TooLiveBrew

brewtown if you liked that version, don't miss Oliver Parker's Othello (#24). Intense, heartbreaking, & deliciously well-acted.

I'm thinking it'd look a little bit like... http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j155/Jaysongod/Step_up_2.jpg Step Up 2 tha Playoffz!

Yeah, everybody is hating on Weeks right now (me too), but Mike Cameron deserves some hate too. He hasn't really shown me anything so far. .224 batting average with a 33:80 walk to strikeout ratio is terrible. Step it up Mike. Did this post really come literally right after the post showing Cameron's good July? 'Step it up Mike'?

Yes, I was happy to see Ned run Torres out there. Of course Salomon wasn't sharp, but I applauded Yost not managing by the 'rules' there.

Last night was about as bad as a game can get for a player, but I really find all this "that's the last straw!" talk to be very oddly timed. Weeks has a .923 OPS since the All Star Break and plays better defense than Ray Durham. No other 2b on the roster has the capability of putting up those types of numbers. Don't you think this is mainly overreaction from one terrible game? Weeks had been playing well before yesterday. That's it right there. Most of the 'OMG WEEKS MUST DIE' stuff is knee-jerk frustration from an emotional game. Yes, the plays weren't good. No, we don't currently have a better option at 2B than Weeks. I know that can be hard to rationalize after such a crazy game as last night's, but it just is the plain truth. To show how in-depth & objective the research has been in most of these anti-Weeks vents, people are declaring that the time to give up on him is when he's producing. Ray Durham is a great guy to help fill out the bench & get some spot starts against RHP. The strangest part is that this is basically the first season that Durham has been more successful against RHP, which is an indicator that he's played well over his head v. RHP so far, and under v. LHP. His 3-year splits (which includes 2008) against RHP: .266/.334/.419/.753. Now of course Weeks must be platooned for a weaker all-around defender when Rickie's 3-year line v. RHP is .249/.346/.404/.750. If you've been watching the team lately, you should be very aware that Rickie has been a huge part of the recent success. Rickie has been hot, and honestly that's what people should have been expecting. He wasn't going to carry a sub-.330 OBP all season long, he's just a better player than that. Now I can understand & get behind getting him a few starts off v. RHP now & then (which is precisely what I think Durham was brought in to do, along with the fact that Ray can hit LHP too), but this 'dump Rickie now' stuff is just silly imo.

Sorry, i can't agree at all on the play where Fukudome was at the plate. I had the play on my DVR and the ball wasn't scorched, he hit it off the end of the bat and the ball was hit medium grounder speed, enough time to bounce three times before getting to Weeks. There was no great range involved either by Weeks just getting a glove on the ball. Weeks took two small steps to his right and instead of just backhanding the ball, he chose to fall on the ground while trying to backhand it for whatever reason. Then my recall was too dramatic, for certain. This DVR thing sounds pretty cool. I know Weeks didn't make good plays tonight, I just thought the plays weren't routine or easy. The reason I felt that way on the grounder was how hard I thought it was hit, so that sounds moot. I just remember reacting to that play by wondering if Durham would've had a shot at it. It's an odd tradeoff at 2B, where one guy has the hands & the other the range necessary to be a good 2B. IMO it was closer to an error than hit after watching the play multiple times. I trust that you're being fair, but sometimes watching it multiple times & esp. in slow-motion can make a play appear easier.

Watching powerhouses like Braun & Hart draw fewer BBs than Kendall is just so frustrating. Braun's clearly doing well enough right now to not worry about it, but Hart is scuffling. I know he'll get back to it, but sure could use that reliable 5-hole hitter right now. Braun is clicking, Fielder is clicking, 'Hart clicking' would fit nicely there.

That DP was anything but tailor made. Johnson came in at his legs very hard. Now, I'm not defending how badly Rickie bailed out on that throw, but I can understand why he felt rushed. This is my main point on tonight's misplays by Weeks. Looking at them objectively, the DP was not easy (might not have been hard, but it wasn't easy), and the ball Fukudome hit was scorched, and one that Durham probably had next to no shot to get. The sheer fact that Weeks got his glove on that ball was what led to so much disappointment on that play. Many starting 2B can't even get to that kind of ball. Just mo. I don't discount fans feeling like Rickie has proven that he finally needs to prove himself. What I think is overreacting is declaring that he's finally 'done' because of a couple plays from an emotional game. It's not like Rickie's the reason we lost alone, though I'm pretty sure that argument will get made again. There were missed calls on the basepaths that went against us, Torres stunk mightily, Yost stuck with Sabathia WAY too long... I'm sure there are more. He batted .235 last year. You call that pretty good offensively? On its own, BA is a terrible way to gauge production. That's when you hear that Adam Dunn sucks. Just as a reminder for people, Rickie's sporting a July OPS of .837 (.366 OBP), and he's been extraordinarily hot of late -- .450 OBP last 14 days. I think 'giving up' on him right now would be poor timing.

Just mho here... Ned's about average. Lou's about average. One guy gets too much criticism, and the other gets too much praise. If I have to pick between the two, I go with Yost. Piniella works his P too hard for my tastes, and tinkers too much with the offense from what I've seen. Lou certainly believes that sometimes you need to call a hit-&-run to 'get things going', and for pete's sake I've seen him pinch-run for Derrek Lee in a tied, late-inning ballgame. He just makes a lot of knuckleheaded mistakes & over-manages for my preferences. Yes, Yost can be maddeningly frustrating, but he really is probably the better manager by most objective BF.net-heads' 'standards'. He's a lot better for the pitching staff, and that alone is probably enough of a tiebreaker to satisfy me.

Yes, his OBP is fine, but his power numbers are down. Mock all you want, but I believe watching Braun explode is playing with his head. I think it's just grasping for explanations to derive that Braun has Fielder all squirrley at the plate. Really, this is all just a product of Prince setting the bar ridiculously high with some fans last season. He's been hitting better than he did in 2006, but had a slow start to this season. If you're not expecting Fielder to continue along around .900 OPS ( a bit), fine. But to expect that he's going to 'continue to struggle', when in reality he stopped struggling after May -- oh, and 'struggling' in this sense = > .800 OPS -- is mistaken, imo. To further extend that Fielder is not only not happy about Braun's contributions to the team, but that it incenses Fielder so that it negatively impacts him at the plate is just a reach to me. I have no problem with someone that possibly expected more from Prince. I don't see his season as disappointing at all, personally. Where I have the problem is when people 'know' what's going on in his head, when the reality is that it's just fans' grumblings/assumptions. When Fielder is red-hot later on & that timespan happens to also see a Braun slump, the logic that's being applied here leads to a thread title something like this: 'Is Fielder's hot streak putting pressure on Braun batting ahead of him?!' In each example, there's certainly a small chance that some of the things we fans are assuming may be true, but the much more likely answer is that fans are frustrated & projecting meaning onto a situation where there isn't any. It's just the ups & downs of a baseball season imo. Mock if my must, but I have watched him closely in the dugout, at the plate, his reaction to what Braun does, etc. I'm sorry for mocking your point. To me it very much lines up with 'He's too fat', 'No meat means Prince can't hit HR anymore' comments we've seen all season. I don't think that you aren't very carefully observing what you think Prince is feeling, but I just don't think we can peg that down from watching him from afar. But I'm sure you're right, there's no chance any of that would bother Prince. Part of the point to me is that this, if you were in Prince's situation, would clearly bother you. How it affects Prince we just can't say. Besides, if signing a long-term deal were so important to Prince (the Boras client), he's had at least two separate offers thus far & rejected both of them. I'm sure in the competitive sense Fielder is gunning for Braun (really could easily pass Braun's HR total at season's end, too), but beyond that I think it's over-analyzing.

So what if Suppan was "one pitch" from getting out of it, he proved that inning that that "one pitch" was not working out so well. Another classic lesson from 'Ned's School of Managing for What You Hope Happens'!

But I agree with the others that he has a lot of demons playing in his head, and that's holding him back. We have access to his psychotherapy records? I don't think we should assume we can make these kinds of assumptions accurately. The list of reasons why Prince has disappointed this season are interesting to say the least: Too fat, not eating meat, 'demons in his head'... If Prince has demons, what does Corey Hart have right now? Are the Cubs fans hiring a voodoo priest? I agree with Ennder, Prince's production is still being held down by 'low' production earlier in the season. Once he gets into August imho more people will start seeing that he's fine. Prince's approach at the plate has been very patient of late (.440+ OBP the past two weeks), and I'd expect him to really start getting some pitches to mash soon.

Haven't seen The Bad Sleep, but love both the play & film for R & G are Dead The comments so far make me want to see Titus

In case anyone else felt like Geoff Blum has been a thorn in the Brewers' sides many times, coming into today's game he'd put up a .343 OBP/.407 SLG against them (178 PA)

Congrats!

Whoops! I'd better go remind myself of the actual work & re-edit!

Pizza, cake overload, getting beaten to death with pool noodles by my nieces and 1st place. All and all, not a bad 31st. Glad to hear it was fun. Happy belated birthday to both Patrick & Brian!

Funny thing is, people are getting back on Hall's bandwagon in the last week and he has actually been pretty cold. If only we had an example of this... 3TO gets hot for a little bit then goes in the crapper for a while.. maybe a long while. It's his MO. Although Bill Hall has really bad numbers in May and June.. his July is looking up. There we go! Now, if only there was another one... I guess man, Bill Hall has been playing well. 3TO has not. It's not too hard to estimate who Yost will bat in the 9th even against a RHP. Bill has been the hot and better bat. He has 3 game winning hits this week. It's almost like you can't see past the 3 game winning hits. He's also batted .160/.250/.400/.650 in the last week (.172/.250/.379/.629 last 2 weeks). The idea that 'Hall is hot' could not possibly be more wrong. Hall mashed early in July against LHP, like he does. Unfortunately he's stunk since then, but people that aren't willing to look deeper into the numbers say things like 'His July is looking up!' In reality of course his monthly OPS has just been plummeting.

I guess I defend the move more than Gagne himself - I still think it was a risk worth taking and not that bad of a deal. This is probably the most eloquent way I could describe how I feel about Gagne, other than to say I felt his results didn't match his execution earlier on. It's nice to see Eric finding some success, and I agree that he's been fun to watch lately.

Beltre's an interesting case. What seems to be holding him down so far is his .689 home OPS & a terrible, horrible, putrid May (.237 OBP/.387 SLG/.625 OPS). He's had an .835 OPS away from Safeco... just a fluky split at this point imo, and as it evens out a bit Beltre would probably climb the ranks overall a bit. That road OPS looks like his road OPS numbers from recent seasons, but I'd expect the home split to climb into the mid or upper 700s

Just wanted to say that I think Houston's announcers are pretty good. I enjoy getting 'stuck' with their broadcast.

I'd much rather play in Portland than Milwaukee. The Pacific Northwest is underrated. I was going to post something to this effect when I saw bullox's post, but just decided to keep my nose out of it. Portland is a great city, and they're right -- the Blazers are the darlings of this town.

Especially when dumping his lazy butt for Kendall is one of the biggest upgrades we made/biggest reasons the Crew is improved. I vote for 'The Estrada Line' as a new way to refer to a .300 OBP. As in, 'Corey Hart needs to stop chasing so many pitches, or his OBP is going to end up below the Estrada line.'

I said, "well every team has those kinds of fans, it goes both ways". OMG, I thought the old man was going to have a heart attack or punch me. Huffing and puffing, you know what I mean. Well said. I really would've liked to have seen his silent rage & lack of anything to say. Thanks for all the input, both your cousin's and your own. Glad the Brewers treated you to a spectacular win!

Yes, it really is true, as hard as it may be to believe.