The score is tied. The situation is tense.

It's the top of the eighth inning, there are runners on every base and relievers are warming up in both bullpens when the TV camera pans over to the corner of the home dugout at Miller Park. Brewers manager Ned Yost, bench coach Robin Yount and third base coach Dale Sveum are plotting strategy and at this critical moment -- from the comfort of a well-worn Barcalounger -- springs a realization:

Those three guys have hit some of the more significant home runs in Brewers' history.

Yount, a Hall of Famer, hit 251 homers during his playing career and probably none were bigger than the two he hit off Jim Palmer on the final day of the regular season in 1982.

"I think if you ask him, those were the biggest ones he ever hit," former Brewers second baseman Jim Gantner said. "They were huge. We needed to win that day and it was (Don) Sutton against Palmer. It doesn't get much bigger than that."

Yount's homers, which lifted the Brewers to a 10-2 victory and a berth in the American League Championship Series, came on Oct. 3. Four days earlier at Fenway Park, Yost hit a hugely important homer -- his only round-tripper of that season and one of only 16 in his big-league career -- to lift the Brewers to a critical victory over Boston.

"It was my destiny. It was my claim to fame," Yost recalled after a recent game. "It was the one thing I did in my career that was really good."

When Yost and Yount hit their big homers that fall, Sveum was an 18-year-old rookie who had just finished playing for Pikeville in the Appalachian League. His big home-run moment would come nearly five years later -- on Easter Sunday, 1987 -- when he smacked a game-winning homer to help the Brewers to their 12th consecutive victory to open the season.

"It was a fun day," Sveum said. "It was a fun 13 days (during the team's winning streak). It was an unbelievable year. For not going to the playoffs, it's hard to have a better year than we did (in 1987). We had streaks and ups and downs. It was a fun year."

Making lists can be fun, too. We asked Brewers historian Mario Ziino to give us his list of the top five home runs in Brewers history and he gave us 11 episodes encompassing 16 homers. Here is Ziino's list:

1. Sixto Lezcano's game-winning grand slam against Boston on opening day at County Stadium (April 10, 1980).

2. Yount's two homers off Palmer in the AL East pennant showdown at Memorial Stadium (Oct. 3, 1982).

3. Sveum's game-winning two-run homer to keep the streak alive on Easter Sunday at County Stadium (April 18, 1987).

4. Larry Hisle's two homers off Goose Gossage (July 8, 1978).

5. Cecil Cooper's three homers -- including a game-winner against New York's Goose Gossage (July 27, 1979).

6. Yost's only homer of the year at Fenway Park (September 29, 1982).

7. Joey Meyer's game-winning homer off Roger Clemens (Aug. 9, 1988).

8. Prince Fielder and Rickie Weeks each hitting their first big-league homers on the same night as the Brewers beat the Twins at Miller Park (June 25, 2005).

9. Richie Sexson's game-winning homer against Cincinnati in the eighth inning of the inaugural game at Miller Park (April 6, 2001).

10. (tie). Gantner ending his 1,762 at-bat homerless drought against Dave Stewart (Sept. 3, 1991) and Rob Deer debuting with a homer off Tom Seaver that cleared Comiskey Park (April 7, 1986).