CINCINNATI -- What looked to be an impressive and somewhat dominant first volley in what's expected to be a season-long battle for the NL Central crown, the Brewers and Reds reverted back to their old ways in Cincinnati's 7-6 victory at Great American Ball Park.
A year ago, both the Reds and Brewers were well-known for their late-inning play. Meltdowns were a specialty for the Brewers, who were third in the National League with 21 blown saves while the Reds rallied from behind to win 45 times in 2010 -- doing so in their final at-bat 22 times.
The familiar tale played out again Thursday at Great American Ball park, where the Brewers dropped their third straight season opener after a disastrous outing by closer John Axford.
Leading, 6-3, heading into the ninth, Axford gave up a single to Brandon Phillips and walked Joey Votto. He looked like he might catch a break when Scott Rolen hit a sharp grounder to third baseman Casey McGehee. McGehee thought that Phillips had run out of the base path and threw to first before applying the tag. Umpire Dan Bellino, though, disagreed and the result was bases loaded with nobody out.
"It's hard for me to see where the guy starts," said Manager Ron Roenicke, who made had his second discussion with the umpires of the game after that play. "It's not on the line where the base path is, it's where that guy starts. So he creates his own base path. And if he started back behind the bag, then where he ended up probably was more than the three feet, but I don't know where he started."
Axford finally recorded an out when he got Jay Bruce to swing at strike three. Johnny Gomes hit a deep sacrifice fly that made it a 6-4 ball game with two down, setting the stage for Hernandez's game-winner which came on an 0-1 fastball that Axford left a little too high.
"He got a good piece of it," Axford said. "I got away with it the time before with Gomes. This time, I paid for it."
The rough debut followed a less-than-stellar body of work in Cactus League play for Axford, who posted a 5.40 earned run average in 8.1 innings of spring work though Roenicke had been getting good reports on Axford's stuff from his coaching staff.
"The last few outings, they've liked the way he was throwing the ball," Roenicke said. "The velocity was there today. He threw some good breaking balls. It's just a matter of him spotting the ball a little better, but his stuff was good."
Axford's struggles overshadowed an otherwise good day for the Brewers.
Rickie Weeks and Carlos Gomez led off the game with back-to-back home runs. Weeks' blast was the first season-opening leadoff home run in Brewers history and the team became to first to homer in its first two at-bats since 1969, when Pete Rose and Bobby Tolan homered off the Dodgers' Don Drysdale.
Ryan Braun hit his first home run of the season in the fifth, capping off a productive opener. He finished 2-3 with a pair of walks and three runs scored.
"Offensively, we were really good," Roenicke said.
Right-hander Yovani Gallardo, making his second consecutive Opening Day start, recovered from a shaky first inning to pick up the victory after a six-inning, seven-hit effort. He walked three, struck out four and gave up a fourth-inning home run to Drew Stubbs.
"There were way too many good things to dwell on it too much," McGehee said. "Guys swung the bat good, Yo threw the ball well, (Kameron) Loe came in and did his thing, (Takashi) Saito made some pitches when he had to ... there was a lot of positive to come out of today."
