Sweet, super sweet, thanks for asking

Last night’s Brewers game is the type of game that gives me faith in the rest of the season and makes me feel justified for having faith in the first place.

Perennially, the Cubs are like Brewer kryptonite. It doesn’t matter how well we’re playing or how crappy they’re playing, inevitably the Cubs are able to break us down.

This year looked to be no different, since we lost 2 of 3 to them at home over Easter weekend and then started out the series yesterday by going down 4-0 in the third.

Whereas Brewer teams of the past would have been down and out for the count at this point, this year’s team rallied. And manager Ned Yost took chances. He left pitchers in longer than I would have expected and kept with some left-handed hitters in the late innings.

JJ Hardy and Prince Fielder both had home runs and in the 8th inning the Brewers tied it 4-4.

The home run gave JJ 6 for the season so far, tying him for second place in the NL with Barry Bonds.

Jaques Jones had a spectacular diving catch to his left in right field to rob the Brewers. Geoff Jenkins returned the favor in the bottom of that same inning, getting the third out on an amazing forward diving catch that saved one, if not two runs from scoring and got the Brewers out of a predicament late in the game.

By the 9th, Lou Pinella had used every available man in his dugout. The Brewers used everyone but Corey Hart.

Reliever Carlos Villanueva had some rough patches but managed to make it through 4 innings without allowing a run. He walked his first batter, but got it together and pitched half of the Brewers' 8 relief innings.

Prince Fielder hit a home run in the top of the 12th to put the Brewers ahead 5-4. It was his 5th homer of the year and the 4th time he’d hit more than one HR in a game - three of those multiple HR games have been at Wrigley

Derrick Turnbow took over the role of closer last night, since Francisco Cordero had pitched more than 60 pitches in the past two days. Turnbow got the final three outs in the bottom of the 12th for his first save of the season and first since last July 29 at Cincinnati.

From JSonline.com:"'That was just a phenomenal effort by Carlos Villanueva to pitch his heart out like he did," said Brewers manager Ned Yost, who had no bullpen pitchers and one position player (Corey Hart) left on his bench. "We were down to our last pitcher."
Villanueva entered in the bottom of the eighth after the Brewers had completed a comeback with two runs in the top of the inning."

From the ESPN.com article about the game:
The game ended on a called third strike from Derrick Turnbow to Mark DeRosa, who didn't like the call.
"Obviously if you look at the replay, the pitch is a ball," DeRosa said. "Derrick Turnbow is nasty enough, he doesn't need to be getting pitches like that. It was an obvious ball. When you get a call like that against you to end the game, it's frustrating."