Prince Leads Crew to Victory

How do you answer the critics that say you're not the player you were last year, and that you're going to be one of the major fantasy busts of the 2008 season? You do what Prince Fielder did today, and hit a game winning home run in extra innings to lead the Brewers to a 5-3 victory of the St. Louis Cardinals.

It was the first home run of the season for Fielder, who went 2 for 5 on the days with three RBI. His efforts was back of a late-game comeback for the Crew, who trailed 3-0 in the 8th inning before Hernan Irribarren, Ryan Braun, and Fielder each knocked in a run. You gotta give Fielder player of the game honors, even though Craig Counsell put in a nice 3 for 4 performance in place of Bill Hall.

Parra didn't last long in this one, going just four innings and giving up 3 runs and 5 hits in the process. It's going to be a tough decision in the next couple of days for Ned and Doug as they decide which pitcher will be moved to make room for Yovani Gallardo. Bush, Villanueva, and now Parra all put in decent, yet unspectacular performances over the last three days. McClung, Mota, Shouse and Gagne did a nice job of keeping runs off the board the rest of the way, although Gagne did struggle early on. He put two men on base before he was able to retire the next three batters.

It's hard to say a win was a "big win" even though we're still in April, but this was a pretty big win. It's nice to get out of St. Louis with at least one game out of the three, especially since they are the current division leader. Hopefully they can keep this momentum as they head into Cincinnati for a weekend series.

While we take on the Reds, we'll be waiting on who will be moved for Gallardo, who is likely to pitch Sunday. In the meantime, the Brewers made another roster move today, calling up Mitch Stetter from Nashville and sending Hernan Iribarren back down. Also, Tony Gwynn Jr. has joined Nashville for a rehab assignment. I'm not quite sure why the Brewers made this move, I never like when they have 13 pitchers instead of the 12 most teams carry.

Box Score.

TBC's Player of the Game: Prince Fielder