News
Suppan surrenders early as Crew falls
Righty gives up three homers; Braun leaves with wrist injury
By Adam McCalvy / MLB.com
05/27/09 12:45 AM ET
MILWAUKEE -- Jeff Suppan finally lost a game to his former team, and he lost it big. Suppan was tagged for three home runs and didn't get out of the fourth inning on a Tuesday night of missed opportunities for the Brewers, who struggled at the plate as mightily as Suppan did on the mound in an 8-1 loss to the Cardinals at Miller Park. "Not a good night for 'Soup' tonight," Brewers manager Ken Macha said. Not a good night for the Brewers' injury- and slump-depleted offense, either. With second baseman Rickie Weeks (wrist) out for the season, shortstop J.J. Hardy (back) out for the fourth straight game, Ryan Braun out after four innings Tuesday night after he was hit by a pitch and Corey Hart and Bill Hall stuck in deep slumps, Cardinals starter Adam Wainwright (5-2) had his way. He even matched Milwaukee's offensive output with a solo home run off Suppan (3-4) in a three-run St. Louis fourth inning. On the mound, Wainwright shut down the Brewers for the second time in 10 days. He wiggled out of a pair of early jams and then cruised through seven strong innings while allowing only one run on five hits to even the score against Suppan, who beat Wainwright in a 1-0 duel on May 16 at Busch Stadium. "He's one of those guys, you can't give him too much of a lead," Brewers center fielder Mike Cameron said. "He was good." The Brewers were 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position and most of those chances came early. In the second inning, Prince Fielder and Cameron singled off Wainwright to start the inning, but Hart, who entered the night hitting .172 in his last 16 games, struck out and Hall, hitless in his past 20 at-bats before his game-winning single in Monday's series opener, flew out. Catcher Jason Kendall reached on an error that loaded the bases, but Suppan flew out on a well-hit fly ball to center field. The Brewers were poised to rally again in the third, when Craig Counsell singled for the first of his two hits before Casey McGehee walked and Braun was hit on the right wrist by a pitch. Braun would leave the game in the top of the fifth inning with a bruise, but not before Fielder put the Brewers on the board with an RBI groundout that cut the deficit to 2-1 and left the tying runner at third base and the go-ahead runner at second. Again, Wainwright stiffened. Cameron hit an infield popout and Hart again struck out, this time to end the inning. Eight pitches after the Brewers loaded the bases with nobody out, the rally was dead with only one run on the scoreboard. "That's probably the game right there," Wainwright said. "If they put up a big, crooked number right there, who knows who wins that game?" Wainwright faced only 17 hitters for his final 15 outs, but there was no duel with Suppan this time. Suppan, a Cardinals pitcher from 2004-06, was tagged for five runs on seven hits in 3 2/3 innings to match his worst start this season. Suppan also allowed five runs in 3 2/3 innings against the Cubs on April 12, but in his next seven starts he was 3-1 with a 3.21 ERA. That string of success included last week's win in St. Louis, in which Suppan improved to 5-0 with a 1.62 ERA against the Cardinals since joining Milwaukee via free agency before the 2007 season. He wasn't nearly as effective on Tuesday. "We had a good game plan going into it, and for the most part I executed pitches," Suppan said. "Obviously, the results weren't there." Cardinals right fielder Nick Stavinoha hit his first Major League home run for a 1-0 lead in the second inning and Colby Rasmus and Wainwright added two more solo shots in the fourth off Suppan. "Today had nothing to do with any previous game," Suppan said. "They obviously hit me well." "He normally has the good command, and what highlighted the fact he didn't have it tonight was that he allowed a couple of first-pitch home runs," said Macha, referring to the fourth-inning shots by Rasmus and Wainwright. Chris Duncan hit the fourth Cardinals homer, a two-run shot off Seth McClung in the sixth. "They out-homered us," Macha said. Macha conceded that his club was a bit under-manned. Weeks was lost for the year to wrist surgery last week, and Hardy went down over the weekend with the recurrence of back spasms, though he hoped to return to the lineup on Wednesday afternoon. So did Braun, though he had a serious welt on the outside of his right wrist from Wainwright's wayward pitch. X-rays were negative, and club officials will make a decision about Braun's availability on Wednesday morning. "It makes it tough, but everybody goes through these streaks," Macha said. "The Cubs were in here and they had [Aramis] Ramirez and [Derrek] Lee out. We played [the Cardinals] in St. Louis when they had three of their home run hitters out of the lineup. You go through streaks like that and you've got to overcome. ... We're going to have to pitch well and get some contributions from other guys."Adam McCalvy is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
