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| Milwaukee |
Sep. 7--Chris Capuano is not a door kicker, glove
thrower, water cooler abuser or wall basher.
"He's smart enough to know he has gone out and
done his job," Milwaukee Brewers manager Ned Yost said.
That's a good thing, because if any of the Brewers'
pitchers has the right to do some venting, it's Capuano. Over the past few
weeks, he has been hung out to dry more often than sheets at a country motel.
It happened again Wednesday night as Capuano lost a
fast-paced duel (2 hours, 4 minutes) to Los Angeles right-hander Derek Lowe,
who pitched the Dodgers to a 2-1 victory at Miller Park that salvaged the
finale of the three-game series. Capuano fell to 11-10 despite allowing only
five hits and two runs over eight innings, his major league-leading 24th
quality start of the season.
"It was a fun game to be a part of from a
pitcher's standpoint," said Capuano, who thrives on competition. "I
grinded through eight innings and pitched well but Derek was masterful. He's
tough to beat right now."
Capuano, who often was the beneficiary of banner run
support last season, has not been as fortunate in 2006. Over his last six
games, he has compiled a 2.03 earned run average yet is 1-2 over that stretch.
"I'm keeping my team in the game. That's rewarding
to me personally," Capuano said with the diplomacy of a United Nations
ambassador.
"There's really no advice I need right now. I'm
throwing the ball well. Nothing needs fixing."
Capuano didn't have the best of luck when the Dodgers
scored their first run in the fifth inning. Matt Kemp led off with a grounder
down the third-base line that just eluded diving third baseman Jeff Cirillo.
Leftfielder Kevin Mench thought the ball would carom off the grandstand where
it juts out but it hugged the wall instead and rolled into the corner for a
triple.
"I wasn't sure what it was going to do,"
Mench said. "Sometimes, they hit the corner and kick out. There's not much
you can do to defend that. I waited and it didn't hit the wall, so I missed
it."
After Jason Repko drew a walk, Lowe sacrificed him to
second, with Kemp holding third. Rafael Furcal then delivered a sacrifice fly
to tie the score, 1-1.
More often than not, Capuano's best pitch is his
change-up, a back-strainer that has hitters out front with their swings. He
scuffled with command on that pitch this time out, however, and paid for it in
the seventh.
Dodgers catcher Russell Martin led off with a double
to left and Kemp followed with a RBI single in the same direction, and that was
it. The 2-1 lead was enough for Lowe, who used his phenomenal sinker to record
20 of 24 outs on the ground before turning it over to closer Takashi Saito.
"I didn't have a good feel for my changeup,"
Capuano said. "It was a little flat, and I was leaving it up about half the
time."
It took an error by Los Angeles leftfielder Andre
Ethier for the Brewers to score their only run off Lowe in the second inning.
Bill Hall scored all the way from first on Geoff Jenkins' opposite-field double
down the line when Ethier momentarily bobbled the ball, trying to pick it up.
Lowe, who allowed only three hits and threw only 79
pitches, didn't allow another runner past first until the eighth.
Afterward, there was so much cap-tipping in the home clubhouse
that the Brewers were lucky nobody got struck in the eye. After scoring 15 runs
and collecting 27 hits in the first two games of the season, the Brewers knew a
pitching masterpiece when they saw one.
"That's the best I've seen Derek," Mench
said, "and I faced him a lot when he was in Boston. He really had his
sinkerball working."
Yost also praised Lowe's sinker, saying, "The
bottom falls out of it. You've got to work hard to make him get it up. The ball
just disappears."
So has Capuano's run support but the line of winless
pitchers has formed to the rear in recent weeks as the offense has scuffled for
the most part.
"They need to control what they can
control," Yost said, "and Cappy did that."
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