Homers quiet Miller Park crowd

Todd D. Milewski  —  10/05/2008 9:50 pm

MILWAUKEE -- The noise from Brewers fans at Miller Park in the first few innings on Sunday was so pronounced that Phillies left fielder Pat Burrell only knew he had hit a three-run home run by how quiet things quickly got.

Burrell said he couldn't find either the ball or the umpire as he was running along the basepaths, but the silence was a dead giveaway that he had given the Phillies a 4-0 lead in the third inning.

"You've got to give a lot of credit to the fans here," Burrell said after a 6-2 victory clinched the National League Division Series. "They really packed it in and made it tough for us, which is why it was really important for us to get a lead and why it was really difficult yesterday being down, too. They just didn't let up on us."

The Brewers handed out inflatable Thunderstix to the 43,934 fans Sunday, and the din of fans slamming them together at the start of the game made it hard to hear even anything from the speakers with Miller Park's roof closed.

But Jimmy Rollins turned the volume down with a leadoff home run, and the crowd enthusiasm dipped noticeably in the third, when the Phillies hit back-to-back homers for a 5-0 lead.

Brewers interim manager Dale Sveum said he tried to get the crowd back into things by using CC Sabathia as a pinch hitter for Jeff Suppan in the bottom of the third inning.

"I knew if I sent him up there, that the crowd would get back in the game when the crowd was taken out of the game," Sveum said.

Sabathia got a loud response from the crowd both before and after he struck out taking big hacks at three straight pitches from Joe Blanton.

Paying for the intentional pass

Burrell put the Brewers in a big hole after his third-inning homer off Suppan, and it came on the heels of a two-out intentional walk to Phillies clean-up hitter Ryan Howard.

"For me, in that situation when they pitch around the big guy, the pressure is on," Burrell said. "That's the situation you want to be in as a player. The way he's been swinging the bat, I mean, you can't blame the other team for pitching around him, especially in that situation there.

"The goal there is just to try to get something to hit. Up to this point I didn't think I could have hit any of the strikes he was calling. Fortunately, I hung around long enough to get a good pitch to hit."

Howard grounded into a double play to end the first inning and the NL home run champion was 2-for-9 in the series entering his third-inning plate appearance. Burrell got his first hit in nine series at-bats in the second inning, a single.

But Burrell entered the game hitting .429 (9-for-21) against Suppan with three home runs.

"The goal there coming into this series is not let Howard hit two-pointers against you," Sveum said. "It's not that difficult of a decision. Burrell came into the series hitting .170 off righties the last 30 days. Unfortunately, obviously he was our Achilles' (heel) today, on obviously two pitches when we had him in the count in our favor. So, unfortunately, it didn't work out."

Burrell also hit an eighth inning solo homer off Guillermo Mota.

Staying with it

Craig Counsell recorded what probably was the most eventful putout of the series.

The Brewers third baseman reacted quickly when a Jayson Werth fly ball to left redirected off one of the roof support cables and headed back toward the infield in the sixth inning.

Counsell initially reacted to Werth's contact with the ball by nonchalantly looking at the ground, but when left fielder Ryan Braun and shortstop J.J. Hardy alerted him to the ball hitting the cable, Counsell was able to dive and snare the ball.

"I put my head down and was moving toward third base where I wanted to be in case something happened when I heard J.J. yell at me," Counsell said. "The ball was close enough and I just went for it.

"Nobody's ever seen the ball hit the roof here. In most places if it's fair, it's in play. It's probably a once-in-a-lifetime play."

Braun said the fielders weren't sure whether the play would be a ruled a ground-rule double because it hit the cable.

"It was a phenomenal play by Counsell," Braun said.

Relief from bullpen

If there was a highlight from the four-game series for the Brewers, it was their bullpen.

Relievers covered 18 innings, allowing 12 hits and only one run -- the home run off Mota on Sunday. They struck out 12 batters while walking only four.

"They were the reason we were here," Sveum said. "The bullpen was as good as it could be. We gave up very few runs, very few base runners as a matter of fact, and there's no doubt that we're here, able to play in these games, because of what our bullpen did."

Todd D. Milewski  —  10/05/2008 9:50 pm