Henderson's four-out save won't be a habit

SAN FRANCISCO -- Jim Henderson on Tuesday joined a small group of recent Brewers relievers to work more than three outs for a save.

Henderson's four-out, 25-pitch performance was only the 13th multi-inning save in the past five seasons for the Brewers, and John Axford accounted for nine of them in 2010 under then-manager Ken Macha. The team's current manager, Ron Roenicke, would rather not make it a regular occurrence.

"I don't want to do that with Henderson, but when you need to win a ballgame, that's the way to do it," Roenicke said. "It's getting to the point once in a while now where I think, 'We need to win a game.'

"If you do that very often, I worry about him maintaining his stuff. I saw really good stuff from him yesterday -- hopefully that's because we've been pitching him the right way, resting him when he needs to rest, and hopefully that's the way we've been doing it with all the bullpen guys because they have been very good this year. They've been used, but they've been very good."

Henderson was happy to oblige, saying he wanted "to prove that I can do that." His teammate Axford was happy to see him do it.

"Especially seeing him face that hitter [Pablo Sandoval] he needed to get in the eighth before coming back for the ninth," Axford said Wednesday. "Jim is a competitor. He's getting the job done this year, and it was fantastic last night to see him take it a step farther."

Axford had only one regret. Henderson, a left-handed hitter -- a slugger, according to Axford -- was denied his first Major League at-bat when he was left on deck in the top of the ninth inning.

"I wanted to see that big Canadian hack that he's got," Axford said.