danzig6767

Games like this are brutal on both teams pitching staffs, but it's gotta be extra brutal when you lose that type of game. Kill your bullpen and have nothing to show for it.

I'm sorry but I'm not buying the "extremely unlucky" assessment. He's allowed 4 HR in 21 innings including one to a pitcher. Opponents are slugging .576 against him. I was there when he pitched against the Pirates and allowed in succession, HR, Double, Double, Double, Triple, Single. None of those hits were remotely "lucky". While he's certainly capable of turning it around and it is for him very early, I'm a little concerned about everyone making excuses for him. This guy is supposed to be a premier pitcher. Premier pitchers don't generally ease into a season. They hit the ground running. The Brewers emptied their farm system to get him. Yes he was set back by injuries, but I expect better than what I've seen so far. It is fortunate that he's gotten plenty of run support so far so his struggles haven't been all that detrimental to the team. Let's hope we see the guy we all hoped to see soon though. He has given up a sizable number of hard hit balls when he's made mistakes this year, so people aren't saying that's Grienke has been getting bad luck via a bunch of seeing eye grounders and flares finding openings. What they are saying about Grienke not having much luck this year is when a pitcher has such an insanely good K/BB rate, he's not pitching terribly, just when he does make mistakes, batters are rarely bailing him out by not hitting a rocket line drive somewhere or home run. It's fairlyy rare for a starting pitcher to pitch so well in a game that they don't make any mistake pitches by leaving at least a few pitches more over the plate than they wanted. Often enough though, even when a pitcher leaves a ball over the plate, the batter will still only hit a ground ball, fly out, foul it off, and/or hit the ball hard right at a defender. When Grienke had made mistake pitches so far this year, he rarely is catching a break by the batter not centering on the pitch. Take two of the homers he's given up also. The one Neil Walker hit out wasn't a bad pitch at all left over the plate, Walker just golfed it out. Then the one the Colorado pitcher hit out, yea that was a bad pitch right over the middle of the plate. That said, throw that same pitch to Hammell 20 straight times and he likely wouldn't hit another one out for a homer, but that time he did hit it out. Again, bad pitch there to Hammell, but some bad luck that he jacked it 380 feet given that pitchers constantly get thrown pitches to them right down the middle with little to no harm as a result. So for me at least, while i agree with you in that Grienke so far has given up to many hard hit balls, especially at more inopportune times than say with nobody on, the 39/3 K/BB rate gives me plenty of confidence that the runs being allowed should soon start decreasing significantly. That fabulous K/BB rate shows that nothing is wrong or off with his stuff, more just a mix of making to many mistake pitches at less than ideal times in the games and Grienke not catching many breaks when he does miss with a pitch.

It would be hard for Boggs not to given Wilson's horrific .595 career OPS and coming off a season in Seattle last year where he somehow got 360 at bats and posted an amazingly bad .278/.294/.572 line. That's Will Nieves territory or Betancourt minus Yuni's power. I understand that utility infielders rarely are good hitters, but we already have a utility infielder who hits poorly and barely plays. Man, once Morgan gets back, Boggs is DFA, and if Rivera is sent down also, our group bench players on days Morgan starts in center is going to be an absolutely brutal group of hitters. Gomez/Kotsay/Nieves/Counsell/Wilson will be our bench most days that Morgan starts vs righthanders, assuming he's platooned with Gomez. That's one very ugly collection a hitters.

What am i missing here? Counsell barely even plays as it is and it's not as if Wilson is an improvement at the plate over Counsell amazingly. So did Melvin add Wilson just in case Betancourt got hurt with a serious injury, and Counsell is to old to play everyday if a situation like that happened? Besides that, i just fail to see what purpose Wilson serves? Melvin says he wanted another righthanded bat on the bench for when Morgan gets back and Wilson bats righthanded, but adding Wilson means almost for sure that Boggs will be DFA. Boggs though can bat bat righthanded given he switch hits and he's a better hitter than Wilson. So barring a serious injury to Betancourt, Wilson looks like his role will be almost entirely as a pinch hitter, but he's a near Nieves like brutal hitter. What in this equation/pickup am i missing to where it makes sense to others?

Wow, how did this guy manage to get 360 at bats with Seattle last year where he posted a .572 OPS? Once Morgan gets back and Boggs gets DFA, our righthanded bench options will be ugly ugly. Wilson, Nieves, and Gomez on days Morgan is starting in CF. Counsell and Kotsay from the left side. We better not ever need more than a single from a pinch hitter.

Ax had a couple of fastballs yesterday at only 93 and 94mph

I'd bet against it being just a matter of when for the NL. I have no doubt that if fans of all NL teams were polled on the DH, they would vote heavily in favor of keeping the NL how it is without the DH. Owners won't ignore that and it's not just 50 and 60 year old guys who don't want the DH, so my money is on things staying the same for a long time and i hope i'm right.

Even with kids, many times adults use kids to curry them autographs and this whole autographs market is why many athletes now don't sign as many of them. I saw a segment on some show about this and players would say how they'd sign something for a kid and then five minutes later the kid would be back with 2-3 other items he wanted signed. The player said he knew the kid was likely being paid to get stuff signed for someone who then would sell those autographed items. The athlete then is in a tough spot because if he tells the kid no, others around will think the athlete is being a jerk for not signing an autograph for a kid, but those people don't know about how exactly the autograph industry works. I remember in the mid-90's when Packers fever in Wisconsin was absolutely crazy. Any autographed Packers stuff was going for big money in memorabilia shops, especially from prominent players. So these shops were paying kids to get items signed and players mentioned how they'd see the same kids there nearly every day with new items to be signed, and the players could figure out that no way were these certain kids buying all these items themselves. In the end, it's adults who drive all of this. It's them who for some reason i can't figure out that place so much value on acquiring sports memorabilia, especially autographed memorabilia. That in turn has caused athletes to be more leery and resulted in kids who just want an autograph for themselves to have less access to the athletes. As each year goes by, the more and more i realize just how many douchebag people are out there walking among us.

I don't know about that. I just looked through his game logs during his time with the Brewers and they look very similar to other relievers with mediocre results. http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players/7772/gamelog;_ylt=AlyUlPoNguEsyu7mXQGr8B.FCLcF?year=2010

I get irritated also with the bobblehead hoarders, like you said, it's a plastic toy with springs. I've given away every bobblehead i've got at games to my nephew except for one time at the stadium these kids sitting by my buddy and i didn't get one, i think the Brewers ran out so both of us gave our bobbleheads to the kids sitting by us. Seeing the kids get all happy was well worth it and their parents insisted on buying us each a beer even though we tried saying it wasn't necessary. I did the same once when i caught a foul ball, i gave it to some 6-7 year old kid sitting by me. He just looked so cute with a baseball glove on that was nearly as half the size of his body and he kept looking at the ball like it was a winning lottery ticket. I didn't post this at all so hopefully people will then respond and say wow that's so nice of you. I'm not looking for a pat on the back, it's just that i remember being a young kid. Going to County Stadium on bat or pennant day. That was so awesome and i cherished those mini-bats. When a guy in the crowd once gave me my first major league baseball, i kept it on my dresser for a year or two. These promotions should be mainly about and for the kids first IMO and it really really bugs me when grown adults act like pricks and would put their self interests above kids over bobblehead toys or this current promotion involving Bernie Brewer. FWIW, i'm not saying adults shouldn't keep bobbleheads they get at games just because i give mine away.

I don't see the big problem with the AL having the DH and the NL not having it. It only is a noticeable thing in the World Series and while there is usually an advantage for AL teams when they play at home because they have a set DH who tends to be a better hitter than a bench NL guy asked to DH, the AL pitchers aren't used to hitting or bunting when games are in a NL park. In fact, i kind like the two leagues being different in that regard. I like an AL manager in the World Series having to decide in road games whether to play a great hitting DH who is miserable defensively. So long as the NL doesn't switch to the DH, i don't care much either way what the AL does with the DH. Besides that, the main thing i want is more revenue sharing. That said, teams getting the money, their owners shouldn't be able to just pocket the cash.

When someone is a very fringe player like Cruz is, making important career decisions based on your pride being hurt over logical common sense based on the depth charts of the Brewers/Rangers was simply foolish. Barring an injury to Elvis Andrus, Cruz pretty much had absolutely zero chance of ever being called up by the Rangers. While the Brewers were picking Betancourt over Cruz, Yuni is a vastly inferior player to Andrus, thus more opportunity for Cruz to potentially get a chance in the majors at some point. Yet, Cruz allowed feeling slighted overrule what was best for his chance to get in the majors. You can choose to say that you don't blame him for leaving the Brewers organization, but good luck trying to make an argument that it wasn't a very stupid decision.

Hart is far from an ideal #2. I'm not sure he's even that big of an upgrade over Gomez there to offset the loss of his RBI bat down in the 6th spot. I don't quite see Lucroy there either but it's not a horrible idea. When you think of ideal #2 hitters in the game today, you have to look at a guy like Placido Polanco. Polanco is a contact hitter, but more than that, he's able to utilize the entire field depending on situations. The Brewers don't really have that guy on their roster. I've been hearing this said for years about how many people think a number two batter should hit, but i wanna know why exactly? Why does the second batter in a lineup need to be someone that makes a lot of contact, "moves runners" for whatever that exactly is supposed to mean, utilize the whole field, be able to bunt, etc? What about batting second makes these things so hugely important? Obviously in the vast majority of baseball lineups, the number 3 and 4 hitters will be the best batters on a team or at least among the top batters on a team, along with those two guys usually also being hitters with a good to great amount of power. So it seems common sense to me that a team should mainly want more than anything the 1-2 batters to be guys that get on base so that the number 3-4 hitters have baserunners to drive in. It also would be a nice added bonus if those 1-2 hitters have some speed to go along with on base abilities so that they can score more easily on singles/doubles by the 3-4 hitters. After those two qualities, everything else would rank a distant 3rd or 4th for me. This stuff about making contact a lot and utilizing the whole field mean nothing to me if the guy doesn't get on base a lot. Hell, Betancourt doesn't strike out much and hits the ball to all fields, but it just results in tons of outs. Plus, if the two hole guy has power to go along with being able to get on base pretty well, that means he'll bat more often than if he's hitting say 6th. So if you can sell me on why the other stuff you mentioned is so important for a 2-hole hitters, i'll listen, but i'll need more reasoning than just because people having been saying this stuff for ages about what they want from that spot in the order. FWIW, i'm cool with Morgan batting there vs righthanders once he returns since he gets on base. Besides that Morgan has shown an ability to get on base vs righthanders, it would also be nice to have a power bat after McGehee. Without Morgan being healthy though, the fact that Hart K's quite a bit and isn't a bunter doesn't bother me at all when he's batting second in the order.

Did you forget the blue font? Pretty sure all of that should be in blue. Well, for whatever reason, a lot of people seem to love the food at Applebee's because i live about a mile from one and the parking lot is always packed. I've eaten at Applebee's a few times because my mother's husband gets gift cards for filling up with gas at Speedway, the food is edible, but that's about the best i can say for it.

Ohhh, I like Applebee's. Good idea. Did you forget the blue font?

The concern for me isn't exactly the number of hits he's been giving up, it's that when batters do get hits, they tend to be more well hit rockets more so than just some back luck where a bunch of seeing eye grounders or flares are missing gloves.

Man, why was Hart playing that deep with a righthanded batter up? That ball was up in the air for awhile and not a flare just over Weeks head, yet it still dropped in.

No kidding Some here can't seem to see the point. Nobody was saying at all that Boggs was a lock to get a hit instead of Betancourt. In fact, by simple odds, Boggs was more than likely going to make an out. The point is why choose the guy who has been hitting abysmal, the guy who has hit worse vs righthanders in his career, a pitcher is on the mound who is extra tough on righthanded bats, and you have a switch hitter on the bench? Nobody is blaming Roenicke for the loss, but it's frustrating watching him so often making these baffling decisions.

No question that by simple odds, Boggs likely would have made an out just as Yuni did, but the job of a manager is to put his team in the best possible positions to win a game. There is no logical reasoning for batting Yuni over Boggs there. Plus, Betancourt sucks vs both lefties/righties, but he's extra brutal vs righthanders and Bell is especially tough on righthanders. So explain to me how using Yuni there over Boggs who switch hits is putting his team in the best possible positions to win a game?

Just baffling A single there likely wins the game. Bell is brutally tough vs righthanded hitters and Betancourt is extra brutal vs righthanded pitchers. So what does RR choose, let's put Yuni in there. Hello, earth to Ron, please pick up the phone.

Honestly, Roenicke is pure garbage. This isn't a small sample anymore...he just doesn't know how to manage. No kidding, Boggs hits lefthanded and a single likely wins the game, but Running Ron picks the human out machine instead. Uggg.

I think his comment is perfectly relevant. You need to weigh the odds of Counsell getting a hit over Gallardo vs the odds Gallardo vs whoever else in the Brewers bullpen giving up a run or not. And also taking into account that it was only the top of the 6th inning, and that the Brewers had a one run lead, with only one out, and Rickie Weeks on deck. There are a number of factors. I think sticking with Gallardo was the right decision and it proved to work.No his comment was not relevant. I was pointing out that Gallardo not giving up a run in an inning was no special accomplishment. You have to look at the difference between what Gallardo is expected to do vs. a reliever. The same is true for a batter, so why would it be relevant that most AB end in an out? And of course you have to factor all that in. The studies I've read do just that. I'm not just going by gut here. You seem to understand all the factors that go into the question but you aren't appreciating that a SP's projected performance is heavily dependent on how many times he's gone through the order. It's all covered in a book called "The Book: Playing the Percentages of Baseball." If you are interested, you can basically read it on Amazon's website. OK, no more on this subject for me. People can disagree on whether he should have let Yovani bat there, but i can't see how anyone can act like it was a terrible decision. Given Yo is clearly an above average hitting pitcher, he wasn't at say 110 pitches already, and his velocity was still really good the inning prior, i think pinch hitting or leaving him in were both defensible positions.

The throw beat the runner and sadly for way to many umps in baseball, they then just call the out instead of making a call based on whether the tag was actually placed on the runner before a hand/foot reaches the bag or home plate. I'd love to know what percent of those type of plays umpires get wrong when a throw beats the runner and thus it looks initially like the runner is going to be out, but a foot or hand actually gets in there before the tag?

I was fine with him letting Yovani bat there given he's a very good hitter for a pitcher and even though his pitch count was at 100, he was consistently hitting 94-96 on the gun the inning prior.

I still don't like him playing CF, especially at Petco, but i'm a Brewers fan first and foremost, so i'll gladly take some crow for complaining today. In fact, i'd love nothing more than to be wrong each time i complain about something because that means the player is doing something good.