KeithStone53151

This ump seems to be calling a fairly tight zone. Not a bad or inaccurate zone...just tight. Isn't really giving anything anywhere outside the zone.

But Gio will almost surely get his first at-bat before Carpenter gets his 2nd, and that would be a waste of offense. They will wait and see what happens, but I guarantee that's a strong consideration. Gio is not enough of an advantage against Carpenter to justify a plate appearance and a bunch of extra at-bats against RHB's. I let Gio hit if he looks good on the mound and if there is nobody on with 2 outs. Obviously I let him hit if the Brewers jump out to a big early lead, too. That's basically it though. I think GG is going to have to hit today unless he's awful. We used a lot of relievers yesterday and who knows how Jeffress is looking right now. GG not hitting probably means 2 innings, it would be a bit of a struggle to cover the next 7 innings unless Woodruff is exceptionally sharp. I highly doubt GG hit's twice unless he's allowed less than 2 runs at that point...once seems about right.

This is obviously a loaded question, but I’ll bite and say check out PFF - the iShares US Preferred Stock ETF. Minimal upside, but low volatility and a 5% dividend yield. That’s perfect for what I have been looking for. My bond funds have been a joke so it feels like dead money. Your idea is better. I’m very overweight in BP and need to diversify. You could also go for something like WE Energies, which is basically a government guaranteed monopoly and pays good dividends. I haven't done the research, but I'd think they'd be basically immune to a recession.

I would never go to an event without a paper ticket for the reasons laid out above. Not really hard to print them. Edit: it appears that these barcodes are not available until cloe to gametime, so maybe it is a little more difficult to print them. I'm not familiar with that phenomenon. I haven't seen anything regarding what time they will be available, I just saw gameday. Has anyone seen anything specific to the time? I have to imagine they'll be available at least 4-5 hours prior to game to give ample time to for fans wanting to print...smart thing to do would be to make them available at 8 am just to be safe.

I was right on Hader/Yelich/Pina...way off on Arcia, arguably off on Anderson/Villar. Villar net us Schoop and is putting up good numbers in Baltimore. Anderson has been better than his recent situation would indicate. Both probably fall into misses but less of misses than Arcia. And I have a shot at getting the record right. 4-1 gets me there...and coincidentally is probably what we need to have a shot at the division.

If the Brewers win tonight, they will win #91 and St. Louis will lose #71. This clinches at worst a tie with the Cardinals. If the Rockies also lose, that will be loss #71 for them as well and clinches at worst a tie with them as well. While this wouldn't "clinch" anything, it would mean the Brewers would have to lose out and the Cardinals and/or the Rockies win out to tie them. EDIT: JINX T Plush The Cubs are a 100% chance to make the playoffs according to fangraphs. I definitely didn't figure out that mathematically the Cubs can still miss the playoffs and I'm also definitely not trying for a reverse jinx.

Fangraphs has us at 99.7% odds of making playoffs and 16% chance to win the division. I think we are 1 win away from mathematically clinching a wildcard and 2 wins away from clinching the 1st wildcard as long as 1 of those wins is against the cardinals. We would then have tiebreakers for home field against both the Rockies and Cardinals...and would tie either team if they won out from this point.

I personally think they are saving and planning to use Anderson against Detroit...probably game 1 or 2 against them. I'm expecting Woodruff to piggy back with GG to some degree. I'm not sure GG goes 5-6 innings as some are suggesting, I hope to be wrong here but if I was CC I'd have a plan in place for pulling him after 3-4. That likely means Woodruff for as long as you get quality from him and bullpen from there. Many of the guys that pitched yesterday should be available today. Hopefully Jeffress is available today or tomorrow, I heard neck spasms but no timeline.

I'm curious when the barcodes will be made available. After the technical incompetence we saw during ticket sales, I'm a bit concerned with a game day release of those codes. What do they do if something goes wrong and they have a matter of hours to resolve rather than days?

I'd been waiting for that curveball for about 4 pitches. Excellent spot, good win. 1.5 back of the baby bears

Baseball is a joke...these yahoos definitely have the cubs penciled in to the DS and will do anything in their power to tip the scales against us...

That ball by Martinez was absolutely smoked and had some movement on it. And Arcia did have to move to make the play. I could see it either way, but regardless that wasn't an easy/routine play.

Aguilar got himself out, and i personally was confident that would happen before he even stepped up. We might be better off rolling Shaw at 1b for a while with Schoop a regular at 2b.

Yeah that inning sucked, but this game is far from over. We still get to bat 3 times and it's 1 run. Weird to pull Braun, let's see how it plays out.

That didn't look like an accident...

I definitely think CC should have someone up in the pen. Peralta has been a bit less sharp the last couple hitters. Should be prepared to make a move if he struggles a bit more.

I wouldn't be surprised if strategy was adjusted because Peralta was locked in for a few hitters. Probably PH him when his spot comes due again. Ok, but why not go with what worked his fisrt time at the plate. Just makes no sense. Carp is probably laughing his rear off, as is the rest of Cardinal nation. It's always something. That fastball by Peralta gets creamed by literally everyone in the Cards lineup except maybe the pitcher. He made a mistake and got hit, y'all are making way too much of this decision from CC. I generally thought it was a good decision to stick with a pitcher throwing well...he made a mistake, it happens.

I wouldn't be surprised if strategy was adjusted because Peralta was locked in for a few hitters. Probably PH him when his spot comes due again.

That was savage by Braun, oh man that was fun. Looking at it for half a second and taking your shin guard off is almost more awesome than excessively watching it.

Someone send up some tissues.

Interesting that three of the four teams have already won more games than last year, and this is with a week of games still to be played. Meanwhile, the 11 largest free-agent contracts given out this off-season: Eric Hosmer - San Diego - terrible team Yu Darvish - Chicago - likely the best team in NL despite Darvish's mediocre performance and injury J.D. Martinez - Boston - great year one addition to best team in baseball Lorenzo Cain - Milwaukee - great year one addition on what is probably the 2nd best team in the NL Jake Arrieta - Philadelpha - Phillies and Arrieta both faded badly in the second half Carlos Santana - Philadelphia - Phillies not considered a factor in NL playoff race for a few weeks now Alex Cobb - Baltimore - worst team in baseball by a large margin Wade Davis - Colorado - Rockies made a nice run but appear to be fading fast, current playoff odds < 30% Jay Bruce - New York Mets - The Mets did look pretty good in April Tyler Chatwood - Chicago - Cubs able to win all those games despite Chatwood not being able to throw strikes Zack Cozart - Los Angelas Angels - Cozart got hurt and it's been obvious for the last couple months that the Angels were not going to the playoffs All this above wasn't put together to make the argument that free agent dollars aren't worth spending. But clearly in what was a very weak free agent class, it really didn't make much sense for the A's and Ray's to go out and spend money just for the sake of spending money. I would be curious to see the WAR of each player on that list. Not that WAR tells all, but it's a quick and dirty measure that would tell us enough in this case. I wonder if anyone besides Martinez and Cain cracked 2 WAR.

Chacin and Cain might have been two of the 3 best value signings from the last offseason (of course JD Martinez added to those two). That makes me feel good as a Brewer fan since we usually are in the Jeff's Suppan and Hammonds land of misfit contracts! I think there was a point a few years so where contract values got too far out of hand too fast and this simply is a recognition of that and a market correction, just like any other market or business. Not to nitpick, but hard to argue a value contract without including Mikolas.

Carpenter has been the leadoff hitter for the Cards all year. If CC can convince the Cardinals to adjust their normal lineup via this bullpen game, that's an excellent start to the game before a pitch is even thrown. I'm also not convinced that this wasn't CC's decision. Maybe he made the decision to give Chase extra rest. I wouldn't be surprised if Chase pitches the first game of the Detroit series. He is generally better with extra rest. I also think if he's put in a position where he knows he's only going 3-4 innings...he might let loose a bit more and be in the 94-95 range versus 91-93, which would be huge.

Yelich is leading the NL in OPS...by 30 points. Baez is about 70 points behind him. Yelich also has higher WAR on both sites I've looked at that calculate WAR. Baez definitely should get some credit for being such a good defender, which probably makes it close. I just don't think the defense does enough for Baez to surpass Yelich. That's also my personal opinion. The Baez vs Yelich debate isn't some wildly ridiculous argument that is clear cut in either direction. The OPS leader shouldn't automatically win the MVP. I'll be curious to see how this plays out. I think if Yelich were to hit 3 HR over the next week and we found a way to tie or surpass the Cubs for the division...that absolutely launches him to clear cut favorite for MVP. I also think those 2 have established themselves ahead of the rest of the contenders...it has to be one of the two.

I just called my rep and she ordered mine over the phone. My wildcard seats are in a much better section than my DS sets, but at least I got tickets.