Cool Hand Lucroy

Upstaged a little by SMC beating #1 overall seed UCLA, but will definitely be rooting for the Panthers tonight! Quite a few upsets in this first round.

Rengifo is buying beers tonight. Teammates really picked him up on that error.

Thievery

Boy, Yelich can run the bases.

Just watching the replay....I really think that should be an E3. I know that's not how it usually goes, but Bauers just kind of whiffed.

Not really sure why we're just letting Okert have every good matchup and letting the 'Stros get him through 2 innings. EDIT: Maybe we're just trying to get Ashby a shot at win #10, I guess?

Vaughn going to PH for Hamilton you would think.

Even while struggling, he's still managed to walk, though. He'll get through it. I'm actually more surprised by how good his overall numbers are given the last 30 ABs or so.

Agree completely. It's going to make for a lot of great entertainment, and I think the TV experience will be better than the in-person one, unless maybe you live in KC and can scoop up some tickets at the last minute. Obviously, I think FIFA and the current power brokers here in the US have so, so much to do with the cluster that this has been so far. They're primarily to blame. It's also true for me that continental host nations (especially three of them together) make for a more difficult tournament. During the Brazil World Cup, such a big deal was made about teams going to Manaus to play in the Amazon (rightfully so), but I believe this WC is going to be the most physically spread out ever. It's tough to offer a fun atmosphere and sense of place when you're dealing with three massive host nations. Even 2030, where you'll have three matches in South America and the rest in Europe and Africa will be much more compact. The wonders of geography. I also have very low expectations for the US. The federation has been such a mess for so long, it's hard to see this working out well. But the talent is there. If the midfield plays as well as it has in previous cycles and Balogun is a legit, world-class striker, that's the only way I see a run to the QF round.

Yeah, for sure. I think it's also hard when Dan S is the closest thing the projectors have at a public voice, and he's not quite as prolific on that front as Ken Pomeroy in college basketball. The other big projector, Nate Silver, is doing all kinds of non-baseball stuff, and I'm not even sure how much day-to-day he has with PECOTA. And it is worth pointing out how well ZiPS has done in the aggregate. This is a point made in the article. The playing time thing is important, too. Maybe it's just the Brewers are really, really good at getting 0 WAR guys to become 1 WAR guys. Maybe it's just a fluke. Variance is real and, like baseball, theoretically infinite. Something that I think really helps the Brewers and is very simple is: they don't have a single organizational philosophy. They don't care about winning the press conference, and it's not like they only care about SLG or OBP or DRS or whatever. They design rosters for flexibility, and you can see that on both the pitching and position player side. They employ that flexibility in ways you wouldn't expect. Bauers/Vaughn is a good example of this. Vaughn is probably our best pure power hitter. Despite struggles with the White Sox, he has a serious prospect pedigree. But Bauers has hit it well and has gotten the majority of the playing time this past week. A lot of teams would have hesitated to sit Vaughn, but the Brewers haven't, and that's because they don't care about the same things at the same level as the rest of the league. They seem to know where the projection systems miss, and that's a great spot to be. I hope the systems keep missing. Makes it easier to fly under the radar.

Wanted to start a World Cup thread, as we are exactly two weeks from the start of the biggest sporting event on Earth (probably the biggest ever given the increased size of the tournament). Lots to talk about, from ticket prices to geopolitics to debutantes to heat to European favorites and Team USA. I have no idea what to expect from the US. Their group is weird. You looked at it on draw day and were like, "This is a gift." But now that all the groups are set in stone, I think it might be one of the most competitive. There isn't a true underdog team in there, really, and, in a year where 3rd place is going to be enough to advance in a lot of cases, that's scary. Who in this group is the US clearly better than? Australia, maybe? I could fully see this team finishing 4th. The good news is that Balogun is probably the most creative goal-scorer this roster has had in decades, and the midfield is pretty stocked with top-level players. You worry a bit about the goalkeeping and health at center back, but the roster is definitely trying to preserve options there. I like Canada's chances of making a run as hosts, and I'll go with Spain as my favorite, though a lot of that depends on Yamal's fitness. Elsewhere, France is always a good bet, England will have another deep roster, and we'll see whether the South American nations can challenge for the trophy. I'll close with a gripe: I actually find the European time zone friendlier for US viewers. It's more fun when these games are on from like 9 until 3 than from like 2 until midnight. But there are also days with six (!!) matches, so this is going to get wild.

Vegas has seriously dark magic happening, I think. Like, it's Faust-type stuff if they win the Cup. I'll root for whoever comes out of the East, but I'm hoping the Habs can at least force a Game 6 in MTL. Raleigh is underrated as hockey town (which surprised me when we moved down there for a couple years). Hopefully one of those teams can take down LV.

I know folks like the rag on the projection systems, and they do seem to consistently undervalue Milwaukee, but that might be a signal that the Brewers are just very good at the things that are hard to quantify. It might be a testament to the FO's internal, proprietary analytics as much as its a knock on PECOTA or ZiPS. The more years I look at these systems, the more fascinated I am by what they do AND DON'T tell us. It's a great lab for comparing theory to practice, even though most people don't tend to take it that way.

You kind of wonder if some guys are just better off not worrying about it. Hitting is such a timing and focus thing, having the challenge in the back of your mind might not work well for everyone. When tennis had challenges, it messed with some players more than others.

Completely. Not quite as ripped as a few others today (maybe just got it a little up on the barrel), but if I hadn't have seen the "in play, out(s)" on Gameday before the TV feed, my heart would've skipped for sure. It just wasn't carrying today. Cardinals had another like that in third, 103 mph off-the-bat and to right field. Like Lane (might have been Josh) said on the radio call, those usually leave the yard. I thought Chourio really mashed his in the sixth--104 off-the-bat. Pretty routine fly ball. It's a little bit strange to be rooting for those kinds of low run-environment conditions as a Brewer fan, but I think they definitely favor this team's style, both last year and (so far) this one.

I was thinking about "run-prevention" after this one too. This team has sort of combined the 2018 "out-getters" approach with the 2021/2023, where you just hope Tellez or somebody got into one and you could Burnes and bullpen your way to a 3-2 win. The offense has nowhere near the thump of 2018, but I love the approach from the pitching and defense side. And the lineup is closer to very good than many here would like to believe. All of which is to say: I like this team. I think they could be pretty darn good. As always, it's baseball, but there's a lot to like about these guys.

Just see that's the first time we've swept STL at home in 15 years. I was wondering why getting all three felt like it mattered. Have to love winning ALL SIX versus the Cubs and Cards this week.

Wow, the ball really isn't carrying today, is it?

You're right. I forgot we kept playing after the Abner show.

Been so long since Megill's pitched, I'm a little worried about his feel for the curve. Big first out there. Don't let Torres beat you with the bottom of the order up.

Man, is Pages ever on it. Easier to be impressed when the rest of the defense for STL has let them down.

Bad defense really costing the Cardinals this inning.

I think you have to send Sal at some point here.

I thought Torres took a very bad route to that ball. Mitchell deserved the hit, but would love to see the catch probability.

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/abs-challenges?challengeType=catching-team&level=mlb&gameType=regular&year=2026 Baseball Savant seems to agree. Cardinals are quite good at challenges. We're pretty much dead-on average, which is better than I would have expected. Pages has looked really locked in to the zone today, even on pitches he hasn't challenged.