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Gallardo leads Brewers past Diamondbacks

Jul 19, 2007 - 10:38 PM MILWAUKEE (Ticker) -- The Milwaukee Brewers hope rookie Yovani Gallardo will eventually be the staff ace. For the time being, he's doing his best to impersonate the incumbent.

Taking the place of injured Ben Sheets, Gallardo pitched six scoreless innings as Milwaukee thumped the Arizona Diamondbacks, 10-1, on Thursday.

Gallardo (2-1) allowed three hits and two walks with four strikeouts. The Mexican fireballer lowered his ERA to 2.34 and has departed all four of his starts this season with the lead. In those outings, the righthander has surrendered just six earned runs in 25 1/3 innings.

"(Gallardo) stayed on the attack," Brewers manager Ned Yost said. "He really commanded that down-and-away fastball that we want all of our pitchers to do.

"I'd like to see him go a little bit longer in the game. I think he can, but we're going to guard him a little bit. We're not going to let him into the 120-pitch count."

Gallardo's potential is softening the blow of losing Sheets, who tore the tissue surrounding the tendon in the middle finger of his pitching hand last Saturday and will be sidelined four to six weeks.

"There's a difference (between starting and relieving), but I've been starting pretty much since I signed, so I just took it as a regular start," Gallardo said. "I was just going to go out and do the best I can and hopefully get a win out of it. Anything can happen in this game, so whether it be one run, 10 runs, I'm going to pitch the same way I always pitch and be aggressive."

Run support was not an issue for the 21-year-old Gallardo, who watched Tony Graffanino drive in three runs and rip his eighth home run of the season.

An RBI double by rookie Ryan Braun in the first and a solo home run by Graffanino in the fourth off starter Livan Hernandez (5-6) staked the Brewers to a 2-0 lead.

"I wasn't sure if I had (my career high) or not, I knew I was pretty close," said Graffanino, who has matched his career high of eight home runs. "I'm past the point of looking at numbers. I'm just helping the team win. There's a lot of things that are going on in here you feel good about."

Milwaukee blew the game open in the sixth.

After the Brewers loaded the bases with one out, Tony Gwynn Jr. delivered an RBI single and Craig Counsell followed with a two-run single.

Hernandez was replaced by Dustin Nippert, who completed the inning, but not before allowing the Brewers' fourth run with a throwing error on a pickoff attempt.

The Brewers tacked on four more runs an inning later on a two-run double by Graffanino and a two-run blast by Gabe Gross.

"It was nice after a frustrating day for me personally," said Gross, who has seen limited playing time this season. "I talked to a lot of guys last year because my role was fairly similar and everybody had one thing to say: It's the hardest job in the big leagues, to try and be a pinch hitter and come off the bench and maintain your swing and balance, it's very hard. But at the same time, it's my job, and I'm doing the best I can."

Matt Wise pitched the the final three innings for the Brewers, which allowed him to earn his first save of the season. The only blemish for Wise came in the seventh, when he gave up a solo blast to Conor Jackson.

Hernandez allowed six runs - five earned - and eight hits in 5 1/3 innings. The righthander also walked five while striking out three.

It was only the third time in their last 13 games that the Brewers had exceeded four runs, finishing with six runs on the other two occasions.

"They're at the top of the division right now and you want to play them hard and at least get a split today, but it's not the end of the world for us," said Jackson, referring the Diamondbacks' one win in the four-game set. "It's frustrating, but we can't push the panic button yet. There's a lot of baseball left, a couple months left."

Arizona pieced together just five hits in the loss.

"I don't think guys are going up there with no plan," manager Bob Melvin said. "We were trying to take (Gallardo's) fastball away from him and make him use his breaking stuff, but his fastball was just getting by us.

"You could tell he's a pretty confident kid out there from the start. His fastball explodes and he really doesn't have to use his breaking ball that much. We saw a better curveball from him on film than we did today, but he spots his fastball very well."