The thing manager Ken Macha liked most about Braden Looper's outing Wednesday against Cincinnati was that he issued just one walk in six innings.
"One walk. That's the lesson," Macha said. Entering that game, the Brewers' pitching staff had issued 42 walks in eight games, tops in the National League. Macha said his pitchers were making it too hard on themselves and noted that Looper avoided that trap.
Looper was not happy that he issued four walks in his first start of the season against the Chicago Cubs. But he has been playing catch-up since missing time in spring training with an oblique strain and is just now starting to feel comfortable on the mound again.
"That's the best I've felt all spring," said Looper, who allowed six hits and three runs to go with five strikeouts. "I had good command of all of my pitches.
"You hear a lot about (walks). It seems like a baseball thing (throughout the majors). That was very uncharacteristic of me in the first game to walk four guys."
Looper exited after six innings against the Reds with the score tied 3-3, but the Brewers scored five times in the bottom of the sixth to reward Looper with his first victory in a Milwaukee uniform.
