![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/brandon-phillips-reds-291.jpg\")
<\/a>Milwaukee enters the 2011 season with high aspirations due to offseason moves that caused many MLB experts to pick them to win the NL Central division this year.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the squad will be opening the season with some key players on the disabled list, including starting pitcher Zack Greinke.\u00a0 \u201cWe can pull it together and I think we have the last couple days,\u201d said manager Ron Roenicke.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t think all the distractions have thrown us off that much.\u201d\u00a0 The Brewers will turn to another right-handed starter to kick off the season, as Yovani Gallardo draws the Opening Day assignment.\u00a0 The club broke camp with four starters and eight relievers because they don\u2019t need a fifth until April 6.\u00a0 Milwaukee is 77-86 on the road the past two years.<\/p>\n
Gallardo finished last season with a solid 14-7 record and 3.84 ERA in 31 starts, while compiling 200-plus strikeouts for the second consecutive year.\u00a0 In making 11 daytime starts in 2010, he managed to go 3-5 with a 4.24 ERA, allowing opposing hitters to hit just .240 against him.\u00a0 The right-hander has been a fast starter during his major league career, posting a 5-3 mark and 2.67 ERA in 12 career starts during the first month of the season.\u00a0 He will be making his ninth career start versus the Reds Thursday, going 2-3 with a 5.56 ERA, while allowing 50 hits in 43.2 innings of work.<\/p>\n
Cincinnati is set to play its 135th Opening Day game in franchise history, including the ninth at the Great American Ball Park.\u00a0 The Reds are 64-69-1 in home openers, but are 0-3 in Opening Day games played on March 31.\u00a0 The club has also lost three straight openers and are 3-9-1 in their last 13.\u00a0 Many of the players have already commented on the difference in weather that\u2019s expected for today\u2019s contest in comparison to what they left in Spring Training.\u00a0 \u201cWe came from like 90 degrees yesterday,\u201d said starter Edinson Volquez.\u00a0 \u201cWe flew back last night and there\u2019s snow today.\u00a0 It\u2019s kind of different.\u201d\u00a0 Manager Dusty Baker is 0-3 in Openers as Reds Manager and the club is 95-64 against divisional opponents the last two years.<\/p>\n
Reds starting pitcher Edinson Volquez starts the season on the active roster after missing most of the 2010 season due to recovering from Tommy John surgery.\u00a0 The right-hander was 4-3 with a 4.31 ERA in 12 starts last season, going 1-1 with a 1.95 ERA in his last four starts of last year\u2019s campaign.\u00a0 He has garnered a 3-1 record and 5.50 ERA in six career starts versus the Brewers, including a strong eight-inning performance on the road against them on September 21, 2010.\u00a0 Volquez will be making his 19th career daytime appearance and is looking to improve upon a 10-4 mark and 4.07 ERA under the sun.<\/p>\n
Bettors are likely to back the Reds due to being 8-3 in Volquez\u2019s last 11 starts, while the Brewers are 1-8 in Gallardo\u2019s last nine starts as an underdog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The new-look Milwaukee Brewers start the season against last year\u2019s division champion Cincinnati Reds at the Great American Ball Park. Milwaukee Brewers at Cincinnati Reds Milwaukee enters the 2011 season with high aspirations due to offseason moves that caused many MLB experts to pick them to win the NL Central division this year.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":5038,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[78,1040,1812,266,1781,1559],"class_list":["post-14563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-cincinnati-reds","tag-edinson-volquez","tag-great-american-ball-park","tag-milwaukee-brewers","tag-nl-central","tag-yovani-gallardo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14563"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14564,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14563\/revisions\/14564"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}