Braun, Brewers muscle past D-backs

PHOENIX -- It was a night of historic markers for a trio of Brewers: Ryan Braun hit his 100th career homer and Felipe Lopez collected his 1,000th career hit, both coming in the first inning, to lead the Brewers during Friday night's 6-3 victory over the D-backs at Chase Field.

And then closer extraordinaire Trevor Hoffman closed out the game 1-2-3 in the ninth to earn his 585th save, padding his all-time saves lead. It was Hoffman's 31st save in 34 opportunities, pretty good considering he missed the first three weeks of the season with an oblique problem.

"Well, congratulations are due [to] all of them," Brewers manager Ken Macha said.

Lopez, a former D-back, opened the game with double off lefty Doug Davis, once a starter for Milwaukee. Two batters later, Braun launched a two-run home run to right, scoring Lopez and giving the Brewers a quick, 2-0, lead. He'd been hanging at 99 since Aug. 28.

"It wasn't weighing on me, but when people constantly bring it up you start thinking about it," Braun said. "It's obviously not at the same level, but it's like the Derek Jeter situation [Jeter singled on Friday night to pass Lou Gehrig on top of the all-time Yankees hit list]. But it's a big deal for me. It's hard enough to hit one homer in this league, let alone 100."

The homer for Braun came in his 400th game. He's the second fastest among active players to reach that mark behind Ryan Howard of the Phillies, whose 100th homer came in his 325th game. Howard now has 215 homers in 709 games. Braun, 25, is finishing his third season.

"That's pretty cool," Braun said. "That's pretty special, I think, anytime you're on a list with guys like that, you're doing a lot of things right. You have to be pretty consistent and obviously very successful."

Braun added a third-inning RBI double and Lopez had a fourth-inning RBI single, chasing Davis. The Brewers knocked out Davis (7-13) with four consecutive singles to open the fourth. He allowed five runs on 11 hits.
"It was just one of those nights," Davis said.

Right-hander Braden Looper (12-6) started for the Brewers and earned the victory, pitching 5 2/3 innings of three-run, eight-hit baseball.

At least Braun retrieved the ball from his milestone hit after it bounced around the Milwaukee bullpen. Lopez said he was so narrowly focused that he forgot it was his 1,000th hit when he opened the game with the double into the right-center field gap.



(mlb.com)