09/19/2004 - Brewers (Davis) at Astros (Clemens) ESPN2

[endaround]

How many times must we hear "young Milwaukee hitters"? How hard is it to just look at a lineup to see there are no young hitters there?

[batman]

The sad thing is, this is the same broadcasting team that covered the Brewers on Thursday.

 

~Bill

[950opsLHcatcher]

It's probably two more times that they'd hoped to see the Brewers this year.

[batman]

Indeed.

 

Here are the ages of the Brewers' starting position players.

 Player Age -------------------- Scott Podsednik - 28 Keith Ginter - 28 Brady Clark - 31 Geoff Jenkins - 30 Lyle Overbay - 27 Russell Branyan - 28 Craig Counsell - 34 Chad Moeller - 29 -------------------- Average Age: 29.375

That's not "young". I hope Tony Gwynn, Jr. is reading brewerfan and can relay that to his dad. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

 

~Bill

[rainman]

Maybe the announcers are thinking to 2006 when we'll have Prince and Ricky and JJ in the Majors. Then we will have a relatively young team but not right now.

[950opsLHcatcher]

Well, the average age of the Astros' 8 starters today is 32.625, so I guess that makes the Brewers "young" by comparison.

[endaround]

See Tony, young hitters maybe crappy because they are young. However, the Brewers hitters are crappy because they are crappy.

[stkmtimo]

And Doug Davis is a "young pitcher in the National League" according to Tony Sr.He's not old, but he's not really young either.

 

Tim

[ja002h]

Hopefully the Brewers'll get another run + neither of the starters will have to take a loss for this one. DD doing a fantastic job.

[ja002h]

There it is again: "young Milwaukee hitters"

[gypcasino]

I don't think that was a strike to Pods. Maybe if Emmanuel Lewis was up to bat.

[stkmtimo]

It must suck to be a Brewers starter!

 

Tim

[batman]

Nastiness from Mike Adams in front of his hometown Texas fans. I'm sure that was great for him, attoning for a tough outing July 23rd at the Juice Box.

 

Nice job, Mike!

 

~Bill

[DuWayne Steurer]

I suppose with guys like Ginter, Pods, and Overbay, "young" might be a relative term, relating to the amount of time they've actually been in the majors.

 

(Not covering for Tony Sr here, just an observation)

[batman]

Brad Lidge is unbelievable. I don't understand how anyone *ever* scores any runs against him. High 90s fastball, low-90s slider, great control.

 

Great game, great series, totally disappointing outcomes.

 

~Bill

[jschris]

Bernie Mac had better cuts than Jenkins in that last at-bat.

 

Credit to Lidge, though--he's nasty!

[stkmtimo]

We lost http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/frown.gif

 

Tim

[gypcasino]

Another 12 game losing streak is entirely possible.

[hawing]

We switched back and forth between the Brewers and other programs tonight. I suppose it's too much to hope that the ESPN2 team gave Sharpie any props? and it wasn't just the Rocket showcase? As if holding back the Brewers' offense takes a lot of skill these days...

[RobertR]

I'm incredibly frustrated with the way this team is finishing up the season. They haven't beaten a contending team in over a month and are going to have a tough time even matching last year's poor record. Maybe they're "battlin'", maybe they're not, either way they're playing at an unacceptable level and management can't find ways to make changes. They're wasting everyone's time trotting out the same old lineups, and frankly, the players are playing like they realize it. It's just maddening.

 

Robert

[rluzinski]

It's looking like the Brewers will actually have a worse record than last year. Who th ehell would have believed that when the Crew was 7 over .500?

 

WOW.

[igor67]

The pitching has declined somewhat in the second half, but not in any sort of unreasonable way. Davis and Sheets still look like a pretty good pair at the top of the rotation. Santos may or may not be 5th spot fodder or he just may have worn down. The bullpen has taken some knocks in the second half, but a lot of it was Kolb having a more reasonable performance. On balance though I'd say our pitching staff is light years ahead of where they were coming into the season and that's a pretty big positive.

The offense is just so bad. If you are going to continue to lead Pods off Overbay needs to hit 3rd slump or not. With his steal numbers and Overbay's doubles we have an excellent chance to score if those two are bunched in the line-up. Instead we've got the no batting average and power wunderkins stuck in there and frequently just leave Scotty stuck at second. As disfunctional as this offense is quirky things like line-up construction become more important. But at this point that's just small potatoes because we've only got two real hitters in the line-up. Clark makes modest contributions with his OBP in a line-up otherwise devoid, and Jenkins has chipped in modest power, but despite getting to lukewarm levels he's still been pretty bad.

We talked a lot about stranding baserunners early in the season, but with Keith remaining mostly a hacker and Counsell's batting skills reduced to only walking we're not even getting baserunners anymore. Branyan has plugged one hole, but we've still got pits at catcher and SS with the entire OF barely a step above. It's going to take atleast 2 BIG upgrades out of those spots to really get this offense to respectability. I happen to think despite missing most of the year that Hardy can provide one of those Big improvements, but even if Doug feels similarily he can't really count on Hardy doing much more than playing good defense and hanging in there, so he's got to do everything he can to provide some serious boost.

[GenoSeligPrieb]

"There it is again: "young Milwaukee hitters" "

 

I'm willing to cut Tony Gwynn some slack from last night.

 

Some may argue that he should know the Brewers a bit better because it's his son's organization. But a) Junior isn't even close to playing with these esteemed Brewer legends yet, and b) how many dads can rattle off the names of their sons' co-workers? http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

 

Tony's a national announcer who, understandably, doesn't follow a last place team whom he never covers, too closely. And in terms of calling the Brewers a "young" team, I think he was trying to be kind. Young almost always equals bad, like a poor-hitting catcher = defensive star, right? And for most, "young" = "This is...what?...his second year?...He must be...25?" But that crappy lineup we keep sending out there is littered with (until now) career backups like Clark, Bennett, Branyan, Overbay and Branyan, who rarely have seen extensive playing time before. So the perception is, since I haven't seen much of them before, and they stink, then they're probably young.

 

Tony seems like a decent guy, which is welcome in this age of in-your-face commentators, and who knows?, maybe next year or if he's still around in '06, Mr. Gwynn may become more comfy in the booth and be able to speak out a bit better.

 

Look at Rick Sutcliffe. He's getting very comfortable calling games now, but he was pretty generic and stiff at first.

 

Friday night, when that fan in the first row in Yankee Stadium failed to grab an easy potential home run ball as Manny Ramirez reached in and snatched it away from him, Rick said, "That was a gimme...And judging by that fan in the grey shirt's reaction, that wasn't the first beer he's had tonight."

 

Priceless!

[davego]

Just for the heck of it, I want Ned to do the ole pull the names out of a hat trick. If for no other reason than the entertainment value.

[endaround]

I'm sorry, but Tony Gwynn get paid very well to give color commentary on what, 50 games a year? He can do some actual research for games he is provding color on. It not just Tony's fault of course, there seems to be this belief that Yost is doing his bet to teach his young team how to play the game. But if it takes 20 secs to see that the young Brewers consist of Sheets, Bennett, and Hall, and that the Brewers are a bunch a stopgaps why can't people being paid to do that actually do that?