Cool Hand Lucroy

My highest aspiration for this year was to win a wild card. Right in the thick of it. If the Cubs fall back great, but right now I just want the Brewers to win and be done scoreboard watching for a couple of weeks. Hope we can get 6 of these first 10 and then roll.

I wonder how all this conversation about developing players lines up witth the women's game. Female athletes are just as divided in terms of which sports they pursue (with the exception of football), and yet the USWNT is pretty dominant. Of course, the US creates a lot more opportunities for female athletes than many nations, though Western Europe has a pretty sophisticated pro structure.

Getting a top 100 for a rental, even Machado, is crazy to me. It clearly would jave taken a Hiura, Burnes, or Peralta, and I would rather not. Hope he starrts his Dogers career 0 for 16. And then slumps a bit longer. After that, whatever. The more I see these deals, the more I am impressed with KC's run of success. Guys like Diaz just mean so much more in small market systems that you can almost never really go for it without significantly hurting your long-term potential. I hope the Brewers are the Royals of 19 and 20 or 20 and 21, with the caveat that we do better at consistently developing and drafting players.

Yelich clocks in at 22 due to a combo of contract, production, and the recent trade setting the market. Kind of a good news/bad news depending on where you sit re: prospects. Not to revisit the Yelich trade, but I love having that guy penciled in for the next 5 yrs.

Yes. Every person should have to explain every flash in the pan from high school. I should have to answer for why I lit a flaming bag of dog poo on fire sophomore year or pulling Jenny's bra strap in the hallway in 8th grade. I can't believe there are people who want to go down this road. It isn't that I want people to answer for every dumb thing. And, yeah, the examples you mention are "small." I do think it's important, though, that people recognize that "small" things added up create attitudes and ideas. Snapping Jenny's bra step is a tiny act of harrasment, same as flicking a nerd's ear or giving a wedgie, and you should have to confront it. Not with condemnation but with acknowledgment. Clearly, no one told Josh, "Dude, this stuff is bad...stop." That is a problem, and it's the collective fault of those around him and his own fault. I am not asking to relitigate all this publicly, but there should be personal reflection on it, and maybe the athletes that get adulation need to face more public reaction (if not punishment). Edit: I actually agree that "pitchforking" someone, as Snapper put it, sucks and is pretty unproductive. But there does need to be a conversation around this, and Josh does need to feel bad about it. He cannot just dismiss it because that is part of how it keeps being okay. If it takes people overexplaining to make us rethink common usage of homophobic, sexist, and racist language, I am in for lots of overexplaining. And, yeah, racism and sexism are veiled, and I happen to think the language we use is a part of how we veil it. If it becomes normal to refer to women as hoes, isn't it harder to see them as anything but?

I wish I could combine all of these posts into a giant ball of complicated feelings. Part of me wants to take Hader at face value and really believe this was a stupid mistake that doesn't represent who he is now, and that part feels, well, not quite bad for him but ashamed and apologetic for him. Sad that a whole bunch of people will turn him into a joke forever because that is how the internet works, and nothing he can ever do will be good enough for them, and he'll always be morally bankrupt. Part of me hates that aspect of this, the twitter culture that washes away all nuance and all thought beyond the reflexive. Another part is angry and embittered. I want this team we attach ourselves to so deeply to be more than just a fun baseball team. I want it to be aligned with values I can support, and I do not want to make the Aroldis Chapman move, on field results be damned. This part thinks Josh deserves whatever he gets and even hopes it is a suspension, even one beyond a symbolic one or two day one that would occur when he wasn't available anyway because 17 or not, there is no excuse for a lot of the things he said. There's the part that worries about the on-field impact of this too and then feels bad about it. Because, as someone put it in the ASG thread, caring about baseball games more than their larger social significance is disturbing. The most important part, though, maybe and to me, is the part that wants Josh and the team to deal with this head-on and not content themselves with boilerplate, PR responses like "I was a child" and "It was 7 years ago." This part thinks sports lag behind other areas of society in the prevalence of misogynist and homophobic attitudes and hopes the Brewers and Josh speak out about this. When I was a freshman in college, the first speaker we heard was former NFL and Syracuse QB Don McPherson. I vividly remember him speaking to our all-male audience about the prevalence of "calling a man out" by using a gay slur or referencing female anatomy. I remember him talking about how destructive this language could be and how much language creates culture and attitudes. He was right. And Josh was/is a part of creating that culture and maybe also a victim of it in the sense that someone made him feel like those tweets were okay, and that's more than just a personal failure. This part of me hopes, really hopes, that Josh becomes another Don McPherson and fans take some time to reflect on why so many male athletes make these kinds of social media statements as young people. Because sometimes the best change comes about because of those who screwed up publicly and from our own willingness to recognize that we said these things too, maybe in a closed locker room, but still. And isn't that just as bad? Worse, maybe? This part of me flashes back to comments I made without thinking, and the power of words means they weren't consequence-free. You're right, Josh. No excuses. Don't make any. Be honest and process this and talk about why you said this stuff. As another poster said, open your account back up and go through one by one if you have to. It will make people angry. But it's the right thing to do if you have changed. Run from what these tweets represent, but don't run from why you said them, what it meant, and how you impacted yourself and others by putting them out there. Maybe that is asking too much from a pro athlete, but I hope not.

Dave Roberts might have Hader pitch until Thursday.

Good to have a Cubs fan here, especially one that acknowledges the inherent inequality in the two teams' situations. I think we will have reached peak Cub after this year. I do not see those pitchers aging well, and the minors are barren. That team will still hit, but 19 and 20 figure to be better for the Crew on paper. Last year and this year are a team growing into itself.

2nd best record in NL. 35-29 in the second half gets the Crew to 90. Very doable!

Painful series. Only one more trip to Pittsburgh, thank goodness. I don't like pulling Williams at all. Knebel needed to go earlier too. He cannot go from not pitching at all to being expected to throw 30-plus high leverage pitches over multiple innings. When the bullpen is mediocre, this team is really clearly flawed. On the bright side, 55-43 is a darn good 98 games in a vacuum. 2.5 out in the division. 1.5 up in the wildcard. I would have taken it no question on Opening Day. Especially given regression from Shaw and Santana and decling from Braun. Now get healthy and come out firing. This team has some good baseball left in it.

Well, making them use Vazquez is a victory of sorts.

I imagine Peralta will be going down today (perhaps he goes as part of activating Miley), given that he won't start until after the ASB anyway. I would guess Lopez too with Miley on a short leash. Houser makes sense to be called up since he seems to be the shuttle guy. I think the Crew can get 3 of 5 in Pitt, but tonight will be tough with the late night and bullpen scrambling. The good news is, the Brewers are 10-6 so far on this 21 game/20 day stretch, and 7-4 so far in July. Also, after this weekend, the Brewers will have played 5 more games than the Cubs, and the Cubs have to begin their second half schedule a day early. As frustrating as the series in Miami was, this team has been so banged up and patched together, especially pitching wise, that being where they are is pretty amazing. Hope the O mashes tonight (not any kind of reference to Machado, I promise)!

I think he also likes Villar as a PH, late-inning, double-switch guy too. Plus, Perez is swinging it okay lately... I hope Villar gets more starts, but he is getting PAs nearly every night.

Yeah, this is my one big issue with CC. He will pitch anyone when the Crew is trailing. It is like he doesn't believe in keeping games close. I sort of get it, but Z getting ripped by good lefties is awfully predictable...

CC wants Z for Freeman and Markakis. We will see how that goes with a man on now. I think it will be Barnes in the ninth if trailing and Hader if tied or leading. Edit: Sometimes playing lefty-lefty is silly. Especially when the pitcher is not good.

Can we remove posts like PinaMadness' above please? It is not funny or clever and is really deeply alienating to a lot of fans, male and female. Hope Perez stays hot. Go Crew!

Hopefully just a DTD thing. I think I would rather see this than obligue, groin, hammy, but have to wait to see more I guess. Hope the O can get something going tonight. The lineup is ugly.

England Belgium is going to be ugly. Both teams incentivized to lose and foul the crap out of each other. They would be better off flipping a coin than actually playing.

Perez is suboptimal.

Following on Gameday. Yelich just rips ground balls. 106 on that FC. I have seen a lot of that from him too.

Even with a loss today (far from given), that is 3 of 4 on the year. Hard to ask a team to sweep 4 games against anyone, especially with how banged up this Crew was yesterday and today.

A split does feel disappointing after the great start. June has been very mediocre for the Brewers, but they remain 2 up on the Cubs and 4.5 on the Cards with a loss today. In general, this 21-games in 20 days stretch will go a long way in determining how serious this team is. Lots of games against bad teams in there. If they go something like 13-8, I will feel really good about their ability to stick around. A big part of it is going to be health. How dinged up are Cain and Shaw? The lineup looks really gross without those two in it. How about an 8-run 5th, Brewers?

That is incredible. It does seem like there is a thriving soccer subculture, at least. As I go to teach, I see more soccer jerseys than ever, so interest is there! Excited for Group H games tomorrow. I am fascinated by the Poland, Japan, Senegal, Colombia grouping.

Cain leaving for Braun because of injury was what forced Sogard in, I think. Braun is getting that AB at some point. Villar had already been used, and then the double-switch for Miller. Tough to blame CC on Sogard IMO.

Silver lining is the Cardinals have used their best two BP options on back-to-back days. Get to Weaver early tomorrow, boys. 3 of 4 would be awesome, but we head into the off day in 1st no matter what!