Brewers Find That 13 Isn’t Unlucky, 5-4 : Milwaukee Gets Clutch Hits and Ties Atlanta’s Record

Greg Brock, batting .333 at the time, comes to bat for the first time ever at baseball’s oldest park, Comiskey. There are two outs.

Pow. Two-run homer.

Dale Sveum, a .395 hitter batting ninth in the order, comes to bat in the second with a man on second. There are two outs.

Pow. Double off the right-field fence.

Paul Molitor, batting .360, comes to bat in the seventh inning with a man in scoring position and baseball’s only unbeaten team down by a run. There are two outs.

Pow. Double down the left-field line.

Robin Yount, batting .321, comes to bat next with the go-ahead run on second base. There are still two outs.

Dink. Bloop single to right.

“Kind of a cheap way to score the winning run,” Molitor says later, “but you take what you can get.”

You bet you do.

Because the winning run Monday night gave the Milwaukee Brewers not only a 5-4 decision over the Chicago White Sox, but a 13-game winning streak to begin the season--tying the 1982 Atlanta Braves for the best start any team in the majors has ever had.

It also gives the Brewers 16 straight over two seasons.

“It’s getting tense,” said rookie reliever Chuck Crim, the winning pitcher. “I was a little tense out there, I admit it. I don’t remember walking toward the mound. I just sort of floated toward it.”

Crim got the job done, striking out White Sox catcher Ron Karkovice with the bases loaded and two gone in the fifth inning, in relief of Juan (No-Hit) Nieves, whose bid for back-to-back no-hitters lasted exactly one pitch.

The rookie then threw one-hit, shutout relief until the ninth, when he gave way to Dan Plesac, who quickly nailed down his fifth save.

Milwaukee’s players stampeded onto the field as though they had just taken the pennant. They rejoiced, as did those in the crowd of 24,019 who had made the 90-minute drive from Milwaukee to see the game.

Many will return tonight to see Mark Ciardi, 25, make his second major-league start. The Brewers can break the record, but it’s up to Ciardi.

The biggest game he has ever pitched before this? “Oh, gee, I don’t know,” Ciardi said. “Double A?”

Molitor said he won’t bother trying to keep the young pitcher loose before the game.

“I don’t think this is the kind of streak that puts pressure on you,” the third baseman and World Series veteran said. “It’s not like if we don’t win two out of three here, we won’t go to the playoffs.

“This streak is something you should enjoy, not sweat about.”

The Brewers, who kept the streak alive Sunday by scoring five runs in the ninth, are making a habit of dodging the bullet. Monday’s win was the eighth time this season they have come from behind.

“It’s been a different hero every night,” Yount said. “No one player has been carrying us--except maybe Rob Deer (seven homers, plus, going into Monday’s game, a .952 slugging percentage). The 23rd and 24th men off the bench are contributing.”

Said Brock, the ex-Dodger, whose two hits upped his season average to .349: “We know it’s not going to last forever. We’re going to go on losing streaks before the season is over. But we’ll be able to look back and say, ‘Hey, we had the record,’ and it might just carry us to a great season.”

When Brock stepped up in the first inning, Molitor was on third base, having doubled and advanced on a double play. The park was new to Brock, as most of the American League’s are. But the pitcher was Jose DeLeon, who was not new to Brock.

“I faced him a lot, in the minors and in the majors. He’s had a lot of success against me,” Brock said.

Not this time.

Pow. A two-run job off the upper-deck facade in right-center, easily 400 feet from home plate.

“He hit my bat,” Brock said of DeLeon, self-effacingly.

A pitching war was expected between DeLeon, who had not surrendered a run in two starts, and Nieves, who had just pitched a no-hitter against the Baltimore Orioles. Both men were 2-0.

Instead, the game was tied after two innings, 3-3.

Chicago struck back in the first when Gary Redus, the first man Nieves faced, eased the minds of Johnny Vander Meer’s descendants with a single to left on the first pitch. Vander Meer is the only man ever to pitch back-to-back no-hitters.

Redus stole second and scored on Carlton Fisk’s single through the box.

Milwaukee made it 3-1 in the second inning on doubles by Bill Schroeder and Sveum. The latter, starting at shortstop only because of injuries to Ernest Riles and Eddie Diaz, is batting .383 after 13 games, is fielding superbly and is “giving us Hall of Fame stuff,” in Brewer Manager Tom Trebelhorn’s words.

The 3-1 lead did not hold up, and it was Nieves’ own fault. Not because he gave up singles to Fred Manrique and Ozzie Guillen with one out in the second, but because he whipped the ball into center field when the next batter, Karkovice, hit a guaranteed double-play comebacker to the mound.

Manrique scored on that play, and Redus’ single knocked in Guillen to tie the score.

No-Hit Nieves was sort of No-Heat Nieves after that.

“He didn’t have his good stuff,” Trebelhorn said. “I think the last five days have been very tough on him. A lot has gone through his mind.”

Nieves escaped a bases-loaded jam in the fourth, but was not so lucky in the fifth. Ivan Calderon doubled, and scored after two infield grounders. Tim Hulett also doubled, after which Manrique was intentionally walked. When Guillen beat out a swinging bunt, Nieves got the hook.

Crim came in to face Karkovice, the No. 9 man in the White Sox order, whose batting average is .083. Karkovice promptly whiffed for the 12th time in 23 at-bats.

Manager Jim Fregosi left himself open for some second-guessing, particularly since he used a pinch-hitter for Karkovice his next time up. It was a left-handed pinch-hitter and one of the league’s best, Jerry Hairston, who singled off the right-hander Crim in the eighth. Karkovice bats right-handed.

Still, the Sox did have a 4-3 lead when Karkovice blew his big chance.

It lasted until the seventh, when DeLeon walked the inning’s leadoff man, Schroeder. Two ground outs later, Molitor doubled home Schroeder to tie the score, 4-4. Fregosi lifted DeLeon. Reliever Bobby Thigpen jammed Yount, who inside-outed a pop single to right.

“Robin pulled out his sand wedge and blooped it in,” Molitor said.

The White Sox just shook their heads.

“They got the breaks at the right time,” DeLeon said. “They’re doing that every night. They’re doing everything right.”

Fregosi, asked about the streak, said: “That’s their thing. This upsets me only because we lost the ballgame. If they were 0-13, I’d still be upset.”