Pitcher Fiers up Brewers

You’ve seen this too many times in recent years as a Brewers fan. “Some guy” gets called up from the minors to make his first major league start or his first start of the season or a “spot start”. The pitcher proceeds to dominate a Brewers lineup and the team bows meekly and the head scratching begins.

That could well have been the story again last night in LA had it not been for the remarkable outing turned in by Michael Fiers, who got his team through 7 innings and gave up only one run to beat the best team in baseball after a call-up the night before to take Marco Estrada’s spot in the rotation.

Fiers and catcher Martin Moldanado were the next two Nashville Sounds to be brought up to the Majors amid the seemingly constant injury rotation the team finds itself in. Fiers was the seventh pitcher to start a game for the team this season pushing the team ahead of last season when they used only six starters all season. What a difference a year makes!

After getting through most of 2011 with only Carlos Gomez and Rickie Weeks missing significant time, the team has lost three players for the season before June 1. Weeks and Aramis Ramirez have missed some games after being hit by pitches. Pile on the trips to the DL of Gomez, Estrada and Travis Ishikawa along with the strange trip for Jonathan Lucroy and you have to wonder if this is payback for the health of a year ago.

But all those troubles can be put aside for one night at least. Ryan Braun continued his consistently great play by belting a two-run homerun in the first inning and Fiers, K-Rod and Axford did the rest shutting down the potent Dodgers offense despite the return of Matt Kemp from the DL.

Braun has caught and passed Kemp in both HRs and RBI while Kemp nursed his sore hamstring. He is hitting over .300 and despite the continued “slow start” of Aramis Ramirez providing no protection (to the point where Braun has actually been intentionally walked) he is on pace to have identical numbers to his MVP season.

The night belonged to Fiers however and his reaction to getting the final out in the seventh inning was classic. He looked ready to break down and wonderfully relieved at the same time. It mattered to him and he did everything he could to give the best performance in a debut by a Brewers pitcher in recent memory. At one crucial moment he fell behind the pitcher 3-0 with runners already on first and second and you had to think the wheels were about to come off. Instead, he placed three straight fastballs down the heart of the plate and emphatically smacked his glove on his way off the mound. His teammates gave him lots of love in the dugout when he exited for a pinch hitter even if they didn’t provide many runs.

The team will trot out Yovanni Gallardo and Zach Greinke the next two evenings in LA and have a chance to make this an amazing west coast swing if the team can back them up with some runs. Then it would be home to face Pittsburgh (24-25) before 12 games against the worst four teams in baseball: the Chicago Cubs, San Diego, Kansas City and Minnesota.

You can hardly pencil in any guaranteed victories with that schedule as the Brewers have the sixth-worst record in all of baseball and last night started: Taylor Green, Cody Ransom, Fiers and Maldonado – all players far from the expected this year. They continue to struggle scoring runs and regularly play two players (Weeks and Nyjer Morgan) hitting worse than .220.

But at least, thanks to one Michael Fiers; there is some hope that the team can survive the injuries and work their way back into the chase.