mls4

Is that really Rusch out there? Outdueling Oswalt... unbelievable.

"And Jose Guillen is amazing. Just wanted to share that." I finally see why Bill is so enamored with Guillen. But is he really that good, or does he just play that good against the Brewers? Also interesting to note two others doing damage for the Reds in this series: Mateo and Jimenez- it was mentioned on these boards earlier in the year when they could have been picked up off of waivers. Jimenez especially has somehow found new life so far in Cincy.

"RHP Calvin Carpenter struggled with control..." Wow, he's a magician, putting 8 runners on base in 3 innings without allowing a run! Looks like they got one erased on a DP, but that's a lot of runners stranded.

"Does anybody have any idea what the Brewers player stats in All Star games are?" Checking out baseball-almanac.com, I come up with: 8 hits in 49 AB, for .163 average (4 runs, 1 RBI). It's from boxscores, so I can't come up with OBP, but I know there's at least 3 walks and a catcher's interference in there. Pitchers have been more successful, with 7 hits and 2 earned runs in 10 innings. (1.80 ERA) Other facts: -Davey May was the first Brewer to get a plate appearance, in 1973. (Harper was a PR in 1970.) -Don Money was the first Brewer starter, in 1978, at 2B. -Lary Sorensen was the first Brewer to pitch, in 1978. - Larry Hisle was the first Brewer to get a hit, in 1978, PH for Sorensen. - Rollie Fingers was the only Brewer pitcher to give up runs, 2 in 1981. Sorensen, Higuera, Plesac (3), Wickman, and Sheets all have scoreless outings. - First RBI (and only) was Ted Simmons in 1981. - First run scored was Yount in 1983. - Other Brewer hits belong to Simmons, Cooper (2), Molitor, Vaughn, Vina, and Burnitz. I did not look up if any was an extra-base hit, although I know Burnitz's was a double, and there were no HR. Batting stats: May 0-2, Scott 0-2, Aaron 0-1, Money 0-3, Hisle 1-1, Cooper 2-4 (run, plus at least 2 walks), Oglivie 0-4, Yount 0-7(run), Simmons 1-3 (RBI), Thomas 0-1, Sundberg 0-1, Molitor 1-6 (plus catcher's int.), Vaughn 1-1 (run), Seitzer 0-2, Cirillo 0-1, Vina 1-1 (plus walk, fielding error), Nilsson 0-1, Burnitz 1-2 (double, run), Hernandez 0-3, Sexson 0-3. Pitching stats: Sorenson 3 IP, 1 H; Fingers 2 G, 1.2 IP, 4 H, 2 ER; Higuera 3 IP, 1 H; Plesac 3 G, 1.1 IP, 1 H; Wickman 1 IP, Sheets 1/3 IP.

What happened to the new AL and NL uniforms I thought they were going to wear?

"the guy throwing HR derby pitches to Sexson. I've never seem such a mixture of sinkers, sliders, and knuckleballs from one guy." Was it Rich Donnelly?

Is there ever a sport that is biased towards small, short people? I guess I could be a jockey. That's about it.

"we still may only lose 105 , which may not be enough to be worse than San Diego because they're gonna dump players too, and will still be that much worse." Actually, I read somewhere that San Diego thinks they can be competitive next year with players returning from injury and a couple free agent acquisitions, and they will be just as much buyers as sellers during the rest of this season. "why not lose so next years #1 in the draft is guarinteed ours." First of all, teams aren't going to try to lose, that's fine if they trade players to look toward the future, but I don't think we want them trying to lose. Second, the first overall pick in the draft doesn't guarantee anything. The 2nd or 3rd pick is still going to yield a good player and probably not a significant drop-off from #1.

Don't we have anyone to pinch-hit for Clayton? Already used up Young when Kieschnick was already coming in to the game anyways, but where's VanderWal today?

Clayton a chance to redeem himself.....

If Clayton's not going to play good defense, what's the point?

Ford ruined what looked like it could be a good outing. I wonder how long the Ford starting experiment will continue. I know then it would be back to the original question: who else is there?

It's a good question and I was wondering myself. I'm sure it wasn't me either, but I never did see a list of winners.

I find it interesting that DeJean came back and got Jack Wilson last night, reminding me of the Vizcaino/Sosa battles of a couple weeks ago. Any chance we get DeJean again today for a best 2 out of 3 against Wilson? And what would the odds be? Vizcaino takes on big corker Sammy Sosa, DeJean left to take on little Jack Wilson.

DeJean again in a tie game, are you kidding?

I agree also- Sexson really took his time on that play, and I think DeJean was expecting the throw sooner. I didn't understand letting Rivas take 2nd base either, on what seemed like defensive indifference. We didn't seem to play smartly in the tying rally in the 9th either. My wife (Twins fan) said it was payback for the bad umping, especially when we nailed two runners in the 8th. (Pods was safe at home earlier on the same play?) Did anyone notice if those were the right calls by the umpires? And did Gardenhire have legitimate gripes on balls and strikes in the 3rd when he got ejected? My wife was sure the Brewers were getting every close call from the umps and the Twins deserved to win the whole time.

Was anyone else at the dome this weekend? Friday night was fun, but overall it was tough to see all the times they couldn't get runners in from scoring position, especially from 3rd base with less than two outs, it seems like they strike out 90% of the time in that situation. I can't get the "ROTLTTO" link to work but the numbers can't be too good. I wonder how they compare to other teams. Even when they did score runs they were depending on 2-out hits. Pods saved us twice this way on Saturday, or we'd have been shut out. We had the leadoff runner on 6 straight innings at one time on Saturday, and they only scored him once. Maybe it's not as bad as it seems, and it's probably been like this all year, but being at the games it's just more frustrating.

I can't believe Vizcaino comes in to face Sosa with the game on the line. Unbelievable. And he strikes him out. More unbelievable.

"if I wanted to watch senior citizens play baseball, I'd head on over to the geriatric ward of a local hospital." Seriously, do they play baseball in the geriatric ward of your local hospital?

From the JS Online: "Morneau hammered a 1-0 pitch from Mike DeJean off the center field scoreboard, a shot that traveled an estimated 460 feet, the longest ever hit at Miller Park." They are either forgetting or discounting Sosa's blasts at the Home Run Derby last All-Star break. That said, Morneau's shot was an absolute blast, and very impressive.

Headed to Milwaukee for the game tonight and the whole series this weekend. Very excited for my first game there since 2001 and second game ever at Miller Park! The Twins pitching staff has not looked good recently with the exception of Joe Mays yesterday. It will still be hard for them to get outpitched by the Brewers of course. There is the possibility of some slugfests this weekend. I'm hoping the Twins' staff can continue to struggle a bit, while Sheets, Franklin, and Kinney (against his old team) can come through. Radke, though, has been astoundingly better on the road (2-2, 2.72) than at home (3-4 8.93), and the Twins are actually better on the road (21-15 vs 18-17 at home). Let's hope 3B Corey Koskie cools down. He has been on a tear at .556/.674/.939 and 13 RBI in the past 9 games.

I remember that book, Katuluu. I had a teammate in college that could pitch both ways.

I'm not even close to an expert, but from what I've heard here and anywhere else, what Gammons says is no new news. Wherever I read, Young and Weeks almost always seem to be the top two listed, with the possible wild card being Ryan Harvey. About Gammons, I think he's fairly decent, but I often wonder how much "inside information" he really has.