Brandon Woodruff just keeps hitting; here's a look at 11 other memorable Brewers moments with pitchers at the plate

JR Radcliffe

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Brandon Woodruff heads back the dugout after hitting a solo homer against the Dodgers to tie Game 1 of the NLCS for the Brewers at 1-all.

Brandon Woodruff already has authored the most famous instance of a pitcher batting in Milwaukee Brewers history, and he didn't stop there.

Woodruff's remarkable home run against future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series on Oct. 12 will live on as perhaps the greatest moment in Brewers history with a pitcher at the plate.

His two-run double on April 16 gave him a 5-for-7 start to the year (including a hit as a pinch hitter the night before) and has made him an early favorite for a Silver Slugger.

For one thing, it's a great excuse to re-live his playoff moment.

For another, it's a reason to bask in all the crazy Brewers moments involving pitchers at the plate -- and Woodruff's homer was only one of many in 2018. He'd even homered earlier in the season against Pittsburgh, and he didn't even have the market cornered on Brewers homering against former Cy Young Award winners.

Brent Suter (also pitching as a reliever) took reigning American League Cy Young Award winner Corey Kluber deep (433 feet!) in another memorable one-run win.

Many fans can recall at least one of former starter Yovani Gallardo's 12 homers with the Brewers, or perhaps they recall a Sunday in 2008 when a certain trade acquisition sent one for a ride.

Take a look back at other moments when Brewers pitchers raked:

The Raptor crushes Klubot

Let's remind you of that 433-foot blast.

Suter was working that game in emergency relief of an injured Wade Miley and allowed two runs in 4 2/3 innings of the May 8 victory over the Indians, 3-2. He also made a sensational defensive play in the game.

Jordan Lyles walks, then runs

This isn't raking in the traditional sense, but perhaps the Brewers' most improbable win in their record-setting 2018 came Aug. 24, when the Brewers rallied for three runs in the bottom of the 15th to prevail, 7-6.

Jordan Lyles, a reliever who joined the team late in the season, was the last bullpen arm remaining, and the bench was empty, so he had to bat with two outs and two on in the 15th, with the Brewers staring down a brutal 6-4 loss. But Lyles worked for an astounding walk against Clay Holmes, who had struck out Ryan Braun one batter earlier. Erik Kratz and Orlando Arcia followed with singles, and Lyles scored on the latter from second base in a moment that may have saved the Brewers from digging into their rotation, and certainly kept their playoff hopes alive.

Yovani Part I

Speaking of homers against Cy Young winners...

Yovani Gallardo hasn't hit a home run since leaving Milwaukee, with the last coming in 2013. One of his more memorable came against five-time Cy Young Award winner Randy Johnson in San Francisco, a no-doubt, three-run blast that spotted his team a 4-1 lead it would never relinquish in the second game of the 2009 season. Gallardo outdueled Johnson for the 4-2 win.

Yovani Part II

Milwaukee Brewers starting pitcher Yovani Gallardo strokes a home run off of Pittsburgh's Ian Snell to account for the only run of the game April 28, 2009.

Gallardo wasn't even done in that month.

Gallardo's other home run during the 2009 season was also impressive, when he belted a seventh-inning blast that accounted for the only scoring in a 1-0 win at Miller Park over the Pittsburgh Pirates on April 29. Gallardo allowed only two hits over eight innings, with 11 strikeouts, and his fly ball to left field against Ian Snell accounted for all of the offense. It's possibly one of the more underrated singular performances in recent Brewers history.

Yovani Part III

This one isn't a homer, but it felt like one. The Brewers were out of position players against the Orioles in extra innings May 27, 2014, so reliever T.J. McFarland naturally walked Mark Reynolds with two down and nobody on in the 10th with the pitcher’s spot due up. But pinch-hitter Gallardo doubled to center field (narrowly missing a home run) to drive in the winning run for a 7-6 victory in a game in which the Brewers had been down to their final out in the ninth, only to tie the game when Jonathan Lucroy’s weak single against lefty bullpen ace Zach Britton plated Elian Herrera.

Shaun Marcum's Grand Slam

Brewers fans may sour on the name Marcum after he struggled in the home stretch of 2011, but most will also remember how valuable he was on the hill for a team that won a franchise-record 96 games and reached the National League Championship Series. Marcum also had a remarkable day at the plate on the Fourth of July, when his first career home run came in the form of a two-out grand slam. The blast came against Daniel Hudson and spotted Milwaukee a 6-1 lead. Marcum also delivered an RBI groundout earlier in the game, leaving him with five RBIs. The Brewers, however, lost the lead and fell, 8-6, with the Diamondbacks scoring twice off John Axford in the ninth.

(The teams would meet again later in the season, though, don't worry.)

Sabathia's Swat

Milwaukee Brewers CC Sabathia hits a home run in the third inning against the Cincinnati Reds on July 13, 2008.

Most fans remember July 8, 2008 -- the day CC Sabathia made his debut in Milwaukee and led the team to a win over the Colorado Rockies. His next start was memorable for a different reason. The magic of that summer was off to a good start when, on July 13, Sabathia worked a complete game (allowing two runs on eight hits with nine strikeouts) and swatted a booming home run in the third inning off Homer Bailey that pulled the Brewers to within 2-1. The game wasn't over, however, until the bottom of the ninth, when Craig Counsell's sacrifice fly scored Bill Hall for a 3-2 walk-off win. It was Sabathia's only home run with the Brewers, but not his only home run that year -- he blasted one for Cleveland in an Interleague game against the Dodgers in June, one of his final outings before the trade that brought him to Milwaukee.

The Toolshed

Few Brewers generated the sort of buzz Brooks Kieschnick did, a precursor to Angels star Shohei Ohtani as a pitching and hitting threat. He hit seven home runs in Milwaukee in 2003 (and one more in 2004). Three of those bombs in 2003 came officially as the pitcher. That was not the case on Sept. 17, 2003, but it was still a huge moment as a pinch hitter when Kieschnick's two-run blast tied the game in the ninth at Busch Stadium against closer Jason Isringhausen. Jason Conti added an RBI single later in the inning and the Brewers prevailed, 7-6.

What a Rusch

Brewers pitcher Glendon Rusch is greeted by teammates and fans after hitting a two-run homer in the fifth inning April 5, 2002 -- the home opener at Miller Park.

Look, we all know 2002 was a disaster, and in the canon of Brewers memory, Glendon Rusch is mostly remembered for starting a game in which Shawn Green of the Dodgers hit four homers at Miller Park (Rusch only allowed one of those, but he didn't make it out of the second inning). But in the second year of Miller Park, Rusch also had a memorable moment April 5 at the home opener before 43,000 fans. He worked a complete game three-hitter, allowing two runs and no walks, as Milwaukee defeated the Diamondbacks, 6-2. His two-run homer in the fifth against Rick Helling also netted him a curtain call.

It's been a while

Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Bronswell Patrick was the first Brewers pitcher to homer after the team converted to the National League in 2008.

Brewers pitchers didn't swing a bat for a long time in the American League, though that changed with the introduction of Interleague Play in 1997 and then in earnest with Milwaukee's move to the National League in 1998. On August 1, 1998, swingman Bronswell Patrick became the first Brewers pitcher since Skip Lockwood in 1971 to hit a home run in a game, taking Felix Rodriguez deep. Patrick also found himself in the midst of more home run history later in the year, when he yielded home run No. 61 to Sammy Sosa (a blast that put him one behind Mark McGwire that year and tied the longstanding record set by Roger Maris). Sosa hit his 62nd in the same game off Brewers reliever Eric Plunk.

D'Amico goes deep, but is the triple more impressive?

Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Jeff D'Amico was an imposing presence during his tenure with the team at the turn of the century.

It won't be remembered in the same breath as seasons put forth by Teddy Higuera or Ben Sheets, but Jeff D'Amico had a pretty great 2000 season. After he worked eight innings of two-run ball on July 30, his ERA dropped to 1.81, and he also contributed at the plate with a solo homer that helped his team beat the Rockies, 3-2. D'Amico finished the year with 12 wins and a 2.66 ERA, all coming in a season after he had missed nearly two full years with injury.

On April 12, 2001, D'Amico also hit the first-ever triple at Miller Park (though it could have been his second homer if he was a little faster). D'Amico, who stood 6-7 and weighed 250 pounds, lumbered around the bases after Houston's Richard Hidalgo crashed into the wall trying to flag down a fly to center. D'Amico retrieved a drink of water during the injury break, with teammates laughing in the dugout.

Odds and ends

Gallardo and Kieschnick having multi-homer seasons won't surprise anyone, but Scott Karl also hit two home runs in 1999.
Among other Brewers pitchers with home runs on their ledgers: Brad Woodall, Paul Rigdon, Chris Capuano, Tyler Cravy.
Three of the team's top pitchers in 2011 recorded home runs: Zack Greinke, Marcum and Gallardo.
A last bit of history on Suter: he's the first reliever in MLB to homer since 2016, when Cravy turned the feat.

A first version of this story appeared May 8.