W: Dennys Reyes (1-0)
L: Trevor Hoffman (0-1, BS)
SV: Ryan Franklin (2)

HR: Matt Holliday (2), Nick Stavinoha (1)

One strike away.  That's how close the Brewers were to closing out their third straight win and taking the series opener from the St. Louis Cardinals.

Then the improbable happened.  Nick Stavinoha -- a guy with 32 career hits and has "pinch hitter" as one of his listed positions on baseball-reference -- hit a 2-run homer off Trevor Hoffman in the 9th inning to give the Cardinals a 5-4 lead.  After stealing a win against Colorado on Wednesday, I suppose this was just baseball karma coming back to bite the Brewers, but it didn't make the result any easier to swallow.

By and large, the Brewers played well enough to win.  Dave Bush didn't have a bad start, throwing 5.2 innings while allowing 4 hits, 3 runs, and striking out 6.  Alcides Escobar was a factor at the bottom of the lineup again, going 2-for-4 with 2 RBI, including an RBI double that gave the Brewers the lead.

The Brewers were able to keep Albert Pujols from hurting them, but Matt Holliday took advantage of the opportunities he had hitting behind Pujols.  Holliday went 3-for-4 with a two-run homer of his own that chased Bush from the game.  Kyle Lohse gave up 4 runs on 6 hits in 6 innings, but the Cardinals' bullpen only allowed one hit in the final three innings.

Newly minted millionaire Yovani Gallardo will take the hill for the Brewers on Saturday against Jaime Garcia.

St. Louis Cardinals (2-1) @ Milwaukee Brewers (2-1)

Probables
4/9 - Kyle Lohse vs. Dave Bush
4/10 - Jaime Garcia vs. Yovani Gallardo
4/11 - Chris Carpenter vs. Randy Wolf

The Brewers are feeling good about themselves after taking a season-opening series against the Colorado Rockies, one of the best teams in the National League.  The Cards are coming off a series in which they dominated the Cincinnati Reds in the first two games, and are expected to run away with the Central.  For an early-season series, this is a pretty big weekend for the Brewers: close out the homestand with a strong showing against the division favorite, and you're feeling good before setting out on a 9-game road trip; stumble, and suddenly the road trip becomes a bit more worrisome, even if the last two legs are in Washington and Pittsburgh.

On paper, the pitching match-ups seem to favor the Brewers.  The series opener will be a match-up between two pitchers who failed live up to expectations in 2009, when Dave Bush takes the ball against Kyle Lohse.  I like this pairing more for the Brewers because I believe Bush at his best is better than Lohse at his best, but this early in the season Bush could just as easily flame out (like he did in his last spring appearance).

The uptight sportswriters of St. Louis will be glad to see that the Brewers have stopped "untucking" after wins (but look at Albert Pujols classily staring down his homer in the photo!).  Hopefully the Brewers can show them their "respect for the game" three times this weekend, and then they can find a new irrational reason to hate the Brewers.

EDIT: When I wrote the original preview, brewers.com had Yovani Gallardo squaring off against Chris Carpenter on Saturday, and Jaime Garcia going against Randy Wolf in the finale.  Since then, the Cards have swapped their two starters, giving Carpenter an extra day's rest.

And here I thought I'd be struggling to find something to write about on the Brewers' first off day of the season.

If you haven't heard by now -- and chances are you have -- the Brewers are announcing that they're giving Yovani Gallardo a long-term extension that will not only give Yo a pay bump this season and lock in his salary throughout his arby years, but will also buy out at least one year of free agency (possibly two, if an option is exercised).  He'll be guaranteed at least $30.1 million over 5 years, according to reports, and could be worth as much as $42.5 million over 6 years if the option is picked up.

A lot of people are ecstatic about this.  I'm actually having mixed feelings.

Is it good news that the Brewers will be keeping their budding ace in town long-term?  Absolutely.  Brewer fans can rest easy knowing that in a couple years, we won't have to worry about reliving what we're currently going through with Prince Fielder.  It's also conveniently timed after Yankees president Randy Levine whined about small-market teams not using revenue sharing money to keep their own players.  It's good for fan and player morale.

But it's also an incredibly risky investment that could easily backfire.  Doug Melvin has a spotty history with being pre-emptive and signing players to extensions -- I give you the contracts of Brady Clark, Derrick Turnbow, and Bill Hall, for example.  It's not just Melvin's spotty decision making, though, because it's pretty obvious that Gallardo has done more to earn the money that will be coming his way (David posted the details earlier today).

My concern is rooted in the fact that pitchers get hurt.  Frequently.  A lot more frequently than position players, which is why I don't think you can compare this extension to signing Ryan Braun long-term.  The extension given to Ben Sheets years ago sure seemed like a great idea at the time, but we saw what could happen.

I touched on this awhile back when rumors of a Gallardo extension first started to come up.  I still have the worries I had a month ago: the benefits just don't outweigh the risks enough to justify giving big money to him right now, especially since he's under team control through 2013, anyway.  At the time I said I could live with a short extension -- two, maybe three years that buy out his arbitration years at a rate that would give the Brewers a small discount.

Granted, the terms that were announced could have been worse (it seems like the team may have gotten a discount due to Gallardo missing so much time in 2008).  But there's enough money backloaded -- $19 million combined in the last two guaranteed years -- to make me nervous.  Who knows...maybe I'm just a Debbie Downer that's grown to expect the worst when it comes to the health of our young pitchers.

Feel free to share your thoughts on the deal in the comments, or talk to us on Twitter @BrewersBar.

The Brewers will announce a 5-year, $30.1 million guaranteed contract extension for 24 year-old ace Yovani Gallardo at 3 p.m. CT, according to Adam McCalvy of MLB.com and the AP:

$  500,000 salary in 2010 (an additional $50,000 from his original contract) +

$  500,000 signing bonus when contract is approved by MLB +

$  500,000 bonus on July 15, 2010 +

$  250,000 bonus on November 15, 2010 +

$ 3,250,000 in 2011 (what would have been the first year of arbitration) +

$ 5,500,000 in 2012 +

$ 7,750,000 in 2013 +

$11,250,000 in 2014 +

an option for $13,000,000 in 2015...or a $600,000 buyout

Gallardo would represent only the third Brewer player contract beyond 2011 (Randy Wolf and Ryan Braun are the other two).

Positives include knowing exactly what you will be paying for your top pitcher in each of those years, plus buying out the first two years of free agency eligibility (and also ensuring that Doug Davis will never wear number '49' again for the Crew).  A likely positive, too, is saving money from what you might have had to spend if Gallardo were to win 20 games or win the Cy Young award.

The potential negative, however, is overpaying what the market would have gotten you in a free agent.  Obviously, Melvin must think the market for ace pitchers will be rather slim and expensive over the next few years, and is willing to gamble on a pitcher that has only pitched a complete season in just one of his three years in the majors.

The above figures, however, will likely represent a bargain for the Brewers' if Gallardo pitches as well as everyone expects (read: "hopes").  Certainly, $11.25 million in 2014 is probably going to be a better value for the Brewers' owners than, say, a $12.5 million in 2010 dollars for a #5 starter struggling to keep his ERA below 5.00.

WP: Todd Coffey (1-0)
LP: Aaron Cook (0-1)
SV: Trevor Hoffman (2)

HR: Miguel Olivo (1)

Talk about stealing a series win.

Doug Davis struggled early on, throwing 40 pitches in the first inning and putting the Brewers in an early 3-0 hole.  Davis walked three batters in the first inning and didn't retire a Rockie until he struck out Ian Stewart on a foul tip (Stewart was the 6th batter of the inning).  Double D settled down after that, giving up only a flukey pop-up homer to Miguel Olivo that went off the webbing of Ryan Braun's glove over the left field fence.  The rough first inning wore on Davis, though, as he was only able to make it through 4+ innings, and was replaced by Todd Coffey after surrendering a leadoff double in the 5th inning.

The bullpen was lights-out from there, allowing only 2 hits in the next 5 innings and working out of a jam in the 7th inning.  The 1-2 combo of LaTroy Hawkins and Trevor Hoffman worked to perfection again, and Hoffman was able to effortlessly nail down career save #593.

Credit has to go to the Brewers' offense after crawling back into the game without the use of the longball.  Alcides Escobar got the Brewers on the board with an RBI double after George Kottaras got on base thanks to an error by Jason Giambi committed with two outs.  Kottaras brought in the second Brewers run in the 4th inning on a groundout that allowed Jim Edmonds to score, and Rickie Weeks continued his hot hitting with an RBI single the following inning to cut the deficit to 4-3.

The rally was completed the next inning, as the Brewers tied it at 4 on a sac fly by Kottaras, and took the lead the very next at-bat by way of a Jody Gerut pinch-hit RBI double.

Carlos Gomez went 0-for-3, making him 0-for-7 since starting the season 4-for-5.  So that's why we can't get too excited about early season performance, huh?

The 5-4 win gives the Brewers their first series win of the season, and stealing a game like this is sure to pump some confidence into this team heading into a weekend series against the Cardinals.  You have to feel bad for the Rockies, though, who didn't really deserve to start the season 1-2.  Sure, it was only 3 games, but I can see why so many people were high on them in their preseason picks -- they can really hit, and their pitching isn't bad at all.  I feel lucky that the Brewers were able to pull out wins the past two days.

It's almost enough to make me forget that Jeff Suppan will be the team's 5th starter.  Talk about a bittersweet day.

Thursday is an off-day, but I'll have a series preview for the Cardinals.