ESPN.com – MLB – Recap – Brewers at Braves

That sucked. Bad defense. Bad pitching. Runners left all over the place. And Reitsma — pitching mostly because it’s the last game before the break so why not? — hit by a line drive and suffering a possible broken rib.

Roman Colon had a rough go of it, thought it wasn’t all his fault. He had two errors made behind him, so two of the five runs he allowed were scored unearned. But he allowed a homer, and a lot of balls were hit hard. He only got two strikeouts, and he really needs more to be successful. I still think that he should stick around after the break instead of Davies, but it may not work out that way.

The bullpen wasn’t a lot of help. Foster allowed an inherited run in the fifth before getting two outs. Boyer allowed a run and it could have been worse but for a runner thrown out at the plate to end an inning. Kolb gave up a homer. Brower was good, two strikeouts. But then Reitsma got in trouble, allowing a run, and then the line drive with two outs. Gryboski walked the bases loaded before getting out of it. I assume that if Reitsma has to go on the DL that Brower will get the closer job, but maybe Sosa will. Hopefully it’s just a bruise.

Furcal had a huge day, going 5-5 and missing the cycle by the elusive triple. But all four times he reached base other than the homer, he failed to score. Largely it was because Kelly Johnson had an awful day. After the double leading off the first, he popped out behind the plate. In the eighth, with the bases loaded and two out, he struck out, falling down in the process. He grounded into a double play to end the sixth. He struck out another time on his way to 0-5. Hey, he’s a rookie, he’s entitled to the occasional bad game.

Andy Marte, meanwhile, hit three long fly balls that on another day or in another park might have been homers, but all were noisy outs. He also committed two errors and struck out to end the game. He had a hit, but it was ruled an error. The only rookie to succeed today was Francoeur, who hit a two-run homer to tie the game in the second. On the other hand, he struck out his other three at-bats.

Juliometer.GIFThe Brewers have a different way of pitching and playing Andruw. They play an extreme shift in the infield, one you rarely see against a righthanded hitter, which robbed him of an RBI single in the fourth. (That was big; the Braves led 4-2 at the time, and if they’d gotten another run there might have run away with it.) They walked him two other times. That will burn you sometimes, but Julio had a bit of a rough day until he finally got a hit with one out in the ninth, and Marte behind him had that terrible luck.

The Natspos and Phillies are going to extras. The Cubs beat the Marlins again. Hopefully my power won’t go out, but if it does presumably it will be back on before Thursday, when the Braves face the Mets in New York, the first of four. No pitchers announced yet. Assuming Smoltz pitches in the All-Star Game, I’d bet on Hudson versus Kristin Benson… No, wait, Pedro dropped out of the game, so I guess he’ll pitch.