Macha Plays Hardball

PHOENIX – Brewers manager Ken Macha isn't fooling around this spring.

You may recall a couple weeks ago Macha refused to let the Dodgers use the DH in the Brewers home park so they could have Manny Ramirez DH.

Now, Macha is involved in a little gamesmanship with the Giants, who host the Brewers on opening day.

Giants manager Bruce Bochy is having Randy Johnson pitch Sunday in a minor-league game rather than facing the Brewers at Scottsdale, because Bochy doesn't want the Brewers to get a free look at Johnson before he sees them in the second game of the season.

Macha was all set to have his No. 2 starter, Yovani Gallardo, pitch against the Giants. Upon learning of Bochy's plan to hold out Johnson, Macha yanked Gallardo.

"If they would have had their guy pitch, I probably would have had mine pitch," Macha said. "I don't know. It's hard for me to figure out whether a pitcher learns more about a hitter or a hitter learns more against the pitcher."

Macha went on to say that it's wrong that teams are even put in this position by the schedule. Certainly it was no surprise when the spring-training schedule was created that the Brewers and Giants would be facing each other in the first series of the year. How hard would it have been for those teams to avoid each other?

The real losers are going to be the fans at Scottsdale Stadium, which is likely to sell out on the final Sunday of spring training. They'll be paying to see Johnson and Gallardo and they are going to end up with Joe Martinez and Mark DiFelice.

Really, it seems kinda paranoid to me anyway. In the regular season teams routinely face the same pitcher in home-and-home series a week apart. Are the Brewers really going to have an easier time with Johnson after facing him 10 days earlier in Arizona?