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Brewers hope Garza can rebound in matchup with Mets

Jul 24, 2014 - 2:59 PM (SportsNetwork.com) - Regardless of what happens on Thursday night, fatigue shouldn't be an issue for Milwaukee starter Matt Garza.

The right-hander followed the All-Star break with the shortest start of his career, meaning he's thrown just one-third of an inning in two weeks before the Brewers host the New York Mets to open a four-game series at Miller Park.

Garza was persistent in his final pre-break start while going 7 2/3 innings against Philadelphia and took eight days off before a Saturday start in Washington, where he was dinged for five runs while recording a single out.

He threw just 42 pitches.

"He had one out. So we were going to get up to 50 pitches and none of us are comfortable with him going 50," manager Ron Roenicke said.

Still, the performance wasn't a total loss.

"He didn't throw the ball that bad," Roenicke said. "It's a shame you make good pitches and they did a good job fouling them off, and they did a good job reaching out and putting balls in play."

In six previous starts, Garza was 4-2 with a 2.35 earned run average, so it may have been an anomaly. He was considered for another start in short rest after the blowout, but stayed put so no one else's routine would be impacted.

The Brewers responded with a three-game sweep of Cincinnati in which their starters combined for a 2.29 ERA. Milwaukee is now 5-2 after an 1-11 slide.

"We've been scuffling, obviously, since before the break and (it helps) to get a couple of wins in a row and kind of get that feeling back in here that we expect to win every game," said Mark Reynolds, who homered twice in Wednesday's finale with the Reds.

The Mets counter with right-hander Dillon Gee, who allowed four runs in five innings of his first post-break start, a 6-0 loss at San Diego on Saturday.

"I definitely want to try to get deeper into games," Gee said. "There's really no excuse for it."

Gee is 0-3 with a 6.75 ERA in his career against the Brewers.

Milwaukee won two of three games in a series at New York in early June, but neither Gee nor Garza pitched.

On Wednesday in Seattle, Bartolo Colon tossed 7 1/3 solid innings and the Mets held off a late Seattle surge to defeat the Mariners, 3-2, and win the rubber match of a three-game set.

Colon (9-8) retired the first 20 batters he faced until allowing a single with two outs in the seventh inning. The veteran right-hander allowed just two runs on three hits with five strikeouts and a walk.

Daniel Murphy, David Wright and Juan Lagares each drove in a run for the Mets, who won their first ever series at Safeco Field.