"It was one of those days no Brewers fan would voluntarily commit to memory.

Sept. 27, 2008.

The 161st game of the season.

Lasting just 2 1/3 innings, Ben Sheets gave up four runs in what had every appearance of a devastating loss to the Chicago Cubs.

Afterward in the clubhouse, Sheets said, "That's it. That's all I have. I have a broke arm."

And that was that for Sheets and the Brewers, the last in a mind-numbing litany of injuries that finally severed what could have been a beautiful relationship between the franchise and its all-time strikeout leader.

Sometimes, though, things have a way of working out. The Brewers recovered in Game 162 to make the playoffs, and maybe, just maybe, Big Ben has revived his career.

"It's been 17 months since I've been on the mound," Sheets said Friday. "Seventeen months since I faced a batter. I'm not going to lie, it's not like I wasn't nervous out there."

And he did look a little odd in Oakland green and gold, pitching as he was against the only professional team that had employed him before he went on the DL for the umpteenth and final time in the Brewers' ultimate hour of need.

Unlike those days and nights when Sheets' command was precise and his stuff overwhelming, his emotions wavered in the Athletics clubhouse between the satisfaction of working again and the strained circumstances of how it ended with the Brewers.

In and out of the rotation for most of his frustrating career in Milwaukee, Sheets is still bitter that he's had to fight the organization for the surgery bill on a blown elbow that cost him all of 2009."