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Minnesota pitching, hitting sweep Crew out of town

MINNEAPOLIS — The trip couldn't have started any better.

Heading into St. Louis to face the team battling them for the division, the Milwaukee Brewers soundly swept the Cardinals in their own house, getting great pitching in the first game and smoldering bats in the next two.

Then, they opened the next series in Houston with another victory before a loss and another victory to win the series against the Astros.

With a little breathing room in the National League Central, the Brewers were riding high entering interleague play and their last trip to the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome before the Minnesota Twins move into a new ballpark next season.

The Twins came into the series having lost six of their last seven games -- all six coming in a row before they beat the Chicago White Sox with a 20-run outburst Thursday.

How fortunes change.

The Brewers lost all the momentum they gained at the start of the three-city, nine-game trip. The Twins swept them convincingly, capping the triumph with a 6-3 victory in a nationally televised Sunday night affair. The Twins outscored the Brewers, 23-8, in the three games.

The only bright spot was centerfielder Mike Cameron hit his 250th career home run, making him only the 20th player to hit that many and steal at least 250 bases (291).

Brewers manager Ken Macha, normally one to fully accommodate the media, kept his postgame interview to less than two minutes and fielded only a few questions before ending the session.

Beyond the obvious irritation, there was some controversy in this one that didn't sit well with the team.

After recording the first two outs of the seventh inning, Brewers right-hander Dave Bush (3-1) allowed a walk and an infield hit. He was lifted for left-hander Mitch Stetter to face lefty Joe Mauer, who had killed the Brewers in the series to that point.

Stetter hit Mauer up near the hand, but plate umpire Adrian Johnson called it a foul ball. Twins manager Ron Gardenhire came out and screamed at Johnson while Mauer stuck his arm out to show the mark left by the ball. Johnson eventually reversed the call and awarded Mauer first to load the bases for Justin Morneau, who also slapped the Brewers around in the series.

Macha raced from the dugout to argue, but he lost his fight, and on the next pitch, Morneau crushed a no-doubt, upper-deck grand slam to right for a 6-1 lead.

Johnson declined to comment about the changed call after the game, but Macha had to bite his tongue to keep from saying too much.

''I'll just say this: As manager, I have to make a lot of decisions here . . . and I'm going to live with those decisions," Macha said. "Whatever changed his mind, I don't know.

''He's umpiring the game. He should make those decisions, not the other team's manager. . . . This is the big leagues. You live by your decisions; you die by your decisions."

In the series, Mauer and Morneau combined to go 11 for 18 with 11 runs scored, 12 runs batted in and three homers. Mauer also homered Sunday in the first inning.

''Morneau and Mauer," Cameron said. "Goodness gracious. Hopefully someone can cool them off before they get to Milwaukee next month."

While the pitching wasn't as good as it had been before the series -- no starter made a quality start in the series for the first time all season -- the bats were just as lacking.

The Brewers hit .240 against the Twins staff, but probably more damaging to their run production was that they drew only four walks in the series.

Coming into the series the Brewers were second in the NL in walks drawn, while the Twins were the best in the American League at not issuing free bases.

The Twins obviously won the battle of strengths. They also kept the Brewers from scoring first in the series or from ever taking a lead. In games the Brewers have scored first this season, they are 15-5 and 11-13 when they don't.

''One thing we've been able to strike first a lot of the times," Cameron said. "We weren't able to do that in this series. They killed us early. That makes it a lot easier for those guys to pound the zone like they did.

''They brought it, man. They had good pitching and that's pretty much the story or this series. . . . We still feel like we're playing well. We ran into a little bit of a storm."