soil…