Rozner: For Brewers, opener like last season never ended

MILWAUKEE - Welcome to Game 1 of the Championship Season, also known as Overreaction Day.

Nothing brings out the optimists, pessimists and conspiracists quite like the first game of a baseball season, one of but 162, yet assigned superior significance when it matters more to the players only for the joy they share that the day is removed from the calendar, allowing them to settle in for a marathon.

The idea is to not get too emotional. Season is too long. Mood swings will wipe you out. Even keel is the eternal baseball message.

Sure.

There was no attempt to sell that Thursday afternoon in the Land of Cheddar, not by the Brewers themselves or the 45,304 at Miller Park.

They celebrated Day 1 as defending Central Division champs with the same insanity that dominated September 2018, when MVP Christian Yelich drove in 34 runs in 26 starts and the Brewers went 20-7, winning the final eight and Game 163 at Wrigley Field.

"This game today had a little bit of everything," Yelich said. "That was a crazy way to start the season."

Understatement.

It ended with center fielder Lorenzo Cain stealing a home run from Cardinals pinch hitter Jose Martinez in a 5-4 game, reaching his glove over the fence to haul in the baseball.

"Never seen an Opening Day end like that," Yelich said. "I couldn't hear anything. It was so loud. But I know (Cain) was screaming, 'Not today!' That's what he always says."

Josh Hader, pitching in the closer's role with the Brewers missing a couple big arms, took apart the Cardinals in the eighth inning on 11 pitches, striking out 2-3-4 hitters Paul Goldschmidt, Paul DeJong and Marcell Ozuna.

With Hader in the shadows and the batters in the sun, not one of them got bat on ball.

It's actually worse than it sounds.

But with two outs in the ninth, it looked like Martinez got the best of Hader, until Cain made yet another extraordinary play.

"I've seen it so many times before," said longtime Kansas City and now Milwaukee teammate Mike Moustakas. "He was tracking it the entire time. You can't be surprised."

Somehow, Cain has never won a Gold Glove, but his 2019 awards campaign began with the final play of Opening Day.

"I was tracking it, talking to the baseball, telling it to come down," Cain said with a smile. "It feels good, robbing a home run to end the game.

"It stings a little bit that I don't have one Gold Glove, but it's all about winning. I'll take that."

Brewers starter Jhoulys Chacin retired the first five Cardinals with ease, striking out the side in the first, but with two outs in the second, Dexter Fowler went from 0-2 to a free base.

The next 2 pitches left the park as Kolten Wong and Harrison Bader gave St. Louis a 3-0 lead.

Moustakas made it 3-1 in the bottom of the second and Chacin started a Brewers rally with a one-out single in the third. Two batters later, Yelich blasted a 3-run shot and Milwaukee had the lead for good.

Chacin extended it with a homer off St. Louis starter Miles Mikolas in the fifth, and it was still 5-3 in the seventh when the left-handed hitting Wong went deep again, this time off righty Junior Guerra, pitching when Hader normally would if not for Corey Knebel's elbow injury.

Knebel will decide Friday on whether to undergo Tommy John surgery.

That news notwithstanding, the vibe up here on Thursday was one of carnival, as if 2018 hadn't ended at all.

The day began with former Brewers MVPs Rollie Fingers and Robin Yount throwing ceremonial first pitches to current Brewers MVPs Yelich and Ryan Braun.

The MVP chants for Yelich continued throughout the game, as did the boos for Yadi Molina, and the roar was deafening when Yelich crushed his first homer of the year, the decibel level higher only when Cain stole the game and the show.

From there it was a slow dance, the crowd waiting for the frenetic Hader to rise and warm in the bullpen. With hair flying and body parts moving every direction, Hader got the job done Thursday, but not without his center field Superman saving the day.

"What a great way to start the season," Chacin said. "This game was good for us to prove that we still have the magic from last year."

It's only one game, but it sure did have a 2018 feel to it.