Power Bats Lead Brewers To 9-6 Game 1 Victory

There was no love lost between the Milwaukee Brewers and St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday night as the two division rivals took the field for Game 1 of the NLCS. Ahead of the series, the league warned both teams to keep their cools, reminding them that big brother was watching for any fishy behavior after a bit of pre-series trash talk.

The war of words began with a shot across the Cardinals’ bow by Zach Greinke.

Game 1 of the NLCS is in the books and the Milwaukee Brewers hold a 1-0 advantage in the series. Thanks to a huge inning, Milwaukee was able to reel in and put away the St. Louis Cardinals in one quick motion. The end result was a 9-6 win, with six of the Brewers’ runs coming in one inning.

Here are a few of the highlights from the Baseball Nation live-blog.

They’re good in the city, also.

Today in Milwaukee they’re not the only ones.

She hid her emotions well, putting her mink stole on the credenza, and leaving the ruby brooch on the lancelynn. But when she saw his portrait staring back at her, she crumbled into a sobbing heap.

Oddly, that’s a real sentence from a real 1940s novel that I really didn’t write.

Well, this isn’t going quite as the Brewers planned. With the future of their powerful offensive core in doubt after this season, Milwaukee traded all sorts of baubles and trinkets to get Zack Greinke and Shaun Marcum for this year. And in the regular season, it worked beautifully. So far in the postseason, they might have rather had Lorenzo Cain pitch a few innings.

Rafael Furcal led off the top of the fifth with a double -- a line shot to right-center on a 2-0 fastball. Greinke was in trouble again, but a great play from Prince Fielder kept Furcal from scoring

You can go ahead and forget all about that now. I guess Greinke might still have a good game - we’ll see how things go - but the top of the fourth dealt Greinke’s statistics a serious blow.

It didn’t look like Freese hit a home run off the bat. If anything, it looked like a soft fly off the bat, and maybe even a bloop single. But the ball got caught in some kind of jet stream that I didn’t know existed, and it just kept on going and going. Maybe this is why Greinke has had so much home run trouble all season. Maybe he’s just allowed a bunch of weak fly balls that got caught in an inexplicable jet stream.

Gomez, see, is a right-handed hitter with a career .679 OPS against lefties. Morgan is a left-handed hitter with a career .558 OPS against lefties. Seriously, check this out: .201/.288/.270. That’s Nyjer Morgan over 381 career plate appearances against left-handed pitchers. Two home runs. Really horrible.

Hairston bats second because he’s a righty with contact and on-base ability, and because Gomez would be a really terrible #2 hitter. Gomez’s .679 OPS against lefties comes with a .287 OBP. Carlos Gomez makes a lot of outs. You don’t want your #2 hitter to make a lot of outs, unless they’re intentional, sacrifice outs. Which #2 hitters make all the time...

“That’s a bad comment to make unless you know Chris Carpenter,” La Russa said. “Our attitude is we look at ourselves and we grade ourselves. And even if we don’t like what’s happening on the other side, we don’t make a -- it’s not our business, unless somebody crosses the line. So I think the Brewers should take care of their players.”

The teams split their regular season match up, 9-9.