We were all set to write about the dreary April of Brewers starter Kyle Lohse — and the odd circumstances behind it — until, wouldn’t you know it, he goes out on Thursday and shuts down the Reds for his first win of the season. But what the heck, his rebound effort only underlines our premise that Lohse was a lot better than the 0-3 record and 10.34 ERA he carried into this week and wasn’t far from proving it.
Heading into Thursday’s fourth start, Lohse had allowed 18 earned runs in 15.2 innings. But, digging deeper into his stats, he wasn’t pitching much worse than he did his previous few seasons — his velocity (89 mph) and his K/BB rate were down, but only slightly.