Cool Hand Lucroy

I think Drohan gets rostered as a lefty who can be effective for 2-3 innings. But maybe matchup dependent. Just feel like he's safer than people think.

Well, if the Brewers can manage a comeback, they should go up 6 on the Braves. That would...basically do it with 12 to go, even without the tiebreaker. BAUERS!!!

Phillies have taken a 5-2 lead late in Atlanta. Hopefully they can get one and get the Brewers that little bit closer to the bye. Pirates looking to take the lead in Chicago too.

Yeah, he had one bad outing in Cincy (and one where he gave up a solo homer), in games where the ball was flying pretty good. He gave us a lot of good innings against the Cubs in that sample, so I think that was a net plus, especially considering the season leverage situation. Senzatela....who knows. He hasn't done a good job of hitting edges. Everything is either tugged away from righties or way too in the zone.

More fun to win it comeback style anyway.

I thought Mitchell looked a little weird after sliding home late in yesterday's game, so I wonder if there was a little tweak or something. I doubt that kind of substitution is reason to panic, but it might mean the guy has been nursing something. Now's a good time to be extra careful. Hopefully that isn't just blind optimism.

I know there has been some discussion about this. No blame to Lara there. That was a great play from Elly. But I definitely had the sense that Lara was "blazing fast." He's not. That's okay. I'm basically typing myself to remind myself moving forward. The kid can run, but probably not in the way I led myself to think.

I didn't watch a single down of football in 2015-2016 as part of a little personal writing project. When I came back, it felt completely different, and I actually felt like my weekends were better. Works for me, anyway. Have yourself a day Joey O!

I haven't been much into football for a decade. A lot of it is CTE. Some of it is definitely the commercials, etc. More than I'd like to admit is a result of the last game I really cared about--the Packers losing to the Seahawks in 2015.

Credit to the Brewers for selling out this one, on Packers opening day. I guess the pitch clock is partially to thank, but I certainly can recall a time when a Packers-Vikings season opener would take up the plans of most of the state.

I think the Vaughn situation is tough. When did he come off the IL from the hamate fracture? I'm not sure he's actually been eligible for longer than Yelich, but your point about him getting fewer ABs stands. The two things that mitigate this somewhat for me are: 1) Bauers has maybe been our best player this year, and he's going to get the more dominant side of the platoon. Obviously, you could let Vaughn DH and sit Yelich. He's been worth a full win more than Christian per bWAR. But I do wonder if part of Vaughn's success is that he's being used right. The Brewers are good at this, and I'm not sure him as full-time DH produces a one-to-one translation from his current numbers. 2) Vaughn's still played in 100 games (108 for Yeli). PAs are obviously a better measure, and Yeli is clocking like 150 more this year. I think I'm with you in that I'd like those numbers to be more even, but Vaughn also has a lot of value in PH situations, especially given the need for a power bat in those spots, and he often has been subbed out halfway through close games for defensive purposes. All of which is to say, I think you're right. The Vaughn-Yeli splits are too lopsided toward Christian. For me, though, I also think we're not that far off from a much fairer balance (giving Vaughn 50 of Yeli's PAs makes it feel a lot better), especially when you consider that there's a legit argument for trying to get Yelich going and that Vaughn's limited PT hasn't hurt his overall production (you could argue it's helped it). I'm trying to decide how much of wanting less Yelich PT is a hindsight thing (meaning Murphy's made defensible decisions) and how much is just stubbornly sticking with Yelich (which would mean Murphy bad). I'm slightly more in the camp of the former. EDIT: I say all this as a big Yelich fan, full disclosure. He's been basically a league-average hitter this season, which is far from his MVP peak (and way less than you want from a DH) but also from being the black hole some would like to claim.

Braves now have broken it open against Philly. Up 8-1. The NL Wild Card might end up pretty darn tight. Cubs have a good tiebreaker situation, but, so long as ATL holds onto their big lead, tomorrow will open with only 3 games separating the top WC from the first team out.

I remember when we tried to roster Wei-Chung Wang for a whole year. I guess it sort of worked for a while...:)

Glad to have real data!

He's around 50-60 all-time according to some quick Gemini research at slightly over 10 WAR. Cal Ripken is 25th with 14+. He's competing against historical guys who more regularly started their careers younger. EDIT: this is not to harp on the point as I think it's an interesting thing to be curious about!

Was great! Cemented a couple of things for me. 1) That Mets loss was and will, for some time, remain as the most painful I've experienced as a Brewers fan. I put it above the NLCS losses, even Game 4 and Game 7 in 2018 and Game 5 in 2016 (heck, I might have the 2019 WC loss above all of those). A lot of that is just because of the end of an era kind of feeling it created. The silver lining to that loss is that it's hard to feel like this team can break me much more, and there's been quite a bit of freedom in that the last two years. 2) Yelich deserves more credit than he gets. I know he's had tough stretches. But he's also put up two of the best seasons in franchise history and done it all while kind of just quietly keeping the team together. Folks will gripe about whether that's worth his contract. I don't care. Whatever we've paid the guy, it's worth it. I'm rooting for him to have a mini-Renaissance late-career and make the Hall of Fame. He's not that far off.

Good time for some quick tiebreaker math. Currently, the Braves stand at 30-16 against the East. The Brewers are 28-15 vs. the Central. Braves have 5 divisional games remaining after tonight. Brewers have 8. Was looking like the Braves would be favored a week ago, but the sweep of the Cubs really helped. I'd say the Brewers are now slight favorites, given the scores at this moment. Ideally, that tiebreaker won't matter, but what better time to think about it? EDIT: all written before Lara went Lara. Baseball is fun.

I guess Burnes is the most hopeful possible comparison for Sproat, but Burnes at least had a record of success as a bullpen arm before struggling as a big-league starter. DL Hall is maybe another hopeful example, though his early ineffectiveness was clearly impacted by physical health and maybe the org (or Hall himself) trying too hard to stick to starting. It's very early to give up on Sproat completely, especially given the physical talent. Right now, the Brewers aren't taking a huge gamble letting him pitch in Triple A or try again out of the pen in mostly meaningless games. But, yeah, last night just went from a potential confidence-boost to total destruction super quickly. I'd be willing to bet he gets another legit shot next year, with some leash even, but my confidence in his success is not as high as it was with Hall for whatever reason.

No real choice here. You can't have the guy in the game. I feel bad for him. Hopefully he gets another shot in that final series against the Cardinals, when it's mostly past mattering. If nothing else, he could use a confidence boost heading into the offseason. Lots of call-up options, and I'd imagine Wilson and Anderson will both be coming off the IL, so it might be tough to find a spot for Sproat moving forward, even in meaningless MLB games.

Those last two innings had Wilson written all over them. But, like someone said here, getting that information about Sproat, without it costing you much beyond 15 Uribe pitches, is valuable. Talk about a lesson in expectations. The Brewers played by far their best game of the series tonight to cap off a sweep, and, because it went from 8-1 to 8-6, it feels much shakier than the two, last AB comebacks yesterday and the day before.

Need that off day! Hard to complain about a sweep. Cubs are going to be feeling the pressure these next couple of weeks. Padres within 2.5, Arizona within 3.

Really great work from Romero. Two scoreless when Henderson pitched well but couldn't get you through six.

This is how rough it is over in the Cubs bullpen. Thielbar was their 10th inning, leverage reliever last night. He's now warming to appear in the 7th, while his team faces a potential 7-run deficit. I think CC likes Rolison as a leverage lefty, but after that? It's tough to find a guy to trust out there. They're just throwing stuff at the wall and hoping to record outs.

PCA does a lot for the Cubs. You basically have to bring in a lefty to face him, but then that lefty usually has to face Suzuki and Bregman too. Great job from Romero to get through there.

I know it's a 6-run lead, but I doubt anyone feels comfortable with Sproat for 3 innings. I'd guess Uribe gets the ball if things get tight. Really need a clean inning from JoJo here.