Welcome Back Sheets, Cameron, Offense

If you love a pitchers duel, tonight was not your kind of baseball. I must say its about time for this Brewers offense. The Brewer bats exploded tonight for 17 hits as the Brewers toppled the Cubs 10-7. Four Brewers ended the night with 3 hits, Hardy, Hart, Hall and Cameron. In fact every Brewer position player had a hit in tonight's game. Corey Hart was a home run away from the cycle. Actually nobody hit a home run for the crew. Hopefully from an offensive stand point this kicks off a hot streak.

Ben Sheets came back tonight and seemed to struggle with his pitch location. He walked a career high seven batters, while only striking out 2 working over 5 innings. Sheets did get the win though as he gave up 4 runs, 3 earned. Riske came in and struggled some but got Derek Lee to hit into a key inning ending double play. Torres pitched decent, but 3 consecutive in field hits followed by a gapper allowed the cubs to score 3 runs in the 7th to make the score 9-7. Gagne made things interesting allowing two on base, but in the end pulled out the save, his 8th, without allowing a run.

Some random observations I had. I love that the cubs fans come to the games in droves. It really amps up the feel of the game. Seriously though, by the 6th inning, the fans were booing at every called strike when the Cubs were at bat. Not only that but they would get really excited for any ball hit out of the infield. I've never seen a crowd go into home run mode for every routine fly and pop fly before.

It should be mentioned that home plate umpire Jerry Crawford had to leave the game early. Apparently, he had something wrong, and ended up going to the hospital. Hopefully, everything is alright.

It looked really cold out there. I'm surprised at the offense that generated tonight.

While Sheets did look off for his pitching location, it didn't appear his triceps were a problem, and his fastball was around the 92 mph mark. That's a little low but it was cold, and his curve looked decent. I have heard before that Ben is likes it warm out there so maybe that had something to do with struggling with is location a bit.

Big win by the Crew today, that brings their record to 15-11, one game behind the Cubs for the division lead. Tomorrow the Brewers will send Suppan to the mound against Ryan Dempster. The game will be televised on FSN and ESPN. A little national exposure is pretty nice. The game starts at 7:05 p.m.

Box Score

TBC's Player of the Game: Mike Cameron - The spark plug tonight, going 3-5 with 2 runs and 2 RBI's.