Brewers-Indians: Series Preview

The Milwaukee Brewers are coming into Cleveland to battle the Tribe in a three-game set starting Monday night at Progressive Field.

The Brewers (34-29) are coming off of a disappointing home stand and are looking to rebound against the Indians (29-36) who have played some much better baseball lately, winning their last three series, two against division opponents.

The Tribe took two of three from the White Sox and Royals and finished off another series win Sunday night against St. Louis.

Game one of the series has Milwaukee's Dave Bush (3-3, 4.58 ERA) against Cleveland's Carl Pavano (6-5, 5.40 ERA).

Pavano has been one of the main starting pitchers in Cleveland's rotation this year. But after throwing a complete game shutout against the White Sox, he had a rough outing against Kansas City. He threw 4.2 innings and allowing nine earned runs.

Pavano is looking to turn it around in game one.

Game two has Yovani Gallardo (6-3, 2.88 ERA) throwing against Jeremy Sowers (1-3, 5.10 ERA).

Both pitchers threw five innings in their last start, both allowing two earned runs. Look for both pitchers to find their "midseason" form in Tuesday's game two.

Game three schedules the Brewers' Jeff Suppan (5-4, 4.48 ERA) versus the Indians' David Huff (2-2, 7.39 ERA).

Huff and Suppan are both coming off of back to back wins and look to continue their success in what might be the rubber match in this series.

Cleveland is quietly crawling back into the AL Central race, now only six games behind the first-place Detroit Tigers. If they can pick up one or two more games, don't be surprised to see Cleveland contending for first place at or soon after the All-Star break.