Yovani Gallardo was drinking at a Wauwatosa tavern until shortly before his drunken driving arrest early Tuesday morning, the bar's owner said.

But according to his bartender, he said, the Brewers' pitching ace was with his bodyguard and designated driver, an off-duty Milwaukee police officer. "We did everything we were supposed to," said Chris Leffler, owner of Leff's Lucky Town, 7208 W. State St. "We check for designated drivers. We have the taxi companies on speed dial."

Leffler said he did not know how the bodyguard/designated driver arrangement broke down, but that it appeared to his staff that when the two left that Gallardo was in sober hands. "After that, I don't know," Leffler said. "He (the bodyguard) was supposed to be his keeper. But they're adults. They can make their own decisions."

Leffler said everyone on his staff is trained about overserving and will cut off customers who cannot demonstrate an alternative to driving. "We cut off people all the time," Leffler said. "We will call you a cab, but we won't let you go on drinking if you are going to drive."

Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Yovani Gallardo told deputies he had been drinking at Leff's tavern in Wauwatosa before his arrest Tuesday morning on suspicion of drunken driving, a Sheriff's Department spokesperson said.

Department media contact Fran McLaughlin told Wauwatosa Patch that Gallardo, in a booking statement, mentioned being at the State Street bar in an admission that he had been drinking before driving.

A caller reported Gallardo as a suspected drunken driver at 2:10 a.m., McLaughlin said, and told dispatchers he was driving slowly and weaving while southbound on Hwy. 41 and then onto westbound Interstate 94 at the Miller Parkway interchange. A deputy pulled Gallardo over on the freeway at 84th Street, according to a Tuesday afternoon press release. (Initial reports from the Sheriff's Department said he was stopped at 76th Street.)