Thurston Fluff

- Going from first place on Saturday, to 5 games back in 5 days, - Providing a huge confidence boost to the Cub players, - Starting slumps for Hardy (his OPS is down 38 points since that Cub series started), Hart (his OPS is down 23 points since then), Braun (down 16 points), and Kendall (down 15). That's not fine. True it is not fine to have those things happen to you. On the flip side of that coin it is very fine that even immediately after all those things happen the team still has a better record than all but one team in the league. They must have done a hell of a lot of fine things overall to compensate for such a bad week. For my part I think the larger body of work this season is more indicative of how well the team, and Ned, are doing than one week where they stumbled. If the talent's not there, but the results are almost the same as a team like the Brewers, with a lot more bullets in their gat, than it comes down to how the 2 teams are prepared and motivated. I'm not so sure this is true. If it was why didn't the 07 Cardinals play at the level they are this year? They pretty much sucked last year with essentially the same cast of characters. Certainly the same talent level as this year. Not even the World Series winning Cards team of two years ago played this well. Does that mean the Cards team of 06 weren't motivated enough to win as many games as they were capable of? I say no. It wasn't lack of motivation last year and it isn't a sudden surge in motivation this year. So the conclusion you made seems to indicate La Russa managed to lose his motivational abilities them back or there is a third explanation that has nothing to do with a managers motivation or preparation. I doubt La Russa is schizophrenic so I think his teams success of lack of it is due to something other than his ability to motivate. That leaves us looking for the third reason for the Cards this year. The third alternative and one I'm starting to think is really the case for the Cards is enough of those crappy players are having the proverbial career year this year that they are carrying the team places the very same group, with the same manager, same everything, could never duplicate again. If the third is true then the two teams are closer ability wise this year than you might think. The only difference is one team has the potential to continue this type of performance for years the other is more or less a one year wonder never to be duplicated again no matter who is manager. I don't want to imply that motivation or preparation is not important by any means. I think preparation is essential. I also think Ned prepares his team well. Motivation to me is different in baseball than it is in any other sport. In baseball motivation is something that a player has to have daily. If he plays poorly one day he has to be motivated to do better the next. Again if a player does play poorly one day I believe Ned does motivate them to play better the next. I do not believe motivation is something that only shows itself in important series or the proverbial big game. In fact motivation for big games can mean they try to do too much and don't play within themselves thus leading to poorer results.

I think the Brewers get all flop-sweaty and fail in critical games because the sense of urgency is not instilled in them, and I'm afraid the motivation thing is on Ned. I'm not convinced there is such a thing as critical series until September. The only way something is critical is if failure means elimination. Critical condition = failure is death. This is far from that situation. Last time they were this far back they closed that gap pretty quickly. Certainly didn't take two months to do it. That said for the sake of argument lets assume it was critical. Then the Cards was as well. They succeeded 50% of the time. The one guy that you would think would have the advantage with regard to getting guys up for big series in LaRussa. That didn't happen so perhaps the "get up for a big series," concept is overrated all together. Each time the better team won. That seemed to be the most important factor.

Up the thread, the comparison was made to Tony LaRussa last week. Didn't his team also blow home game after home game to a key divisional rival? Yes of course. But St. Louis's management left the talent cupboard bare for T. La R. by spending all their money building that unnecessary new stadium. Tony's pitching staff and outfield were held together this year by strings and chicken wire supplied by Dave Duncan and Tony himself. No one expected them to still be in the race because the talent just isn't there. Joel Pineiro? Ryan Ludwick? Todd Wellemeyer? Kyle Lohse? Braden Looper? Skip Schumacher? They've overachieved, in a big way so far. Tony's Manager of the Year, hands down. Even if they slide back to .500, he's still got the trophy. Everything you say here is correct but irrelevant to point I was trying to make. If I'm correct what you're saying is LaRussa is working with inferior talent compared to Ned. I agree. But the relative talent level of the Cards vs the Brewers is similar to the relative talent level of the Brewers compared to the Cubs. If LaRussa couldn't so much as win one game at home vs the Brewers that is every bit as bad as the bad as Ned not being able to do so against the Cubs.

Married With Children was going to have Devine, a favorite of John Waters and star in Pink Flamingo, as a regular in the show but he passed away before he had the chance. David Faustino didn't get a call back for Bud Bundy but he sneaked in anyway and got the part.

I think they should be ahead of the Cubs because we were tied with them on Sunday with a home game against the Astros followed by four against the Cubs also at home. A win versus the Astros and a split with the Cubs gives us the division lead if we had simply taken care of business in AZ a few weeks ago when our win probability was 99.997% or whatever it was. At the very least we should still be tied with them. (That doesn't necessarily mean that I think the Brewers are as good as the Cubs or are the better team.) I understand what you're saying Valpo but by that reasoning the Cubs should have been well ahead of us by the time they got to Milwaukee. They dropped a series against the Astos, Diamondbacks and only went 2-2 at home to the Marlins. If they had played like they should have they would have won at least three more of those games. The Brewers have let some games slip away but I suspect the Cub's loss to the Brewers when they had a three run lead should be one they won that they shouldn't have. Also the one where they won with two outs and were down to their last out was one that they won that should have been a loss. I wouldn't get to caught up with the one that got away since that happens to every team just like the victories that every team steals now and again.

If you are worried about data collection from that then I can only assume you must not use any banking institution and pay for every transaction in cash. Rest assured they have a certified letter telling them they cannot sell my information or use it for any outside purpose without first getting my permission. It's mine and if anyone if going to make money selling it it's going to be me if I can help it. But as I've said I concede the point that it routinely happens in a lot of internet services. Doesn't mean I won't look for the ones least offensive in that area though.

Excellent post Russ. Did the Cards just not play hard against the Brewers a week ago? Was La Russa to blame for that beat down we gave them? If it's Yost's fault this week then it was La Russa's fault last week. I haven't seen our resident pessimist give credit in the same situations he's heaping blame. That pretty much leads me to believe it more a love to complain than it being a legitimate complaint. and sadly have lost 5 games to the cubs (in standings) in 5 days. that will be tough top make up It took about a week and half last time they were down by 5 games. This is going to be a fight to the very end. The Cubs did beat us down and we have to deal with it. We did manage to have two winning trips at their place already this year. Despite this last drubbing we are 4-6 agisnt them and have more home than road games left against them. Though so far each team is better on the road than at home in this series so maybe that's not a good thing. Nothing has been won. Nothing has been lost. No one has come close to proving who is better overall. There is another two months to see who is what. I have grown to respect the Cubs as a team but still feel my team can and will compete with them to the very end. When the end of the season comes then we will see which manager has lead his team to the playoffs. Even with this beat down the Brewers so far are a better road team than the Cubs and that may still play into the end results. Before we just crown the Cubs they do need to prove they can consistently win on the road IMO. Just curious if our esteemed Cub fans on this board would agree with that or if they are not worried about it after this week?

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. Leaders do not admit mistakes if they wish to continue to be leaders. They must admit it to themselves, be their own worst critic, but I sincerely think admitting your shortcomings means you do not have the same authority to make those who follow you do so to the best of their abilities. They now start to question you and not execute as well as they should because now your own self doubt becomes theirs. Leaders have to have followers who do what they ask to the fullest of their abilities no questions asked. The best way to do that is to not to question yourself in front of them. For the record I will not defend Yost's move to hit and run because I think it was a mistake. It's one of a thousand poor decisions made by managers everywhere every year that worked out as well as it was conceived. Sometimes I wish we had a strategic decisions thread instead of always coming to the Yost thread with these debates. Strategy, sadly, has become synonymous with being a poor manager. That tends to belittle the other, IMO, more important aspect of the job. I think Ned is very average at that part of managing yet think he's an excellent manager.

Fair enough Brian. I would rather pay a small sum and know/have control over what information is being collected about me but that is just my personal preference. Pity no one has tired that so we had choices. At this point I think you're right that no one would pay unless they made a big deal out of the privacy issues. Even then how many really care if people do collect information on them? It's so common place these days people are immune to it. The whole personal privacy invasion is one of my pet peeves so maybe that is why I have an aversion to them. Couldn't even tell you why I have the privacy peeve since I'm pretty much a boring person with no cool or interesting skeletons in my closet.

I didn't actually see him eat it since I was getting the boat ready and he took it before he came out. I'll have to ask him how much and how he took it. I know you can buy ginger tablets so maybe he took it that way. What I do know is he took it to see of it works and it did.

Looks like a conspiracy theory website to me... The site is and it isn't the one I really wanted to post due to that. I posted that one mostly because I couldn't find the much more mainstream article from USA Today. ( I think it was them it was more than a year ago but that's one of the papers I routinely read) which had a fairly in depth article on their privacy problems. I should have probably just not posted at all but recognized some of the stuff in their list as the same as the mainstream article. Like the cookie that gives a personal id to your computer. I realize it may be fairly easy for some who know enough about computers to prevent it but many users are not as proficient with computers and the net as a guy who runs his own website and works in a computer related field. It's not that big a deal to me because all I ever really research is fairly mundane ordinary things. That doesn't mean I'm overly thrilled with some corporate giant having the ability to research my private life without my express written consent. Even if it is just for their marketing purposes.

I saw an episode of Myth Busters that showed ginger worked. My brother gets motion sickness on the boat and he tried it and it worked.

The Angels might be the quietest really good team there has been for quite some time. They always seem to be good and even won a WS not too long ago. I wonder why don't the get the attention the other WS contenders do? Maybe this will wake up the media on their WS ability.

I don't think that's the case at all. There were some potential concerns about the gmail offering that it would target ads based on the content of your emails, but that was done algorithmically, not by handing out the content of your emails. http://www.google-watch.org/bigbro.html

No, that is an unknown. Also note that after the home run, Yost still left Suppan in and the next batter nearly hit another one. Obvoiusly eveything that did not happen is an unknwon but the best indication would be how the person did when called upon later in the same game. McClung pretty much sucked when calle dupon so i think it's fair to say he wasn't going to have been better wiht less warmups or time to prepare. That is unfair, given that the suggestion was to bring him in in the 5th in a far from ideal situation. This was strictly in response to this Who knows, maybe he'd have pitched better if he had come in as soon as he was ready, instead of having him diddle around for two innings. thus no reason to expect him to perform better than the more ideal situation he did eventuality play in. I don't really see how being in a less ideal situation would have made him perform better than he did in the more ideal one.

I wish him the best. If he never pitches again he still has memories of being a big league allstar and made some good money in the process. If it helps him sleep at night I hope this injury causes him to believe it may have been the reason why he fell apart. I know I'd rather believe my melt down was injury related instead of just sucking. Even if deep down I knew better. because some people are so blinded by their hatred of a player that they they are willing to bend reality to feed that contempt. It's scary how personal it can get get for some people. Russ may I borrow this line and put it in the Yost thread in the future? I think it's relevant in both cases.

As of now Braun certainly has entered the race. It's way too early to determine how good a chance. August and September are both way top big of months in MVP voting to really know what is going to transpire. If how well he's playing in big moments means anything Braun has taken a huge step forward in that regard.

So does any criticism of any move Yost makes or doesn't make in a game equal blaming Ned and only Ned for a loss? I suspect those criticisms are made because they are actually blaming Ned for the loss. I doubt the term Yosted means the team would have won anyway. What would be the point of being Yosted if it didn't mean the outcome was in no small way determined by it? Yosting posts can hide behind the claim they didn't blame him for the loss but it is clear that is the implication. Should the criticisms be restricted only to things that he does in games that the Brewers win? Who said they have to be? I think criticisms should be relevant to winning or losing a game. Other than that I don't really care. The teams results have pretty much showed Ned doesn't lose many games for them. Does every criticism of Yost need to be preceded with "of course, the players are primarily to blame, but..."? If I felt those who posted the Yostings actually felt the players were really the ones responsible for the losses I wouldn't be such a pain the behind about pointing it out all the time. The very fact that Yosted is a word here shows that is not the case. If you don't want me to remind people the players are the ones really responsible for the wins and losses then stop blaming Ned for those loses. I don't think that is unreasonable. If it is then please let me apologize in advance for what will be my continued unreasonableness. What is the point of after-the-fact arguments defending Yost such as: It should also be noted McClung didn't exactly shut down the Astros when he did come in. the point is it shows how wrong people were to think McClung was going to get out of the fifth with less damage done. I thought that was pretty obvious. What am I supposed to use to counter after the fact arguments criticizing Yost other than after the fact arguments to show those criticisms were off base? Why is it so hard to accept that the actual events that unfolded show Ned wasn't woefully wrong for sticking with Soup over McClung? Is it that hard to admit Ned made the right move even when the evidence suggests he did? I do think his reasoning wasn't good or he might have wanted to go with Villy but since this particular criticism was Yost should have went to McClung. I'll stick to the fact that that would have been worse for the teams chances. Did you and Yost know in advance that McClung was not going to pitch well? I suspect Ned felt the same before as I did after looking at the results and knowing their history. That Soup is the better pitcher thus gave the team the best chance to get out of that situation. Nobody knows in advance who will do what but that doesn't mean Ned didn't realize the chances of Soup being better than McClung was greater than the reverse. Who knows, maybe he'd have pitched better if he had come in as soon as he was ready, instead of having him diddle around for two innings. Is McClung the new Turnbow who can't be trusted to come in in anything other than perfect scenarios? If he is then get rid of him. I have no doubt McClung would have been equally as poor as he was two innings later. This is a guy who has done this before. He is not new to bullpen duty. Add up all the what if's you want to try to strengthen your point. It will never be as convincing as the actual results are. Judging strictly from that one post you are getting annoyed with me Jeffyscott. If that is the case no big beal I harbor no ill feelings toward you for it. I realize I can wear on people. Please keep in mind we are both fans of the team and though we disagree I always feel the disagreement is that of family not of foe. If we ever get a chance to meet lets agree to team up on the nearest Cub fan and focus our energy on making them cry vs minor arguements between us.http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

Well, let's say...then...he was also one pitch away from blowing the game...Which is what happened. That logic can't work both ways. It's hard to argue a boneheaded decisions after it happened. If he had pitched poorly the whole game then I'd agree. The fact that he really wasn't pitching all that poorly outside of the 5th is the part that is being overlooked. If he was going to a lot of 3-0, 2-0 counts, walking people, giving up hard hit ball after hard hit ball every inning then there would be no disagreement from me. He was essentially the same pitcher he always was for five of six innings. He gave up one run in five innings and 7 in one. He walked one person in 6 innings and threw a lot of strikes. There is no reason to believe he wasn't as capable of getting outs going forward than thinking McClung would get out of the inning quicker with less runs being scored. After seeing both pitch yesterday I still feel that way.

Nobody is saying the Brewers would have won this game, or any of the others where Ned made questionable decisions. I guess I missed the part where everyone throughout this thread said we were Yosted this game but we would have lost anyway. A manager's job is to put them in the best position to win the game If you amend that to put them in the best position to win the most possible games I agree. Sometimes sacrificing a chance at one game can give a team a better chance at winning the next two. I don't think the current scenario is one of those. When it comes to last night who gave the Brewers a better chance to win? Soup who gave up 8 runs in 6 innings throwing 64 of his 91 pitches for strikes and had 3 ks' to 1 BB. Or McClung who gave up 3 runs in 2 innings, throwing 27 of his 46 pitches for strikes and walking 2 with 0 k's. This was one circumstance where Ned could earn a lot of respect for just saying "I made a mistake, I should have pulled Soup." If you add in and not pitched McClung then maybe I'll agree. Those who keep saying it was a mistake not to put in McClung seem to neglect his equally poor performance in the very same game.

whats the problem with google? I've read more than once they are very poor at maintaining confidentiality. They routinely give out information without the users knowledge.

Can I be your bench coach FTJ? You'll need one to blame if it all goes wrong. With me as your sidekick you could just blame me for for letting some Yost love filter in.http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Why is it so hard for someone to answer why McClung was up if Ned had no intention of using him? That is the one question I had for the Yost defenders especially after Blum already homering against him. You can't replace bad logic with worse logic. Since McClung did pitch two innings Ned obviously did intend to use him. He was going to use him sometime in the game and it only made sense to get him going in the event Soup just plain old lost it. Keep in mind Soup was really only a pitch away. I know, sounds stupid since he didn't make that pitch but he also came in and pitched another inning after that with no further damage done. While he was willing to get McClung up then he may not have wanted to use McClung there if at all possible. If McClung is called in and the Brewers get a rally going the next inning then they would most likely have to pinch hit for McClung. That means we get one inning out of him instead of the two and a third reliever has to get used. It should also be noted McClung didn't exactly shut down the Astros when he did come in. If Soup is better than McClung and he wasn't exactly struggling earlier in the game why not give the better of the two pitchers the chance to get out of the inning? It didn't work out because Soup had a blow up inning. Several things contributed to that. Some of it was poor pitches at the wrong time. A couple bad pitches can make the outing look real bad but it's different than the type of outing where the pitcher really struggles every inning can't find the strike zone and is giving up runs each inning or getting real lucky that a few hard hit balls got caught. If Soup had been really struggling to find the zone all day and the 8 runs were more a sign of how bad he was than simply a few bad pitches I'd think differently about him staying in. when a guy throws 64 of his 91 pitches for strikes his control was at most off just a little. Unfortunately every time he missed his spot it got hit hard and not at people. Before I forget once again I would not have minded if Soup came out earlier. For me it's less about what I would have done and more seeing there are reasons for everything. I'm not going to blame the manager for not doing what I thought he should have as long as I can see some sort of logic in the move. I guess I'm not defending the move as much as I am the idea that there may be more than one logical move to be made.

didn't ted Turner try managing once? If memory serves that turned out poorly. My ego would like to think I could manage a playoff caliber team to at least a winning record but I have a huge ego.

If the Brewers won half the games this thread accused Ned of losing they would have 80 wins now. Either Ned is making the 27 'Yankees look like the 02 Brewers, all managers are responsible for most of their team's losses or Ned really isn't at fault nearly as often as reported in this thread. I guess each fan has to determine on his or her own if we really are one of the best teams ever assembled being held back by an incompetent manager or if the blame game has become a bit silly. Whichever it is at this point I don't really care anymore. My own opinion at this point blaming Ned is more ritual than reality.