Brewers 15, Orioles 6
Brewers now 92-61 (1st by 4.0 games)
Box Score | Season Schedule
MILWAUKEE — Who is the American League MVP? Just listen to the County Stadium crowd for the answer.
M-V-P! M-V-P! M-V-P!
Don Sutton and the Brewers fell behind the second place Baltimore Orioles 4-0 in the first inning tonight. It’s the first of seven games between the two teams over the final 10 games of the season. The tone was being set. But then…
M-V-P! M-V-P! M-V-P!
Paul Molitor led off the bottom of the first with a single to center, and Robin Yount hammered the second pitch from Mike Flanagan into the center field bleachers for his 25th home run of the season.
“As soon as he hit the ball,” Molitor said, “I knew we were back in it.”
M-V-P! M-V-P! M-V-P!
The Brewers tied the game in the third. Then Yount started the scoring in a five-run fourth with an RBI single. The Orioles then started to claw back, scoring three in the top of the sixth to make it a 9-6 game.
With three runs across the plate in the bottom of the sixth and two runners on with two outs in the bottom of the sixth, Robin stepped to the plate again. Yount blasted a three-run homer into the bleachers in right to make it 15-6.
M-V-P! M-V-P! M-V-P!
The crowd chanted. The roars got louder as Yount entered the Brewers dugout. The All-Star shortstop obliged and acknowledged the fans with a hat tip.
“It was touching,” Yount said of the curtain call. “I will admit it was difficult to concentrate after that. But it felt good.”
Yount became the first American League shortstop with more than 196 hits in a season. He now has 199. MVP indeed.
Beyond the crucial win, the Brewers got more good news today. Injured reliever Rollie Fingers threw 30 pitches for his personal trainer H Paul Bauer, and Bauer thinks that Fingers will be back by October 1 for the series in Baltimore.
“I tell you right now,” Bauer said, “I guarantee he will be back within a week.”
Bauer is the physician for the San Diego Chargers, but formerly with the Padres when Fingers played there. Worried he doesn’t know what he’s talking about?
“I’ve been in baseball quite a few years,” he assures us. “He is going to hurt a little but he is going to throw. I know Rollie pretty well. He is a little worried because he is afraid he is going to tear something further.
“But I can guarantee he will be ready and not hurt himself anymore.”
Want confirmation from Fingers? Good luck.
“If you ask me how my arm is I’m going to deck you,” an agitated Fingers warned. “And spread the word around the press box.”
So… Be optimistic… but don’t talk to Fingers about it?