Gallardo Gets Better of Big Unit

Now that's what you call an ace. After looking a little nervous in the first couple of innings during the Brewers 4-2 victory over the Giants on Wednesday night, Yovani Gallardo eventually found his grove. YoGa went 6 2/3 innings, allowing just six hits and two earned runs. He also struck out six Giants batters in the process. But what separated his performance from his counterpart's, Randy Johnson, was the 3-run home-run Gallardo hit off Johnson in the 5th inning.

And yeah, you read that correctly.

Gallardo scored Kendall and Hall after swinging on a high-fast ball that he took to deep left field. It's Gallardo's third home-run of his career, and the first that any pitcher has ever hit off Randy Johnson. We already knew Gallardo was a good hitting-pitcher, but you can't ask for a better plate appearance than that. That three-run homer was pretty much the difference, as the bullpen was able to keep the Giants at bay the rest of the game.

Speaking of the bullpen, not a bad performance from them at all. Todd Coffey earns a hold for his 1 1/3 innings pitched, which included getting out of a bases loaded jam. Carlos Villanueva pitched perfectly in the closer role, striking out two batters to earn the save. With him pitching the 8th and Hoffman the 9th once Trevor is healthy, that's going to be a pretty solid back of the rotation I'm thinking. 

Another key performer in this game was Mike Cameron, who homered off of Randy Johnson right after Bear was done telling me that Cameron was something like 2 for 26 against the Big Unit in his career, a run which including 18 strikeouts. Ryan Braun had another good night, notching two doubles. Hall's double in the fifth helped lead to the Gallardo home run (who should have never even batted, but the Giants chose to walk Kendall to get to Gallardo, something tells me they won't do that ever again).

In the bad news department, Hart, Fielder, and Weeks all went hitless. As did J.J. Hardy, who is know 0 for 9 on the young season.

Rubber match between these two teams is tonight at 6:05pm. 

You like fishsticks? What are you, a gay fish?

Player of the Game: Gallardo.