Brewers aim to extend Mets' recent misery

Baseball Betting Lines

06/30/2009 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - While the Milwaukee Brewers are improving their stance in the National League Central, they're making it very difficult for the New York Mets to climb the NL East standings.

The NL Central-leading Brewers will resume a three-game series versus the Mets tonight at Miller Park and are coming off Monday's 10-6 win in the series opener. J.J. Hardy went 4-for-4 with a solo home run and Casey McGehee added a grand slam to break open the game in the sixth inning for Milwaukee, which moved a game ahead of St. Louis in the Central after the Cardinals lost to San Francisco Monday night.

"When I can be a little more removed from the situation, that is going to be something I always remember as really special," McGehee said on the team's site. "If someone would have told me this time last year that I was going to have 40,000 people calling me out of the dugout for a curtain call, I would have said you were lying."

McGehee made up for missing an easy pop fly to end the sixth inning, with his miscue allowing the Mets to score a pair of unearned runs. His first career grand slam then made a winner out of Braden Looper, who gave up three runs -- one earned -- in 6 1/3 innings. Carlos Villanueva was roughed up for three runs and five hits in only one-third of an inning, but closer Trevor Hoffman came to the rescue by getting the next two outs for his 18th save.

Milwaukee improved to 4-3 on a nine-game homestand and has won three of its last four games.

Brewers pitcher Mike Burns made his first major league start his last time out and will take another shot tonight versus the Mets. Burns was roughed up for four runs and six hits in 5 2/3 innings of a 6-4 setback to Minnesota on Thursday to absorb the loss. He fell to 0-1 with a 3.72 ERA in two games (one start) this season.

The right-hander faced the Mets for the first and only time on June 22, 2006 at Shea Stadium, and did not factor in the outcome of a 6-2 setback. Burns was a member of Cincinnati at the time and yielded two hits in two shutout innings.

New York has been struggling and is caught in a funk, having lost four straight and nine of the last 13 games to fall below the .500 mark at 37-38. In Monday's four-run loss in the opener of this set and a seven-game road trip, starter Fernando Nieve suffered his first loss of the season after permitting three runs and 11 hits over 3 1/3 innings of work.

"I didn't have my stuff like I usually had before," Nieve stated on the team's Web site. "My fastball wasn't as good as it was before. I started getting behind on guys and they were pretty aggressive."

Gary Sheffield finished with three hits, including a home run, and three RBI, while Ryan Church added four hits and Brian Schneider knocked in a pair of runs for the Mets, whose rally in the ninth produced three runs before falling short after Hoffman took the hill.

New York is three games behind the Philadelphia Phillies for the NL East lead, but the Florida Marlins are second at 2 1/2 games off the pace. The Mets will visit Philadelphia for three games starting Friday.

Mets ace Johan Santana gets the nod for Jerry Manuel's ballclub tonight and he is coming off a strong performance versus St. Louis on Thursday. Santana was 1-3 with a 7.33 ERA in four starts before beating the Cardinals with seven strong innings on the mound. He allowed two runs -- one earned -- in a 3-2 victory at Citi Field to improve to 9-5 in 15 starts this season and lower his earned run average from 3.22 to 3.08.

The two-time Cy Young Award winner, who is 3-3 in six road starts this season, will square off with Milwaukee for the second time in 2009. Santana earned a 1-0 win over the Brewers on April 18, as he surrendered five hits with seven strikeouts and no walks through seven shutout frames. The lefty is 4-2 with a 3.13 ERA in 12 career games (8 starts) against the Brewers.

New York took two of three meetings versus Milwaukee from April 17-19 at Citi Field and has won eight of the past 12 matchups between the teams.