Major League Baseball
Game of the day: Moeller cycle almost wasted

By The Associated Press

	Chad Moeller
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MILWAUKEE — Chad Moeller felt awful — except at the plate.

Fighting muscle aches and chills the past few days, the Milwaukee Brewers catcher hit for the cycle last night in a 9-8 victory over the Cincinnati Reds.

The Brewers rallied from an 8-6 deficit in the ninth inning and won on pinch-hitter Bill Hall's two-out, two-run homer off Reds closer Danny Graves.

Moeller was in the dugout tunnel near a heater when he saw Hall's line drive leave the park on television.

"I really do feel under the weather," he said. "My whole focus today was really just getting through nine innings behind the plate somehow, some way. ...

"If we would have gone extra (innings), it would have been a real battle for me. I don't know if I would have made it through," Moeller said.

Hall's home run made sure he didn't have to.

Moeller homered in the second inning, doubled in the fourth, tripled in the fifth and singled in the seventh, becoming the first Brewers player to complete the cycle since Paul Molitor in 1991.

Obtained from Arizona last offseason in the Richie Sexson trade, Moeller is the fifth Brewers player to accomplish the feat.

Molitor, who will be inducted into the Hall of Fame this summer, did it on May 15, 1991, at Minnesota, when Milwaukee was in the American League. Molitor is now the hitting coach for the Seattle Mariners.
 
The other Brewers to hit for the cycle were Charlie Moore, Mike Hegan and Hall of Famer Robin Yount.

The last major-league catcher to accomplish the feat was Pittsburgh's Jason Kendall on May 19, 2000.

"It's pretty darn cool to be in that company," Moeller said. "They are some of the best that have ever played the game.

"I am nowhere even in the ZIP code of being with those guys. But with this one little silly stat I am."

Despite Moeller's big night, the Reds led 8-6 entering the bottom of the ninth before Graves (0-2) blew his third save in 13 chances. Cincinnati's shaky fielding kept the Brewers in it.

Moeller's grounder to third with two outs and one runner on base could have ended the game, but Brandon Larson short-hopped the throw to first for an error that made it 8-7.

It was Cincinnati's fifth error.

Hall followed with a liner over the left-center wall, and the second-smallest crowd in Miller Park history (8,918) went wild.

Moeller, for one, was happy to see it.

"That would have been really disappointing, to have a good day but all you remember is how the day finishes," Moeller said.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company