Milwaukee third baseman Casey McGehee entered Wednesday afternoon's game against the St. Louis Cardinals with only five home runs all season; he could stake a claim to being the worst every-day player in the National League, east of Los Angeles.
Casey McGehee’s Three Homers Power Brewers Past Cardinals
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Cardinals pitcher Edwin Jackson entered Wednesday afternoon's game against the Brewers hoping to make a good impression in his second start since joining his new club.
Jackson gave up 10 runs and McGehee hit three home runs as the Brewers pushed their lead in the National League Central to 3-1/2 games over the second-place Cardinals.
In the bottom of the first inning, just a few moments after Corey Hart tied the score with a leadoff homer, McGehee made the score 3-1 with his first home run, a drive to right-center field. In the third, McGehee made it 5-4 with a four-bagger over the left-field fence. And in the bottom of the seventh, with Jackson still in the game, McGehee drove a fastball over the center-field fence for his first solo shot.
Just to review ... McGehee hit five home runs in his first 388 plate appearances this season, and three in his next four. This can be a hard game to figure, sometimes.
Tony La Russa can be hard to figure sometimes, too.
With the Cardinals trailing 7-4 in the sixth inning, Edwin Jackson was due to bat with runners on first and third and nobody out.
La Russa let Jackson hit, apparently because La Russa’s relievers had been overtaxed in Thursday’s night’s 8-7 victory in 11 innings. La Russa also let Jackson pitch in the bottom of the sixth, and finish the seventh inning, too.
When La Russa finally yanked Jackson, he’d given up 10 runs on 14 hits, including those four home runs. Before the game, Jackson’s ERA this season was 3.78; afterward it was 4.11.
For Jackson, things could have been a lot worse. In 2006, La Russa left starter Jason Marquis in two games like this ... and both were actually worse. Within the space of a month that season, Marquis gave up 13 runs in one game and 12 in another. When you look at Marquis's career and see his 6.02 ERA in '06, that's why.
Sometimes a pitcher just has to take one for the team. But in a game that was fairly close until the bottom of the sixth, you have to wonder why La Russa -- with a seven-man bullpen at his disposal -- couldn’t get his starter out of the game and keep an important winnable game close.
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