The stache

I am just livid right now.

I would like to direct some words that I can't use on this forum in Axford's direction. You all can guess some of them I'm sure.

Michael Fiers fears the Ax man the way hitters feared the Ax man last year.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Axford has blown it in the ninth time after time after time this year, and Roenicke keeps going back to him. And he keeps blowing it time and time again. I am really ticked. 2-0 going into the ninth, and now we have to score to avoid the loss. Fiers deserves better!

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zVN2YTd4wJI/TeUsY0ymokI/AAAAAAAABOg/-LkNmDnOgSg/s1600/austin%20powers.jpg Do you have something against bad teeth? I think I look groovy, baby!

It would absolutely suck if Loe stumbled down the dugout steps and cut up his hand just a little. Just enough where he couldn't pitch for a week or three.

Plays the Benny Hill theme song.

Tyler Thornburg to RR, "hi, I'm here. You can use me"

How does Kameron Loe have only a 4.15 ERA? Guy gives it up more often than Madonna in the 80's.

With his 4 hits last night, Ryan Braun is now 4 hits shy of 1,000 for his career.

I love your optimism, torts, and I'm totally on board! Here's why: First and foremost, as poorly as the Brewers have played in the first half as a team, nobody has run away with the NL Central as of yet. We are only 7 games out, a deficit that is by no means insurmountable. And quite honestly, none of the other teams in the central scare me. Cincy, Pittsburgh and St. Louis are good, but I don't look at their squads and think to myself "they're clearly superior than the Brewers". The teams ahead of us are beatable. The Pirates are not a lock by any means. They faded big time last season after a great first half, and if we take this series (after winning yesterday), some of that doubt will start to creep in. We have owned the Pirates for years, and while they are greatly improved, they should not intimidate the Brewers at all. Andrew McCutchen, who is my favorite for the NL MVP right now, is playing above himself. I think he's a tremendous player, and he's going to be a perennial All Star (and I hope nobody thinks I'm dissing him, as I am not). But he's not a .360 hitter. He will cool off, and I expect the Pirates to fall back just a little. The Cardinals? Losing Carpenter for the year is going to hurt them as the season wears on. Wainright has been better as of late, but I'm not sure how long he can last. Missing a whole season, especially as a pitcher, will mess up your endurance. They have some great young pitchers on the way (Shelby Miller and Carlos martinez), but will they make an impact this season? Their lineup is talented, but they have a daily bus shipping players to and from the DL. Berkman has not had an impact yet, and I'm not sure how healthy he is going to be. Beltran needs help, and Jay, Freese, Craig and Holliday are all injury prone. I think the Reds are the class of the division. Votto is the one guy in the NL that I think is in the same class as Ryan Braun as far as hitting goes. But do they have the pitching? Beyond our divisional foes, the Brewers are going to improve. We're going to have Jonathan Lucroy back soon. He won't hit at the same clip he did in the first half, but I expect him to keep his average above .300, and he'll drive in plenty of runs. He's a clutch bat, and he'll instantly improve the offense. Rickie Weeks has looked more like the Rickie Weeks of old. The numbers for the year still look awful. But if you look beyond that, specifically at July, and he's coming on. For July he's batting .344 (11 for 32), and his strikeout rate is dropping (6 times in his last nine games). Over the last 4 games, he's got 2 HR and 6 RBI. If he hits .250 and hits 10 HR the rest of the way, which I am expecting, and plays steady defense, the team as a whole will get a boost. Finally, Aramis Ramirez has completely shaken off his really cold start, and he's on a pace to drive in 100 runs. An effective Aramis Ramirez means that pitchers will have to continue throwing to Ryan Braun. If our bullpen improves at all, we are going to get back in this thing. I really believe it.

At what point do people just stop pitching to Ryan Braun? Really. 26 home runs now? Good God.

This just in. Ryan Braun is good!!!

Braun's not hitting worth a lick right now. When he's cold, the offense is cold. He's got a couple of homers, but he's about to dip below .300.

I agree. Roenicke's not great, but he's not the problem. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Doug Melvin is useless. I live in Texas, and I watched him assemble his all hit, no pitch team in the 90's. Now that he's in Milwaukee, he can't find relief pitchers that are worthy of being in the league. Melvin needs to go.

Livan Hernandez clearly has nothing. Time to find another warm body to add to our collection of bullpen jokes.

No. Given more chances, he'll eventually hit in the postseason. He just hasn't thus far. But there's no denying that Clemente was great in the biggest games. Can't do much better than a perfect 14 for 14 in the World Series.

Ya, Clemente was spectacular in the World Series. Especially the second one. He played in 14 WS games, and had at least one hit in all 14. That's impressive.

BTW, good discussion, 3and2Fastball. Much respect. This is why I love baseball.

In right field, I would probably go Ruth, Aaron, Clemente, Robinson. I think a little too much emphasis is being put on offense. If it's offensive production alone, there's no question that Clemente lags slightly behind as he wasn't a power hitter. Great pure hitter? Absolutely. Could he have gotten on more if he were a little more patient? Ya, I suppose. But offense is half the game, and none of the players that have been mentioned except Mays come anywhere close to having the impact that Clemente had when the baseball glove was on. I wish there were a way to quantify how many extra bases he took away when the ball was hit to right. People learned not to test him. Aaron and Ruth drove in more runs. Clemente saved a lot of runs. Clemente was the Ozzie Smith of right fielders, and just happened to hit .317.

Fixed that for ya.

(Ron picks up the phone) "Hey, Dougie. Anybody we have in the minors that can throw strikes? Cause I had to chose between leaving old man Wolf in to try to pitch the seventh, and a bullpen that couldn't stop a grandma with a walker from circling the bases"

This is ridiculous. Clemente doesn't rank "a few tiers down" from Mays, or Mantle, or Williams. Mantle and Williams couldn't touch Clemente in the field. He's probably the greatest defensive right fielder the game has ever seen with twelve gold gloves. Only Mays was his peer. And unlike the others, Clemente was still an elite hitter at the end of his career. The last three seasons he played before he died, he hit .352, .341 and .312.

And both somewhat overrated in the context of the All-Time greats because they didn't take a lot of walks and didn't hit for much power. Clemente is hardly overrated. Base on balls were not a big deal when Clemente played. Go back and look at the yearly leaders all throughout the 60's. From 1960-1968, only one person in the NL walked more than 100 times in a season. Eddie Matthews did it twice. If you walked 70-75 times in a season, you were usually in the top 5.

Roberto Clemente was notorious for swinging off his front foot, too. He never met a pitch he didn't like. He could hit a ball that was an inch from bouncing across the plate, and because he was such a free swinger, he made his manager Danny Murtaugh nuts. But when you win four batting titles, you get a pass. Ichiro is the same way. Like Clemente, he isn't a power hitter, but the guy can hit anything. I think there's a lot of similarities between the two. Ichiro is a modern day Roberto Clemente. Both are Hall of Famers, and highly unorthodox in their hitting techniques.