Game 1:
Sekien Hamasaki has a strong finish to the 1977 season and the team hope that this carries over in into the upcoming KCS.
Hamasaki did not get the decision in this one, but allowed just 1 run on 3 hits over his 6 innings pitched.
Ben Flynn (10-3, 3.17) gets the win with 2 strong innings and veteran left-handed reliever
Ivan Cruz gets his lone save of the season.
John Flores (.311/.387/.582) was the hitting star, as he went 2 for 4, with his 5th home run as a Brewer this season (10th of 1977) producing the 2 runs in the 9th that won it. He also drove in the only other Brewer run earlier in the game.
Game 2:
And with the team needing no more wins and wanting to mostly rest the starters- particularly not using any more of the members of the rotation who will be counted on so heavily in the KCS-
Cheol-han Lee got his final start of the season, and some suspect of his Brewers career. It did not go well.
Lee (6-8, 7.33) only lasted 4 innings, giving up 6 runs on 9 hits, walking 3 and not striking out any batters. The great
Cheol-han seems to have reached the end of the line, even though his WPK-richest contract has certainly not. While many starting players rested the manager did send out
Bobby Erbakan and
Brett Taranto to play this game as they were in a tight but friendly battle for the MGL batting title. Coming into the game
Erbakan was hitting .356 and
Taranto .355. But in the end it was the red-hot
Taranto who would prevail as he went 2 for 3 with a run scored and an RBI in this one while
Bobby was 0 for 4.
Taranto was now leading .357 to
Bobby's .353.
Taranto also stole 2 bases to get to 14 on the season. Speaking of stolen bases,
Val Guzman, who collected 1 hit and 1 walk, stole his 31st base of the year but was also caught trying for the 15th time.
Game 3:
And in the final game of the 1977 regular season we may have gotten our first optimistic glimpse at the future of the Brewers starting rotation, as
Jim Atwell had his finest start since being brought up from AAA at the beginning of September.
Atwell (2-1, 6.18) lasted 7 innings, giving up just 1 unearned run on 2 hits while striking out 4 batters and walking 1. He also went 2 for 3 with 2 RBI at the plate and hit his first big league double.
Josh Schaeffer (.322/.477/.484) one of the few Brewers starters in the game, went 2 for 4 with 2 runs scored and hit a 1st inning lead off homer, to give him 13 home runs on the season.
Mike Lovett also was 2 for 4 in the win.
And that, my friends, is the end of the Denver Brewers regular season for 1977. They finish the season with an impressive 105 wins, the second best total in team history. (They won 108 games in 1971 and 104 last season.)