The stache

Come on A Ram, pick him up.

Brauny with the triple!!!!

Come on Brauny. One more bomb!!!

Yes, he is.

I'd really like another run here. Please please please...

Gotta catch that Corey.

I see Amy is in attendance today.

Another dumb base running mistake, this time by Gomez. No way should he have tried for home. If he stays at third, he scores on a sac fly from Lucroy. Instead of being 4-2, it's 3-2...and with this bullpen, that lead is tenuous at best.

I'm also happy that Mark Rogers got his first win!

Nice to see Lucroy hitting a few out, and Luc and Go Go going back to back. Carlos Gomez has 12 HR and 23 SB in 278 AB's. That's pretty darned good, and has me excited about next season.

http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/166692286.html There is your answer. I can't think of anything clever enough to say about Ron Ron that we all don't already know.

Ransom makes Adam Dunn look like Wade Boggs.

Ransom is pathetic. But Ron says he's been great in the field, so he'll continue to get playing time.

It's spare day here at Miller Park. Wolf wasn't bad enough, now McClendon is serving up batting practice. Yippee! But thank God some of our guys will be rested for tomorrow. Then we can start eliminating some of that 19 game deficit!

Jonathan Lucroy is our cleanup hitter?

But but but....the days off should be "beneficial" per the JS Online. How is it going to be beneficial? Explain that to me, Ron. When we make that late season push for the pl....oh wait, I almost said it, knowing full well we don't have a chance to reach the post season. He's also striking out 40% of the time he steps to the plate. Thanks, Ron!

It's like clockwork. I've tried all season to get Braun on my fantasy team, and the other guy wouldn't do it. Now whenever I face this guy in our league, Braun kills me. I was up against him the night he hit three out at Petco, and now this. Braun is just killing me. I don't really mind though. #33, equaling his MVP season. Wow.

And now that Aoki pickoff looks huge, cause Brauny just jacked a 2 run bomb.

How many times do we see somebody get picked off in front of Braun, then he gets a hit. Roenicke seems to find a way to leave runs on the field every night. Whether it's a sac bunt by Segura with a guy on third that turns into an inning ending double play, or it's somebody getting picked before Braun gets a hit. How does Braun not have 100 RBI already this season? BTW Fiers did a nice job of settling in. I think he'll be fine.

Everywhere I go where there's baseball discussion (except here, because we are all intelligent Brewers fans!), I keep hearing the same thing over and over: "Carlos Gonzalez is one of the best hitters in the game, and he should be an MVP candidate in 2012!" Really? I got fed up facing this level of misinformation. The blissfully ignorant have rubbed me to a nub, so I decided to break out my stat geek, pull up some real numbers, and leave this Rockies fan whimpering in a corner. My contention that Gonzalez was a product of playing at Coors Field, and one of the most overrated players in the game, was about to be realized. http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/2429/cargocomp.png When comparing his home numbers to those he accrues for every other park in the majors, the variance is just staggering. I've seen some skewed home numbers before. I've even seen some Coors Field skewed numbers before. But this takes the cake. Cargo is a career .303 hitter. Not bad, right? Well, he's hitting at a .358 clip in the friendly thin air. .358! Those are numbers Ty Cobb would be proud of. Now, what about away from Coors? He's a career .258 hitter. That's right. He hits 100 full points higher at home than on the road. That's unbelievable. But wait, it gets better. Slugging percentage? .655 at Coors. He's Babe Ruth at home. Everywhere else? .421. To put this in perspective, Norichika Aoki has a .406 slugging this season. So just a hair better than that. Couple his paltry slugging and batting average, and you get a 341 point difference in OPS (1.072 home, .731 road). Look, too, at his home run frequency. At home, he hits one out about every 15 at bats. Over the course of a 600 at bat season, that's 40 round-trippers. Away from Coors? He'd struggle to hit 20 home runs. His frequency more than doubles to once every 32.63 at bats. Carlos Gonzalez away from Coors Field is Popeye without his spinach. Without the absurd home field advantage, Gonzalez is a .258 hitter knocking out about 18 homers a season. Hardly MVP-worthy. "But but....Ryan Braun plays at Miller Park. That's a hitter's park, too. I bet Braun's numbers are inflated by hitting there half of his games!" Really????!!!! I almost felt bad for the guy. I pulled up baseball-reference, snipped a screenshot in Photoshop, and revealed the truth to him. It was easy as Braun has only ever played home games at Miller Park. http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/2923/braunycomp.png Braun is actually a better hitter on the road. .314 away from Miller Park, .307 at home. Silence. Now, his home rate is better at home...one home run every 15.43 AB's (so he's like Carlos Gonzales in that regard...without the stupid thin air). But away from home, his power numbers are very respectable: hitting a home run once every 19.06 at bats. That's still 31-32 home runs a season (he had 33 last season). This year, Brauny has 13 HR in 206 AB's (once every 15.85 AB's). At home, he's playing video games, with 19 HR in 219 AB's (once every 11.53 AB's). I don't know if I was too hard on the guy. If ever you could hear a defeated tone in the way somebody typed words in a chat, though, this was it!

As I'm looking through Ryan Braun's stats tonight after he hit his NL leading 32nd home run of the season, I got to wondering how Brauny compared to some of the all-time greats through the same point in their career. So, I broke open Word, baseball-reference.com, and started digging. One thing I've always loved about baseball....throughout history, the game will undergo subtle changes, but the core game never changes, and statistical analysis is translates well across generations. I tried to keep this comparison in the modern era, not going back any further than Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams. There were many players I could have chosen, obviously. But I came up with a list of players that are all either in the Hall of Fame, or will be once eligible. Ted Williams Joe DiMaggio Mickey Mantle Hank Aaron Willie Mays Ken Griffey Jr. Barry Bonds Albert Pujols Alex Rodriguez Chipper Jones Miguel Cabrera The numbers are interesting to behold. Braun compares quite favorably with all of the players I choose. But it appears the closest of all of them would be Mickey Mantle. Braun's batting average to date is .311. Mantle's was .310. 193 home runs for Braun, 183 for Mantle. A .566 slugging for Braun, a .563 for Mantle. Now the Commerce Comet had a higher obp as he walked more, but Braun also brings base stealing to the comparison, which was not a forte of Mick's (though he had the speed early on in his career before wrecking his knee for the first time). http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/8648/brauncomp.png If anything, I am hoping this generates an interesting discussion on what Braun has done in his career to date, and what he could accomplish if he stays healthy.

It absolutely does! All is right with my world tonight!!!

Hello win column!!!

Can our pen EVER get a 1-2-3 inning when it matters?

Ryan Braun!!!! Home run #32!!!!! 6-1 Brewers!!!!!!!!!!!