[BirdWatcher]

The Brewers first series coming out of the All-Star break is three games at Charlotte against the first place Sting.
A perfect chance to gain a little ground.
Or fall farther behind.

For reasons that will become apparent with the next post, I am going to report just the first two games of the series here first.

In game 1, the Brewers were once again handed a loss largely due to the efforts of a former Brewer, in this case starting pitcher Adam Getchell. Getchell allowed just 1 run on 4 hits over 8 1/3rd innings pitched, and that run wasn't scored until the 9th inning. Erik Sloan pitched a great game against his former team, also, which kept the Brewers in the game up to the end. Sloan takes the loss to drop to 2-1 as a Brewer (10-4 overall) but allowed just 2 runs on 7 hits over 7 innings pitched as the Sting won 2-1. The Brewers stranded a runner at third base as another former (briefly) Brewer, Jamel McNeil, came in with 1 out and struck out the two batters he faced to finish the game.

Game 2 saw the Brewers bats once again silenced by the Sting. The big hero for the Sting was naturally former Brewer Brian Coppola. Coppola, an 8th round draft pick by the Brewers in the 1968 draft, was considered a throw-in in the trade which brought Erik Sloan to Denver and sent Jamison Bash and Tanner Yurek to Charlotte. But in this game Coppola was anything but an after-thought, going 3 for 4 in the lead-off slot, hitting a 2-run HR in the 3rd inning, his first big league HR. Cheol-han Lee suffered the loss for the Brewers, dropping to 9-4 with a 2.03 ERA after giving up 3 runs (2 earned) over 7 innings.

Surely in the final game of the series the Brewers bats would wake up a bit, especially given that Charlotte's BB&T Ballpark is a good hitters park.
Well, maybe not......