Gallardo leads Brewers past Diamondbacks <h3>MILWAUKEE 10, ARIZONA 1</h3>MILWAUKEE (Ticker) -- The Milwaukee Brewers hope rookie YovaniGallardo will eventually be the staff ace. For the time being,he's doing his best to impersonate the incumbent. Taking the place of injured Ben Sheets, Gallardo pitched sixscoreless innings as Milwaukee thumped the Arizona Diamondbacks,10-1, on Thursday. Gallardo (2-1) allowed three hits and two walks with fourstrikeouts. The Mexican fireballer lowered his ERA to 2.34 andhas departed all four of his starts this season with the lead.In those outings, the righthander has surrendered just sixearned runs in 25 1/3 innings. Run support was not an issue for the 21-year-old Gallardo, whowatched Tony Graffanino drive in three runs and rip his eighthhome run of the season. An RBI double by rookie Ryan Braun in the first and a solo homerun by Graffanino in the fourth off starter Livan Hernandez(5-6) staked the Brewers to a 2-0 lead. Milwaukee blew the game open in the sixth. After the Brewers loaded the bases with one out, Tony Gwynn Jr.delivered an RBI single and Craig Counsell followed with atwo-run single. Hernandez was replaced by Dustin Nippert, who completed theinning, but not before plating the Brewers' fourth run of theinning with a throwing error on a pickoff attempt. The Brewers tacked on four more runs an inning later on atwo-run double by Graffanino and a two-run blast by Gabe Gross. Brewers reliever Matt Wise pitched the the final three inningsfor the Brewers, which allowed him to earn his first save of theseason. The only blemish for Wise came in the seventh, when hegave up a solo blast to Conor Jackson. Hernandez allowed six runs - five earned - and eight hits in 51/3 innings. The righthander also walked five while strikingout three. It was only the third time in their last 13 games that theBrewers had exceeded four runs, finishing with six runs on theother two occasions.
Gallardo leads Brewers past Diamondbacks <h3>MILWAUKEE 10, ARIZONA 1</h3>MILWAUKEE (Ticker) -- The Milwaukee Brewers hope rookie YovaniGallardo will eventually be the staff ace. For the time being,he's doing his best to impersonate the incumbent. Taking the place of injured Ben Sheets, Gallardo pitched sixscoreless innings as Milwaukee thumped the Arizona Diamondbacks,10-1, on Thursday. Gallardo (2-1) allowed three hits and two walks with fourstrikeouts. The Mexican fireballer lowered his ERA to 2.34 andhas departed all four of his starts this season with the lead.In those outings, the righthander has surrendered just sixearned runs in 25 1/3 innings. "(Gallardo) stayed on the attack," Brewers manager Ned Yostsaid. "He really commanded that down-and-away fastball that wewant all of our pitchers to do. "I'd like to see him go a little bit longer in the game. Ithink he can, but we're going to guard him a little bit. We'renot going to let him into the 120-pitch count." Gallardo's potential is softening the blow of losing Sheets, whotore the tissue surrounding the tendon in the middle finger ofhis pitching hand last Saturday and will be sidelined four tosix weeks. "There's a difference (between starting and relieving), but I'vebeen starting pretty much since I signed, so I just took it asa regular start," Gallardo said. "I was just going to go outand do the best I can and hopefully get a win out of it.Anything can happen in this game, so whether it be one run, 10runs, I'm going to pitch the same way I always pitch and beaggressive." Run support was not an issue for the 21-year-old Gallardo, whowatched Tony Graffanino drive in three runs and rip his eighthhome run of the season. An RBI double by rookie Ryan Braun in the first and a solo homerun by Graffanino in the fourth off starter Livan Hernandez(5-6) staked the Brewers to a 2-0 lead. "I wasn't sure if I had (my career high) or not, I knew I waspretty close," said Graffanino, who has matched his career highof eight home runs. "I'm past the point of looking at numbers.I'm just helping the team win. There's a lot of things thatare going on in here you feel good about." Milwaukee blew the game open in the sixth. After the Brewers loaded the bases with one out, Tony Gwynn Jr.delivered an RBI single and Craig Counsell followed with atwo-run single. Hernandez was replaced by Dustin Nippert, who completed theinning, but not before allowing the Brewers' fourth run with athrowing error on a pickoff attempt. The Brewers tacked on four more runs an inning later on atwo-run double by Graffanino and a two-run blast by Gabe Gross. "It was nice after a frustrating day for me personally," saidGross, who has seen limited playing time this season. "I talkedto a lot of guys last year because my role was fairly similarand everybody had one thing to say: It's the hardest job in thebig leagues, to try and be a pinch hitter and come off the benchand maintain your swing and balance, it's very hard. But atthe same time, it's my job, and I'm doing the best I can." Matt Wise pitched the the final three innings for the Brewers,which allowed him to earn his first save of the season. Theonly blemish for Wise came in the seventh, when he gave up asolo blast to Conor Jackson. Hernandez allowed six runs - five earned - and eight hits in 51/3 innings. The righthander also walked five while strikingout three. It was only the third time in their last 13 games that theBrewers had exceeded four runs, finishing with six runs on theother two occasions. "They're at the top of the division right now and you want toplay them hard and at least get a split today, but it's not theend of the world for us," said Jackson, referring theDiamondbacks' one win in the four-game set. "It's frustrating,but we can't push the panic button yet. There's a lot ofbaseball left, a couple months left." Arizona pieced together just five hits in the loss. "I don't think guys are going up there with no plan," managerBob Melvin said. "We were trying to take (Gallardo's) fastballaway from him and make him use his breaking stuff, but hisfastball was just getting by us. "You could tell he's a pretty confident kid out there from thestart. His fastball explodes and he really doesn't have to usehis breaking ball that much. We saw a better curveball from himon film than we did today, but he spots his fastball verywell."
