Fear The Chorizo

The Cubs have 5 runs on 4 hits Yay Prince - please start doing that more often and tell your teammates to get on base in front of you

For the past two months, there was optimism surrounding the 10 remaining games against the Cubs to make up ground on them That optimism couldn't be further from reality at this point. There's laying an egg and then there's this - just flat out demoralizing. Honestly, I will have all kinds of respect for Yost and his coaching staff if they are able to head to Atlanta and start playing great again - I think it'll be much tougher to get this team focused on games at hand than anything else after this debacle. I'm sure it really is harder on the fans, but it's got to creep in the players' minds, too.

The Brewers' offensive "prowess" this homestand (starting since the Cardinal series, actually), is shades of earlier this season when they wouldn't have been able to score if they were a trust fund baby walking the streets of Amsterdam.

I'm pretty much resigned to the Brewers losing this game and getting swept out of their own park by the team they've been chirping about making nervous whenever they play them - I just hope this doesn't lead to a brutal stretch in August against teams that are just waiting to lie down and get pummeled... Atlanta's thrown in the towel, Cincy's trading pieces away, the nationals and padres are just plain bad - gotta have a good stretch against these teams. oh, and if it hasn't already been decided to this point in the season, I think it's fair to say that Cameron's option shouldn't be picked up - I know he's a streaky hitter and all, but he's on the downside of his career, and the hot streaks really seem to be thinning out compared to streaks when he doesn't touch the ball.

runner in scoring position - how's this AB going to end?

it'd be nice for the Cubs to not get another hit right here

I shudder at the thought of the Brewers trying to hit Harden when the shadows come into play

When he swings and misses at 3 pitches out of the strike zone his next AB, then that question could be answered with a yes.

Good to see Weeks supply the protection Dave Bush needs to get hittable pitches

since the all star break, I think the Brewers' average with RISP is lower than Sheets' career BA - or at least it's close.

I was 1/2 expecting that ticker to start showing the % of Cameron strikeouts based on the count..... and as I write this, ballgame

Kapler obviously got that pitch to hit because Cameron was protecting him

go figure, Weeks doesn't pick the ball up when he's around 2nd base to see where he needs to run

After today's game, the Brewers play 5 games against teams with current winning records (3 LAD, 2 STL) in August. A Braves team fresh off trading away Teixeira and effectively giving up, a Griffey-less Reds team, a horrible Nationals team, and an equally bad Padres team make up the Brewers' next 13 games...I don't exactly see a prolonged losing streak in there.

It'll be even more hilarious when the Cubs have to play all their home games at Miller Park when their dump gets renovated in a few seasons

It's really simple - if you don't want a ton of Cub fans buying tickets to watch the Cubs play in Milwaukee, the Milwaukee fans need to stop selling their tickets to them. Easier said than done if you ask me, especially when selling tickets to one of these games probably fills a car up with gas at least 3-4 times. Look at the series against Houston - when Brewer fans can sell the park out to watch them play against a last place team, they could easily do the same against the Cubs if they couldn't bear to watch the game from home and get some extra spending cash in return for their tickets. I think building a larger season ticket base would also go a long way - which is a very difficult task for baseball's smallest market, even if the team's playing awesome. I'm sure a bunch of these tickets were bought before the season started by Cub fans, but I guarantee that at least half of the Cub fans at Miller Park this series bought their tickets from someone selling them online, or from ticket scalpers/brokers outside the stadium. If I'm a season ticket holder and some schmo offers me 10 times the face value of my tickets for the game, I'm probably selling them when it's a series in July, and I really don't care if he's wearing a C or an M on their hat - their money's good either way. You see tons of Cub fans in St Louis and tons of Cards fans in Chicago during their series, too - I think they're just more used to looking at each other than Brewer/Cubs fans. I've had good times going to the games both at Miller Park and at Wrigley Field, because I've spent a majority of the games watching what's going on in the field instead of looking at a bunch of idiots screaming at each other. People looking for confrontations will always find others to start them with, but IMO those people aren't worth even acknowledging. You're never going to have Miller Park 95% full of Brewer fans during a game with the Cubs when there's millions of Cub fans living within 100 miles of Miller Park down in Chicago. Chicago's basically 1/2 as far away from Milwaukee as Green Bay is. Part of it really is a Cub fan's sense of entitlement and a Brewer fan's inferiority complex with being the little guy, but the biggest reason is simply that baseball's smallest market is so close to baseball's 3rd largest market, and there's 81 home games for fans to attend, not 8 like in football.

With 3 righthanded starters going the rest of this series for the Cubs, I really hope Durham starts all three. Defensively, I know he's a liability, but so is Weeks. For all the talent Weeks has, it simply hasn't translated on the field to make him a consistent asset. He's made several baserunning gaffes after being duped as to where the ball is by middle infielders. He can't hit his way out of a paper bag (or to the opposite field, ever) when a pitcher throws him offspeed. His botched double play throw last night cost the team 2 runs, the difference in the game. He also couldn't handle a non-routine grounder from Kosuke earlier that inning that could have led to a double play and kept CC from throwing another 20 pitches that inning. I've always been a defender of Weeks, but it's gotten to the point where I'm questioning whether he's ever going to be a good baseball player at the major league level, or if he's destined to be one of those toolsy guys who doesn't ever figure it out.

I do like the flexibility that having 2 guys (Villy and McClung/Bush) able to go 3+ innings in relief gives the Brewers. The problem is that it's really going to screw with the continuity of the starting rotation and the bullpen, especially if Yost is stubborn with platooning Bush/McClung while Suppan continues to pitch worse that either of them. I think a decision has to be made after Bush and Suppan's next starts as to what 5 pitchers are going to be the starters, at home and on the road. As it stands right now, two starting spots are being questioned/messed with due to the "platoon" and with Suppan stinking on ice over the past few months. Yost needs to keep Bush in the rotation as the #4, set McClung up in that long relief role, and give Suppan a couple more starts to see if he can right his ship. I think the Brewers are still going to need a few spot starts by McClung to give Parra some rest on his innings workload, so it's not like he's going to get mothballed in the bullpen.

Braun inking his contract extension - has the looks of being the best 40-50 million dollars the Brewers ever spent.

I really wonder if Yost has decided today that all moves he makes or doesn't make today will be exact opposite of what conventional baseball knowledge tells him to do

"Looks like Ned and Sweet Lou are on the same page. Marquis has given up 6 through 5 and is out there in the 6th. " The Cub bullpen did have to pitch 7 innings yesterday, and Marmol/Howry have been used a ton since the all star break...not really the same situation

Get him out of the game - otherwise there's absolutely no point to having a twelve man pitching staff!

So now Yost probably brings Villy in, and instead of double switching Kapler out for Cameron he'll let Villy pitch only one inning and pinch hit for him in the 6th, burning through the bullpen faster than if they had simply pulled Suppan last inning. or, he could do this

Watch Suppan go out to start the 6th inning

it'd be nice for Bill Hall to hit that slider to right field