jflick1215

Hello all. While Brewerfan goes through some exciting aesthetic changes in the coming weeks, I'm excited to be able to provide some content to the site before the changes go live. Hopefully I can bring some insight. First piece is a basic series preview that I will you will enjoy! By Josh Flickinger The Brewers and the Cubs will meet beginning Friday night in a three-game weekend set at Miller Park. While huge crowds typically gather for these rivalry matchups, the Brewers ticket office says plenty of seats remain for the Friday and Sunday games. The Brewers have started out streaky, losing their first four games of the season, while winning the last three. In their four game series against the Braves, they allowed just 10 runs, and received four solid to spectacular outings from their starting pitchers. At the plate, it’s been Ryan Braun with a fast start, hitting .391 with 3 home runs and a 1.300 OPS, while Rickie Weeks’ .978 OPS has been highlighted by 3 dingers as well. Nyjer Morgan has been a pleasant surprise, hitting .462 with a 1.192 OPS along with the best alternate personality in the league, the gentleman Tony Plush. The Cubs, meanwhile, come into their first road trip of the year at an even 3-3, splitting a homestand against the Pirates and Diamondbacks. Starlin Castro has been the star offensively so far, batting .400 with two double, two triples, and carrying a 1.084 OPS. Also off to a strong start is LF Alfonso Soriano, who has blasted three homers en route to a 1.015 OPS. Game One: Randy Wolf (0-1,13.50 ERA) v. Carlos Zambrano (0-0, 4.50 ERA)[/b] Wolf is coming off a lackluster spring training, and much more applicable, a tough first outing Sunday in Cincinnati. Wolf was tagged for 10 hits and six runs in just four innings, allowing two walks as well for an uber-ugly 3.00 WHIP through one outing. Wolf finished 2010 with a flourish, notching a 3-2 record, but 1.85 ERA and .916 WHIP in his final 6 starts. The Brewers will hope that Wolf can get on track in 2011 against the Cubs. Chicago features a lineup steep with RHH’s, and it’s interesting to note that righties hit just .250 against Wolf with a .728 OPS, while lefties hit .286 with an unseemly .889 OPS. Those numbers belie his career marks of .758 OPS vs. RHH and .699 vs. LHH, and in the first game, righties went 8-16 with two home runs against him, while lefties “only” hit .400 (2-5). Still an interesting stat to take a look at in 2011. Wolf was a mixed bag against the Cubs in 2010, allowing 8 runs in just 4.2 innings of work in a Miller Park start on June 9, while a home start on September 11 saw him dominate. Wolf allowed just one run on four hits (one of them a Xavier Nady HR) in a 1-0 defeat. Zambrano had a solid first outing of the season, pitching six innings and allowing three runs against the Pirates. He did allow three walks to go along with five hits, and departed after 99 pitches with cramping in his pitching hand. Like Wolf, he was outstanding down the stretch in 2010, going 5-0 with a 1.10 ERA and .976 in his final six starts. Lifetime, he’s 9-5 with a 3.19 ERA at Miller Park that of course included a no-hitter against the Astros in 2008. His numbers lifetime against the Brewers are 12-8 with a 3.60 ERA. Last season, he was 2-0 with a 3.00 ERA in 5 games (3 starts). Game Two: Chris Narveson (0-0, 0.00 ERA) v. Matt Garza (0-0, 3.86 ERA)[/b] Narveson picked up right where he left off in 2010 in his first start. Monday at Miller Park, he shut the Atlanta Braves down on three hits over six scoreless frames in the home opener. Though he didn’t get the victory, it was a terrific way to begin a season for the 29-year old southpaw. Narveson was solid in his last 12 starts of 2012. Narveson went 6-6 with a 3.65 ERA and a .624 OPS against, and a 1.18 WHIP. He only made one start against the Cubs in 2010, and he allowed just one run in 5.2 innings in a 4-3 win at Wrigley on August 3. Garza, the prize off-season acquisition by Cubs General Manager Ted Hendry, was solid in his first start, allowing three runs in 7 innings of work Sunday against Pittsburgh. The former Ray had a very strange line, allowing a whopping 12 hits, but walking no one, and striking out 12. He was remarkably consistent in his three years in Tampa, starting between 30 and 32 games, pitching between 184 and 204 innings, an ERA between 3.70 and 3.95, and a WHIP between 1.24 and 1.26. Garza has never faced the Brewers. Game Three: Yovani Gallardo (1-0, 1.20 ERA) v. Casey Coleman (_)[/b] Gallardo has been terrific so far in 2011. He got his second opening day assignment and allowed two run in six innings in Cincinnati, and followed that by hurling a two-hit shutout on Tuesday against Atlanta, giving the Brewers their first win of the campaign. Last season, Yovani shut the Cubs out over seven innings on June 8th in a Miller Park start, and allowed just one run on two hits while striking out 12 Cubs at Wrigley August 2nd. His final start of the season against Chicago also saw a lot of success, as he threw 7 scoreless frames at Miller Park September 12. Lifetime against the Cubs, Gallardo is 3-1 with a 3.19 ERA in 7 starts. With a win, Yovani can climb into a tie for 20th place on the team’s all-time leading win list with 38, tying Doug Davis and the immortal Eduardo Rodriguez. Coleman is expected to be recalled on Sunday in place of injured starts Andrew Cashner and Randy Wells, who were placed on the disabled list Monday. A 15th round pick by the Cubs in 2008, Coleman is 28-16 with a 3.73 ERA in the minors. He made his major league debut in 2010, but spent the majority of the campaign at AAA Iowa, where he posted a record of 10-7 with a 4.07 ERA and 1.20 WHIP. The aforementioned debut came on August 2 against Milwaukee. Coleman allowed six runs in 2.1 innings of relief, but later made a solid start at Miller Park September 12th, going six innings and allowing just one run. In 8 starts last year, he went 4-2 with a 3.33 ERA and 1.36 WHIP.

Guys, not sure where the link will be, but indeed there will be GameCast in the house, a good source tells me. Great news for those of you looking for velos!

193! But to be fair, there were some other quizzes on that site that were similar.

Yep, this is my game. Would've been all over the tube there if they would've panned out from O'Driscoll a bit http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif Crazy action there, but the poster above had it correct, good call. also good call by Rock, who was all over it right away (he came in here after the 1/2 inning). Lots of confusion. My goodness this would be a tough loss...

It's a run. Score should be 2-1. stay tuned http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

My update: 2-12. That's right. 2. And. 12. I don't even want to talk about it.

No, Laura. I am watching on MLB.TV at work. It's a long story, but I'm not blocked here. To answer the question, Johnson made a nice snare of a one-hop shot down the line, and Casey was about 2 feet from the bag. As he went back in, he basically went through the legs of Johnson, who made contact with Casey, but certainly never came CLOSE to tagging him. Casey, Fischer, and Macha all went crazy right away. The ump was right behind the play, not sure how he missed it.

For those not able to watch on MLB.TV, that was probably one of the worst calls I've seen this year. I'm sure that Cory is all over that. Johnson's glove didn't ever even come close to Casey. Geez.

And you can't leave when it gets bad. Not only can i not leave, I am forced to literally watch every single pitch without missing a single nuance. I love my job, but it's been tough this year!

I am 0-7. The first loss was the Trevor blown save (BF.net: "Please be more specific). OK, it was the one where Nick Stavinoha hit a HR from his knees. Since then, the Brewers have not even LED in a game that I've attended, and went 41 innings without scoring what I termed a "meaningful" run. I started out the '95 season 0-6, and went 0-10 from '94-95, but man oh man has this year been brutal for me in person.

Yo soy Gameday tonight http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif. It's an earned run for Manny, because the batter is his sole responsibility. Doesn't matter what happened before then. However, it IS an unearned run for the team.

Guys, it has to be an error on the play. The runner stopped between 2nd and 3rd, then went to 3rd when the ball got away from Zaun. It needed to be an error on Gomez in the opinion of the official scorer because the ball did short-hop Zaun.

As far as the Gameday stuff, it just depends on if they have a stringer available to work these games. In most cases, they don't. There will be a few games that will have it this spring, but it'll be random. Both Miller Park exhibitions will have a full Gameday for your viewing enjoyment!

This is true, by the way. She'll be starting after the first of the year.

It's 11:16. I should be sleeping. Instead, I was just pacing around my bedroom, trying to explain to my wife of 8 years why I was wide awake. She doesn't understand why tomorrow is huge. I spent about 10 minutes outlining all of the reasons that have been gone over here ad nauseum... a) CC and Ben are leaving. Although we won't be a bad team next year, this is clearly our best shot. b) This would leave no doubt that the CC trade, at least for me, was a win. The man propelled us into the playoffs. c) We haven't been there in 26 years. 26. I was 4. I started following the team in 1984. That's 24 years for me, hundreds and hundreds of games. Putting up with Jeff Juden's bad acting, Johnny Estrada's, Alex Sanchez's baserunning mishaps, Chuckie's Hacks. You know the list. d) Making those great memories that the '08 team gave us stay completely untainted. Let's not have this team's legacy be a 4-15 start to September. d) The fans. As some of you know, I am the GameCast guy for MLB.com. I do 1/2 of the games at Miller Park, and so I've gotten a little bit of a different view of the team this year. I've seen what the press box has been like in this homestand. People, even those supposedly unbiased, are unabashedly cheering for the hometown 9. I want them to win, well, mostly for myself. But I also want them to win for my friend Jon, who I talk or email with after literally every game. And my friend Rob, who will be at the game. And my Dad, who always loved Robin, and wasn't the fan in '82 that he is today, partly (or mostly) because of me. I want them to win so official scorer Tim O'Driscoll can do his first post-season game in his 22 years at the helm. I want them to win for Brewerfan.net. For Hawing. And Brian. And pessimist Geno. Fatter than Joey. All my favorite posters. Because I know how much it would mean to them. And I know how much it would mean to me. So Go you Milwaukee Brewers. Make September 28, 2008 a day to remember forever. Just like the last day in Baltimore in '82. Game 5 of the ALCS, with Coop's hit, and Ladd's save. Just like Game 5 of the World Series, when we had a 3-2 lead heading back to Busch. Put this day, 9/28, in the history books, the media guide's, the newspapers, and most of all, in the hearts and minds of all us fans who have cheered for you all these years.