Cool Hand Lucroy

Yeah, The Discourse will happen in October, like always. But who cares? This team rules. Forever.

I know Brice can handle short, but I LOVE him at 2nd and don't want to mess with it. He's just incredible at the keystone.

Hoping this is not a TJ situation. Feel bad for Henderson. Of course, then there's the luxury of being able to call up Myers. Depth is good.

We have two extra spots come September, so that will help roster crunch wise. Vaughn and Priester have been so so crazy good. Like, the only other Brewer trade acquisitions I can remember with that kind of impact were Adames and CC. Maybe I'm missing someone. But holy crap is that ever good company.

To each their own. My own impression was that Murphy seemed more worried about Chuorio. I believe Curt Hogg asked him "spasm means worst case scenario avoided?" and Murphy firmly and adamantly said we have to wait and see. Intonation very much "I wouldn't say that, and I'm not going to comment further." A bit different with Sal since Murphy offered day-to-day. But, yeah, this is all just searching for something to go on. We are still okay in the OF for right now, but hopefully Sal isn't out much longer than a couple days.

I imagine he got an MRI right away, just like Sal did. I don't really get why there's not an equivalent diagnosis, but the good news is there are 60 days+ until the playoffs, and you just hope he's is ready in 30 or 45.

All in all, a successful series. Disappointing to not get the sweep, but this is coming down to the last week. Nats and Braves this week. Be nice to post a lot of wins and pick up a game or two.

Um...Easton McGee looked filthy that inning.

On the bright side, if the Cubs lose this, the whole fanbase will lose their minds.

And it looked the stretched did something to his back.

Yeah, I don't think this is quite true. This outcome is unsatisfying to everyone, but you'd still rather have the Brewers side of it.

I know it's lefty-lefty, but I don't get why you just don't walk Tucker there.

Looking at schedules, and the Cubs is pretty tough the next couple weeks? O's (smoking hot offensively right now), Reds, Cards, Blue Jays. Then the Pirates and the 5-gamer with us. I thought Sal got that off the bat.

It's hard for me to process Vaughn's .681 OPS, considering he spent weeks in triple AAA and has been mashing for the last month. How bad must he have been in Chicago? Geez.

Contreras stirs...

Hamstring spasms

If we assume we traded both Shane Smith and Civale for Vaughn, does that make it better for Sox fans?

Chuorio has looked a little touchy running to me over the last couple weeks. Wouldn't be surprised if he tugged something previously existing. Saw him hunched over against LA maybe? After legging out a grounder to third.

I've seen Harper getting a lot of credit for this from writers like Molly Knight and others, all of whom I respect a lot. And I'm with Harper's attitude in spirit. But we're also losing a ton of nuance here. You can be pro-union in a lot of ways, but the baseball union has taken a position that probably increases wage inequality. Blanket resistance to any kind of cap essentially guarantees that a few players get massive deals from a few, big spending clubs, and the majority of roster spots are "soft-capped" by teams who have to play within a lower budget. I wish more folks would write about how many players suffer from a de facto cap, simply because most teams literally can't spend 400 million on payroll. Take Mark A. His net worth is 2 billion. That's obviously a ton of dough. But it's not so much that he can just construct a 300 million dollar Brewers payroll and not take on some significant financial risks. I get that the owners are vastly wealthy and often scrimp unnecessarily. But I push back against the idea that baseball teams have unlimited resources because they're owned by financial elites. Like most things, we're losing nuance in this discussion. I think MLB and its owners spend their revenue in ways that mostly suck. Lots of players, especially minor-leaguers, have to deal with a lot of garbage and wage suppression. But a salary floor, as Torts said, would help that! A cap would hurt players at the top, but might reduce wage inequality and benefit younger players. The team control period could be shortened again too. The union isn't always right just because it's a union and management are a bunch of rich dudes. Baseball negotiations just really seem to miss important pieces sometimes. They become a fight between the owners and players who each benefit most from the current system, and a true, utilitarian common good solution (which is something like a salary floor and cap, with concessions around the team control period and a plan for escalating the cap as revenue rises) ends up totally lost. It doesn't seem that hard in the end. But I am sure it will be a painful negotiation process, and maybe we lose games.

Saw Murphy forego the traditional butt slap. He did look mad. Who could blame him?

Nice way to start the series. Going to need Priester to have a long start tomorrow. Maybe even Ashby to close, pending a roster move.

Now Megill has to throw strikes. Suzuki can't really hurt you.

Anyone else surprised not two from Hall? I guess they didn't want him against two righties and Happ.

I mean, serious question. Right now, the Brewers have around a 25% chance of getting the postseason bye per FG. Trading significant assets for Suarez or Neto or something maybe bumps that up to what? 30? 40? Obviously, that also improves your roster for the opening three-game series and probably bumps your overall postseason odds up from 93 to 96 or 98. But at the cost of a lot of future value. I'm not saying it's not a good thing to do. I think it's a hard call. But I think the likeliest outcome of this season is a WC series, even if it's as a division winner. Under those circumstances, I'm interested in deals like the Jansen one. I'm not really sure I want to give up the capital it's going to take to get Suarez.

Cubs playing with a lot of fire, definitely seems like they think they have something to prove. The optimist in me says this is how in their heads we. They have one good inning and feel like they've asserted their dominance.