danzig6767

He'll never admit it if true, but i wouldn't doubt if Yo got rattled some by how that 1st inning started out. There is a leadoff single, Furcal advances to second, and then that bloop falls instead of being an out. Pujols comes up and rips the double into the gap, bam it's already 2-0 only three batters in. The crowd is rocking and nobody is out, i wonder if it contributed some to the back to back walks that followed? Gallardo did get the big DP grounder though and Hart followed by failing yet again to make a play on a catchable ball. FWIW, i'm by no means trying to say for sure that the Brewers win if a competent defensive CF had been in the game instead. Even if that inning had ended 1-0 instead of 4-0, we can't know for sure how exactly the rest of the game would have played out. Gomez in center would have altered the lineup that was out there tonight. If Morgan was in there, we have no idea what he'd have done at the plate to alter what happened tonight. A slight Brewers lead instead of deficit could have altered moves each manager actually made in the game tonight. My only point is it was Game 3 of series to determine which team gets to the World Series, not a random game in July. To put such a defensive liability in CF who hasn't started there in ages for good reason based on an 11 at bat sample vs Carpenter, i still find it shocking. Would LaRussa have ever considered starting a terrible defensive CF tonight in place of Jay because say that 5th outfielder had been 4-11 vs Gallardo while Jay had been 2-13? Maybe in a random game in July he would, no way in hell in a game of this magnitude.

Nobody is blaming Roenicke for the four playoff losses or that nobody else contributed to the loss tonight. The starting pitching has been a big problem in the playoffs so far and Weeks especially has been failing to come through with runners on base. Just because all of that is true, it doesn't mean that fans have no reason to be very frustrated by his decision to insert a guy into the lineup at a very vital defensive position even though Kotsay doesn't just have below average range, i question if he could beat Lucroy in a footrace at his current age. If Roenicke puts Kotsay in RF, he doesn't come close to making the play Hart should've made but didn't. Which field he played in still was almost immaterial. You can't be serious. There is a reason that certain positions on the diamond are considered more important defensively, because some are more important to have a quality defender. That's why the Cardinals play Berkman in RF and never in CF. A centerfielder needs to be able to cover much more ground and when a CF has zero range as is the case with Kotsay, the results can be disastrous. A really good CF can take away a run to multiple runs from an offense during a game, a terrible CF can contribute to a run to multiple more runs scoring. If Gomez or Plush is out there they get to that blooper with ease and the Molina DP ball ends the inning with St. Louis up 1-0, Hart wouldn't even have been able to butcher the Freese fly ball because the inning would already have ended. Beyond that, i can't imagine another manager starting a guy in CF that runs more like a catcher than a centerfielder. I opens the door to a potential defensive disaster or disasters where a run to multiple runs end up scoring that shouldn't have if a competent defender was in CF.

People aren't only talking about the end results. First of all it wasn't raining in the first inning and Kotsay was playing extremely deep for an obvious reason, he has very very below average range for a centerfielder so Roenicke had little choice but to play Kotsay really deep. It not only lead to a free double and a run scoring, it gave the Cardinals an extra out in the inning which then didn't turn the Molina DP grounder into an inning ending play. It easily could have cost the Brewers three runs if the inning would have played out the same. Yea, Kotsay hit a homer, but one of his two walks were wasted by his baserunning blunder. Plus, had say Gomez been in CF, he possibly could have done something at the plate to contribute to a run as Kotsay did. Lastly, it's not just blaming the end results of Kotsay being in there which has people so angry. It's just as much or more that Roenicke would be so reckless as to put in CF a guy who can't move at all anymore. It's was painful and infuriating for me watching him try to run with those short choppy steps. Hell, Roenicke was lucky that Kotsay only had one chance to butcher an out hit in his area because had St. Louis hit more balls in his direction or the gaps that Kotsay's running in mud speed failed to get to, RR would have even more mud on his face.

Come on. I sorta agree with you that some here have gone overboard during the season nitpicking nearly everything Roenicke did, but this isn't the regular season anymore, it's the playoffs and tonight was a huge game in giving one team a 2-1 advantage. It's one thing if RR wanted to get Kotsay in the lineup and putting him in RF, Hart has been struggling in the field and at the plate some. It was incredibly reckless though to put Kotsay in CF for a majorly critical game given CF is a crucial defensive position and Kotsay offers absolutely zero range. Did you see him trying to get to that blooper by Jay? It was painful watching Kotsay try to get to that ball while looking like he was running in mud. He has no speed left at all and in baseball games the CF can often have multiple balls hit to him that a good defender makes the catch and a poor one doesn't. Sometimes with guys on base. This wasn't a game vs the Astros in July, it was inexcusable for Reonicke to put an awful defensive player in CF for a game this important, much less next to Hart who has little range left either..

I thought about this last night and guessed it would end up being a close game. Given how tough Carpenter can be on righthanders, i was hoping RR went with a lineup of Nyger in RF and Gomez in CF to give top notch speed across the outfield defensively and if either guy got on base, their speed could help lead to a run in a variety of fashions. Plus, Hart would then be available on the bench to come in at anytime. Mainly though, i had just wanted to see Gomez in CF regardless of what Roenicke did in RF. To many times in these playoffs have we seen balls fall in that odds are near certain Carlos would have caught which lead to multiple runs scoring. Plus he's been hitting well of late.

It would be interesting to see how exactly that first inning would have panned out if instead Gomez had been in CF? I have no doubt that he catches the Jay semi-blooper and it's debatable IMO whether Carlos could have run down the double by Pujols. I don't think he'd have got to that ball, but then again who knows if Gomez would have been positioned different since he's arguably the fastest player in the game and Kotsay runs like he's got ankle weights on? We also can't know if Gallardo would have pitched differently to hitters following had either or both of those balls hit by Jay/Pujols been caught. Let's not forget either that Hart should have caught the ball hit by Freese which became the winning run. It's amazing just how much speed Hart has lost over the last year or two, his bad defense has really hurt us multiple times in these playoffs. The big flaw IMO by the thinking of Roenicke is he said that likely runs would be at a minimum, so he thought Kotsay offered the better chance at helping create maybe a run or two. To me though, if i think a game is likely to be close and low scoring because of good pitching, i'd much rather have an elite defender in CF over a terrible defensive CF because so often in close games 1-2 critical defensive plays can decide a game. Between Kotsay turning the Jay blooper into a double and Hart blowing the Freese catch, it cost the Brewers two runs at minimum and likely three. You just can't have a massive defensive liability in CF in the playoffs. To many potential critical situations can arise in a game where his run in mud speed could be so costly.

I understand the overall point you're trying to make, but for the most part when it comes to hitting/offense at least, the "Moneyball" philosophy believes in the Earl Weaver way of doing things by not playing much small ball and instead looking for guys who get on base and then have power to hit lots of 2-3 run homers. The biggest problems i saw under Hendry was not valuing enough getting on base, poor drafting, and making some extremely poor choices in who to give long term big money contracts like Soriano and Zambrano. Nearly all GM's with a sizable payroll will make at least a bad signing or two, but almost everyone in baseball and most fans knew right away that the Soriano contract would morph into an epic disaster and that Zambrano was to big of a headcase to give 90 million bucks.

4 if you count Hairston.You are right, I forgot Hairston. He should be at SS so I didn't' think of him.It was a very poor decision to start Kotsay tonight and i dislike Yuni as much as everyone else here, but choosing to stick with Betancourt at SS and playing Hairston for the playoffs has worked out great so far. Betancourt hasn't really hurt us in the field in the playoffs, he's hit great, drove in that big run vs Arizona, Hairston has been a godsend replacing McGehee, and if anyone has really hurt the Brewers in these playoffs so far it's been Weeks. Other than that 2-run homer against St. Louis which had no impact on the game, he's stranded a ton of baserunners. I never thought the day would come that i'd say this, but if it was Game 7 with us down a run, two outs, and runners on 2nd/3rd, i'd honestly rather see Betancourt at the plate than Weeks.

When it comes to baseball drafts, i always wonder how much credit should go to the GM be it Theo, Melvin, or whoever? They obviously don't have the time to go scouting hundreds and hundreds of kids scattered across the country. I guess i can see GM's having some input on first round picks, but even that is questionable that a GM would over-rule a scouting director who has spent vastly more time evaluating the available talent. I can't fathom a baseball GM deciding which kids to pick in the 4th-5th-8th-12th-17th-25th rounds etc. They simply don't have the time. So should we just mainly credit or downgrade a GM for the structure/people they have in place for drafting players? Or actually credit/bash them for individual selections which turned out great or bad even though they very likely just let their scouting director make the picks?

Theo was also saved by a few moves he tried making, but never happened He put Manny on waivers hoping someone would take on the contract and had someone actually claimed Manny, Theo and Boston may not have those two rings. He put in a big offer trying to lure in Jose Contreras, only to be bailed out when the Yankees trumped the Sox offer. Besides the bigger name free agent blunders, he gave big contracts to both Renteria and Lugo, then had to pay other teams to take them off his hands. That said, even though i think Theo is overrated somewhat, he likely should be significantly better than Hendry and it makes sense for him to take the Cubs job. The franchise is in as bad a shape as it's been in awhile and just getting them to the playoffs in a few years will have him being viewed as a savior in Chicago.

Why not baseball, why?It will have to happen in a Game 7 in a tight game late before baseball realizes it's 2011.

Why the hell did he swing at a first pitch low slider off the plate? Even it had been a fastball, likely not much he could have done with it.

Don't forget Hart not getting to the Pujols popup Plus, because Morgan goes back on balls so poorly he has to play deep and it allowed the Jackson flare to fall in. No runs should have scored that inning.

I remember reading an article somewhere before the season that said Boston would challenge not just for the World Series, but also being one of the best teams ever. Then they go out and have an epic collapse that just might be the worst ever. Man did i take great pleasure in watching them absolutely fall apart, even with a 170 million dollar payroll. Hilarious. As for the Brewers, some obviously were way off, but i also do remember quite a few in the national media expecting us to be good. As much as advances in statistical data have made it easier to try and evaluate players and teams, baseball is still a fairly unpredictable game. Nobody at all thought Arizona would come close to winning 90 plus games. Who could have predicted in August that Boston would blow a 9.5 game lead in only a few weeks? The Giants run last year? That's the beauty of sports, especially baseball and football where usually there are some very surprisingly good teams each year and then a team or two expected to be really good falls apart as Boston did this year. Doug put together a really good overall pitching staff and it paid off, four games away from a World Series berth.

Man that's how i felt watching the game. Drained. An hours long emotional roller coaster full of pretty much non-stop tension, dread, anger, and excitement. It got so bad that i had a hard time eating around the sixth inning from nerves killing my stomach and inciting my acid reflux. By the time Axford got out of the 9th inning i called my buddy and canceled our plans to go out for my birthday, win or lose. I knew i'd need to just decompress for awhile either way and thus i went out to eat instead. Today's game though is such a prime example of why i'm so glad to be a sports fans. Some people have told me i take sports to heart to much, but i always respond by saying it's them who are missing out. Few if any type of entertainment can provide the same kind of emotional roller coaster like that game did. Non-stop tension via so many innings with multiple runners on base, every pitch feeling huge. Dread anytime Arizona got guys on base. Absolute gut punch when Young made that catch. The emotional torture of watching K-Rod in the 8th, then huge excitement when he got out of it. Wow that inning was intense. This gets followed so soon after by Axford blowing his first save since April and dreading Arizona would take the lead to end the season. Two straight long innings where each pitch by K-Rod/Axford felt almost like a late game 4th and goal situation for the Packers in the playoffs. Finally the game winning hit had me both going crazy and allowing me the breathe normal again. What a ride that game was and man am i glad it's our side who won because as crazy intense that game was, it would have taken me some time to shake it off had they lost, as i'm sure Arizona fans were/are now still feeling to lose a game like that, especially with two late game chances to pretty much win it with one hit.

As much as his brutal approach at the plate and his plowhorse range at shortstop drove me nuts, for whatever reason, when he'd come up with runners on base except for man on third-one out, i usually didn't feel completely hopeless like say when McGehee would come up. Not confident, just not hopeless. Maybe it's because he makes contact a lot, even though so many of those ended with a pop up. We see this happen a lot in the playoffs over the years. Obviously the star players on playoffs teams get the most attention for good reason and they need to produce, but it happens quite a bit where huge plays in series ending games come off the bat guys who much less is expected of. That single by Yuni in a game in July is forgotten in minutes, in a Game 5 advance or go home, it becomes a hit to remember for awhile even though it wasn't the game winner in extra innings. Plus, i think it was huge from an emotional standpoint. Young has just absolutely robbed Hairston of a 2-RBI double or triple to take the lead. Everyone on the team and in the crowd looked like they had just bench punched in the stomach. I sure felt that way. That single was like getting a breath of fresh air after getting punched.

Yea he looked rattled

Yea he looked rattled

No kidding I can see getting a little extra excited if say a game winning homer is hit in your area, but on just random foul balls, many of the adult males in the crowd tend to go way overboard in their attempt to get the baseball. Come on, what would the guy do with the ball anyways? Take it home and show off his caught foul ball to everyone who comes over? I agree with someone who posted earlier in the thread about just giving the foul ball to a kid sitting near unless you have a kid of your own who would love to have a real major league baseball. I've only got one game ball while attending a game and it came on a foul ball, i just ended up giving it to a kid sitting in the row in front of me. The excitement in his eyes was far more worth it than instead my likely just sticking the ball in a closet or box somewhere.

Is there any chance that if say Wolf is laboring and should be pulled around the 4th-5th inning, but the game is still tied to within 2-3 runs that Roenicke could use Greinke for maybe 1-2 innings instead of using Estrada as a bridge to the late inning relief pitchers? I ask because today Ron Washington used starting pitcher Derek Holland for a little over an inning after pulling Harrison who only went five innings, even though Holland started Game 2 of the series.

What do you have against stuttering, stammering, endless and various references to battling, and boatloads of baseball cliches? Davey Nelson used to drive me crazy with his chronic stammering like every broadcast is still his first time in front of the camera and then once he actually spits out a sentence, he says pretty much nothing except the clearly obvious or some baseball cliche. Then one night i was really buzzed and watching Brewers Live with friends, which lead to some laughter as Davey yet again struggled badly to put together a coherent sentence with stammering multiple times. So from that point on, i look forward to him being on just for the pure entertainment value of watching him try to get out more than two straight sentences without stammering like nervous person put in front of a camera for the first time. As for Augustine, he's got that amusing and big time Fargo like accent going on, similar to when people try mocking midwest folks accents. I've seen on movies where that stereotype of accent for the midwest gets used, but i've never run into anyone that actually talks that way. Here and there when listening to talk radio a random caller from say Cudahy will talk like that, but it's rare. For Augustine though, he's got that "ya know der ay" accent down pat to where if he had auditioned for Fargo, he could have gotten a role on the spot. So at least both guys bring some form of entertainment/laughter to Brewers Live broadcasts for me given their baseball insights are largely non-existent. Then there is classic Telly who whether it's Brewers or Bucks after-game interviews, he manages to start about 90% of all questions with "how does it feel" or "how did you" in some fashion. I'd love to see how flustered Telly would get if he was banned from starting any question with the word how.

Maybe Casey, but i'm sure it had something to do with Braun and Rodgers being friends.

I doubt that, both are more hitters parks and surrender a lot of home runs. In fact, the dimensions are very similar except for the right field picnic area at Miller Park, but Arizona has thinner air.

The problem there though is to bring Ortiz back, that puts Youkilis at third again next year where i really question if he suited for that anymore. He's much better suited for playing firstbase and i read somewhere that he also would prefer moving back to first. As for Epstein, i could easily see him bolting to Chicago. With Boston spending money near like the Yankees, missing the playoffs is viewed as absolutely unacceptable. He has wasted a ton of cash over the years on the likes of Renteria, Lugo, Dice-K, Lackey, Drew, and Crawford for at least this last season, but if the Cubs would hire Theo, he'd walk into a less pressurized situation and if he won there the fans would treat him with hero worship after the Hendry years of mostly failure.

I can't remember the last time that i more enjoyed seeing a team and fan base have their hearts broken like happened tonight to the Red Sox. The amazing shifts in emotion they must have felt from seeing Tampa down 7-0 nothing after seven innings, only to see the Rays somehow tie the game with 2 outs/2strikes via a pinch hit homer from a scrub who hadn't homered since April. Then Boston twice is only one strike away from beating Baltimore, but no, the Sox blow it an lose. About five minutes later Longoria goes yard, sealing Boston's fate in baseball history for one of if not the biggest September collapses in history as a Tampa team with a payroll barely more than the combined salaries of the two new toys Theo bought for himself in the offseason put in the final dagger. Wow that was great fun to watch. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif