holybannana

But Soriano isn't a typical lead off hitter. I understand his value may be even greater if he hit lower in the lineup, but having the ability to flip doubles and HR's out of that lead off spot is nothing to be angry about. And steal bases and walk.

Make that 4 to 5 now.

We have more HR's than them this series so I feel like we're winning it. What do they have, 3? We have 5. So there! Oh, they've scored 6 runs on theirs and us only 5....hmmmmm...

Requesting permission to use this as my tagline! I love it! It's all you. I get 33% of the profits.

I know what this team needs..... More cowbell.... DUNK! DUNK! DUNK! DUNK! DUNK! DUNK! DUNK! DUNK!

Second and slipping. They might not be 2nd place at the end of July depending on St. Louis. SAME OLD BREWERS was meant as a team that never fails to disappoint you. I don't really believe that, just frustrated.

I'm going to guess Braun again. He called them out last time and although he hasn't been great he hasn't been embarrassing either.

That was pretty funny, JB. I'm not sure he's joking. Maybe the Mets need more pitching or something if only to foil the Cubs' World Series bid...

We're the big-big-wowowow-look-how-far-i-can-hit-a-ball-moron-brewers. It's our identity.

Momentum is a mental state and anyone who has played sports knows it's 50% mental, if not more. When good things happen it starts to make people positive and then positive things are more likely to happen. So much is in your state of mind. It doesn't guarantee anything but it makes your state of mind more positive and your opponents more negative. Momentum is all about state of mind and this is so crucial in almost anything in life. As you build a head of steam of positive thinking you're more likely to knock down the barriers between you and your ideal. Yes, I'm available for motivational speeches. :P

I'll take what's in the box. I'll take the BOX!!! What is in the BOX?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!.............NOTHING! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!!!

OK, the trade deadline hasn't arrived yet. We can still trade just about everyone!!! Quick!!

It's actually gotten to the point of being hilarious. What's worse is I know this team will not rally at all. They might score 1 run again. All we can hope for is that Harden's arm falls off. I'm in the acceptance stage. Monday I was in denial that the Brewers were actually not as good a team right now. And then I got angry with Weeks. Yesterday I tried coming up with ways to get Manny and finaly went to bed sad and alone. As I sit here now I simple accept this terrible fate.

Yup. If you want to consider overall disappointment, every game has been sold out and TV viewing ios breaking records and they do this. SAME OLD BREWERS

BackupCatchers, I have to agree with TooLiveBrew as well. Leadership is all about accountability. Your followers will only start to mutiny on you if they never respected you in the first place or if you've strung together such a string of failures they can't rely on you anymore. But I don't think they would in this case because the Brewers have a terrific record and I think overall the managing has been good enough to be respectable this year. But instead of coming out and just saying "shucks, they're just too good for us" he should be saying "I feel like I didn't put my players in the right places to have the best chances to win. I've made some poor decisions in this series to date and coupled with a hot Cubs team it was a recipe for disaster. But this kind of environment is new to me and this team and the experience we've gained from this is as much a moral victory as any. I feel like a better manager today than I did yesterday and these are the growing pains everyone has to go through. Failure starts at the top and that's me and we will improve on this. I won't let my players down again." I don't know how anyone couldn't respect someone saying something like that. And who knows, maybe he does to his players when the clubhouse door is closed. Maybe he just puts on a mask for the media. I sure hope so.

I sort of feel like Yost has to get ejected from this game right away. If only to remove himself from the game, thus giving the team the best chance to win. He's got to use Pinella's voodoo magic against him and go absolutely bonkers out there. He needs to make a scene and a spectacle oh himself. He needs to let the collective frustration of the team out on some poor ump who made a questionable call. I'm talking sun glasses and bat as a blind persons cane ala Billy Martin ona questionable strike. Picking up a base and taking it with him. Spitting and kicking dirt on the plate. I want kicking, screaming and finger pointing. Barking and a thrown hat. And a 2 game suspension.

Yup. I just wish he could come out and admit his mistakes. I wish he would just say "I haven't managed under these kinds of conditions and I'm learning the hard way". "I'm inexperienced in these things". Or something to that effect. No, he talked about how he's been in all these big games and blah blah blah. A team will take on the personality of their leader. Pinella is calculative, opportunistic and cold blooded right now. He hasn't cracked a smile in days. He means business and knows what he's doing and his team reflects that. Yost is confused, spontaneous, clumsy and indecisive right now and his team reflects that. I think it will be OK. He'll have some time to reflect on this failure of a series. And here's the silver lining: It's a playoff atmosphere in July. This is a dress rehearsal so it doesn't matter much. We just have to hope he takes the lessons of this series and reflects on it and the team picks up on it.

It kinda sucks that they're doing all this and losing badly. For instance, they've had a great string of sellouts lately but they've lost 9 of 13. So all these people are watching and paying a lot of money to go to games and such and the team has absolutely blown at home. Now, that road trip was a lot of fun for the TV audience which is cool. And that has to give hope to the casual observer. But why can't these guys win at home? Especially when everyone is watching and its a packed house? I think I answered my own question there...

A little while back Russell Branyan played most games. That's kinda true. It seems like whenever Hall has been a day-to-day starter this team has stunk on offense. Maybe it's time to get Branyon back in there?

I don't have data to back anything up but form casual (albiet biased) observation, it looks like the Cubs by and large were throwing a ton of balls. They were basically going for the corners and black every single time knowing that they would either get a called strike or a crappy hit or the batter would probably swing at it and miss if it was outside the zone. The Cubs' pitchers have executed this well it would appear. They aren't even getting close to the middle of the plate knowing full well this team will smash the lights out of the ball. They aren't scared to throw at outside and inside corners and high and low even when behind because the Brewers do just fine getting themselves out. Brewers are slumping and being taken advantage of. It happens every year. I'm not trying to downplay this but it's a series in July. The team hasn't batted well for awhile now and can't seem to get a clutch hit at all. And I think part of it is they aren't taking bad pitches. A little while back they walked a bit more and forced teams into pitching to them. The team has a poor strategy and a bad approach at the plate right now. They haven't seen a 3-2 pitch they don't want to hit. Compare to the Cubs approach which seems to be more along the line of be willing to strike out looking if you don't get your pitch. The make the pitcher work and throw pitches and this will only lead to pitcher mistakes and meatballs which they are smashing all over the place. With Rich Harden up today, they need to just let him throw balls. He uses a lot of pitches to get people out and he's on a pitch count. They need to take walks and strike out looking instead of weakly grounding out to short. The more pitches you see the more likely it is you get one that's dead red and very hittable.

Weeks has turned it up in July. He is batting .250 with a .775 OPS. His OBP is a little low at .341 but his SLG is way up showing that some of those liners are falling into place. Look at Rickie's linedrive % and compare it to his BABIP. His BABIP is very low and you should expect it to rise, and I think it has some this month. I can't believe I'm defending Weeks here, please don't throw tomato's. I'm just saying the Rickie Weeks trend is a positive one right now.

This is the first time AccuScore doesn't favor the Brewers so it's rather obvious we will win this one. I just feel by fluke the Brewers should win this one.

They game planned the Brewers well. Last night for instance, I remember Hart's first 2 AB's there wasn't a single strike thrown to him. Not a single one. Zambrano touched on this last year saying something along the lines of the Brewers aren't smart hitters and they'll strike themselves out. Bill Hall touched on it last night when he said it seems like all we get are sliders and maybe we need to start taking them. This team swung at so many balls. Especially lately. They've been slumping for awhile and it's catching up with them now. Somehow they swept the Cardinals and didn't play well. They didn't hit their starters at all. They basically ate of the Cards wretched bullpen that apparently is a slump buster. But this team has been kinda crappy for a few weeks now. Some of it has been covered up due to left handed pitching, but its caught up. Since the Colorado series in fact. They just peaked in their crappiness this series. Things haven't fallen their way much at all. But it all feels "right" to this delusional Brewers fan. It feels like right now is a good time to be losing. Like you want to be down now so you can get up later in August and into September. And I don't think it will be too late. 2 months of ball left. The Cubs have another (hopefully mistimed) slump in them and the Brewers should peak again. Right now is the time to be doing these things. To have hijinks on the bases and ineptitude in the field. To have ungodly numbers with RISP, to not draw walks and to push every wrong button as a manager.

I can't blame Cubs fans for supporting their team. And of course they acquire "mob mentality" when they come to a place like this, stake their claim and are surrounded by thousands of their brothers. The problem isn't Cubs fans; it's Brewers fans. All the sellout Brewers fans are so disappointing. I have friends that have full season tickets that sold theirs for this series and it's hard to blame them on one hand, while I'm disgusted on the other. They got a lot over face value for each and paid for their entire season ticket package because of it. So it's hard top blame them when the money is that good for 4 games in July. Another thing is it isn't like all these Cubs fans are coming up from Chicago. If that was the case you wouldn't even notice. But Marquette is basicaly 50% Chicago kids and kids with a bit mroe money to spend than your typical college kid. Another huge segment of Cubs fans are from Kenosha and that area. I work with 4 guys from Kenosha and they are all Cubs fans and go to these games. They like the Brewers too and go to Brewers games and cheer for them. But when the Cubs are in town they throw on all their Cubs gear. They're also Packers fans. These people make me sick in terms of sports. Not to mention, many people that live in Milwaukee are from Chicago. Lastly, Cubs fans are just more passionate than Brewers fans and are willing to do things like this by and large. Theres more of them and they're willing to invade. There are more people that intensly love the Cubs than the Brewers. It's the opposite of the Packers, for instance. So the Brewers fans are at a huge disadvantage here. My solution: Sell tickets in strips. If you want to buy single game tickets for the Cubs games you have to buy 3 other games on the season too. This would cut off people like my friends that only buy tickets for every Cubs game when single game seats go on sale. They would have to buy 3x the tickets to get those and they simply wouldn't. At this rate you might make it not worthwhile for scalpers to buy up these games either. Then if the game isn't sold out 2 weeks ahead of time, allow tickets to be bought but only at the ticket gate.

Only if it's the last game of the World Series. But I rationalize with your sentiment with an edit to your predicate. That is, all that matters is where your team is going. and for the Brewers, it's OK.