Brewers record: 4-3 (week), 73-34, 1st place, MGL (season)
July 30-31, versus Portland:
4-1,
11-6
August 1-3, at San Francisco:
3-2,
0-1,
2-5.
August 4-5, versus Baltimore:
6-1,
1-8.
After losing game 1 of a 3-game set against the woeful Portland Wild Things, the Brewers bounce back in the second game behind ace
Sadahige Kawasaki (11-6, 2.29).
Kawasaki worked 8 innings, giving up 1 run on 5 hits.
Tim Shore pitched the 9th to earn his 18th save.
Antonio Acuna went 2 for 3 with 2 RBI in the win and hit his 6th double as a Brewer while also swiping his 3rd bag.
Rich White hit his 6th home run of the season.
And the Brewers took the series in the rubber match as they gave starter
Sekien Hamasaki (14-2, 2.23) plenty of run support.
Hamasaki lasted 6 innings, giving up 3 runs on 6 hits. Among the hitting heroes was third baseman
Jake DiCesare who went 2 for 4 with 2 runs scored and 2 driven in and hit his 5th double.
Josh Schaeffer went 3 for 4 and scored twice, hitting his 13th double in this one.
Val Guzman went 2 for 3, scored 3 times, walked once and was hit by a pitch. And
Brett Taranto collected just one hit but it was his 13th home run of 1978.
The Brewers than travelled out to the bay area to take on the San Francisco Velocity for three games.
In game 1 the Brewers had to claw back from an early deficit and found a way to tie the game in the top of the 9th and then held on to win the game in 10 innings. It was a good pitching match-up between Denver's
Jim Atwell (7 IP, 2 ER, 5 HA, 6 K, 2 BB) and San Francisco's Dan Knauff (7.2 IP, 1 ER, 4 HA, 8 K, 0 BB) but ultimately it came down to the bullpens and the Brewers prevailed with
Jason Gottula (5-4, 2.70) getting the win and
Tim Shore earning his 19th save.
Val Guzman's 10th inning double, his 17th 2-bagger of the season, provided the winning run.
Josh Schaeffer and
Jake DiCesare both stay hot with
Schaeffer going 2 for 5 and hitting his 14th double and
DiCesare going 2 for 4 in the victory.
But the Brewers bats went on hiatus in game 2 as the talented San Francisco 24-year old right-hander Jon Harrington, finally getting his chance in the rotation this year, went the distance to earn the shutout, scattering 9 hits.
Steve Green (8-7, 4.25) took the loss, in spite of only allowing 1 run on 7 hits over his 7 1/3rd innings worked.
Zacarias Martell went 2 for 4 in the loss, hitting his 13th double of the season.
And the Velocity get the home series win when Mike Stagner outpitches
Erik Sloan (5-3, 4.82) in game 3.
Sloan allowed 5 runs on 7 hits over 6 innings pitched.
Josh Schaeffer went 3 for 5 in the loss and hit a pair of doubles to get to 16. And
Brett Taranto went 2 for 4, collecting his 21st double and 14th stolen base.
The Brewers were happy to return home to Denver after suffering the series loss to the Velocity and would now take on the Baltimore Lords.
They got the win in the first game of the three game series, getting another strong start from
Sadahige Kawasaki (12-6, 2.22).
Kawasaki went the distance, allowing just 1 run on 6 hits.
Josh Schaeffer continued his assault on MGL pitching, going 3 for 4 with 2 runs scored in this one.
Brett Taranto went 3 for 3 and got his 15th stolen base. And
Antonio Acuna was 2 for 4 and clubbed his 7th homer of the season (in limited PA's) while also swiping his 4th base. (
Joe McPhillips also picked up his 15th stolen base and
Bobby Erbakan, who had gone cold at the plate most of the week, hit his 17th double of 1978.)
In game 2 the Brewers saw a rare poor start this season from
Sekien Hamasaki (14-3, 2.27), who gave up 6 runs (to be fair, only 2 were earned) on 8 hits over 5 and 2/3rds innings. His teammates also gave him little run support, though
Brett Taranto did go 2 for 3 at the plate and backup catcher
Kirk Patnode contributed a 2 for 4 game.