Joseph Zarr

Dame just does not disappoint. I watched him for five years straight when I lived in Troutdale, Oregon (15 minutes from PDX). I worked at a brewery in downtown Portland so was more than able to hop over to Moda on many occasions just to watch Lillard play the game of basketball. I want to reiterate again: as a lifelong Bucks fan this pairing is a surreal manifesto to my only remaining dream of NBA basketball in Milwaukee. I am walking a path of basketball heaven. And I will enjoy every moment. Now you all know. Now you see what I've seen for the past five years. And, this is just a blip on the radar. There is NO better clutch performer in the League. Period. Not Curry. Not Bron. Not Jokic. Nobody. Not a single player in the League can close games like this man can. The rest of the nation, because of the rightful gravity of Giannis, is finally going to find out how utterly gifted and unparalleled this man is with the ball in his hands. I was at his 71 point game with father in law (on a whim!) after my wife and I visited the in-laws this past February when he was given a remission ticket. He literally could have scored in the 90's. He's on another level. He just is. Enjoy the ride. We are so so so lucky as Bucks fans.

OF Hendry Mendez shined in the nine-hole tonight. Playing time has been sparse for the young man, but he has definitely been trending in the right direction in his limited appearances. He finished his evening 2-for-3 with 1 BB and 3 R. A fine performance and one hopefully gaining even more trust and opportunity. DH Wes Clarke was batting clean-up again tonight and put forth a 2-for-5 showing with 2 RBI and 2 K. Eric Brown Jr. was manning the shortstop position batting 7th in the line-up. He managed an 0-for-3, 1 BB, 1 K night of work at the dish. No Brewers players pitched, unfortunately, but the Saguaros squeaked out a close one, 6-5. They can thank their five run output across the 7th and 8th innings for their victory - Clarke and Mendez played pivotal roles in these rallies. The Saguaros moved to 13-8 overall. They won their third straight contest while jumping back to sole possession of first place gaining a 1/2 game on Scottsdale (12-8) who were idle for the evening.

RHP Michele Vassalotti is also playing with Cardenales, fwiw. Old friend, LHP Andy Otero is pitching in the Dominican Winter League for Estrellas Orientales (Dominican) Old friend, RHP Zach Mort is hurling for Naranjeros de Hermosillo (Mexico) 1B Thomas Dillard (the former placeholder, apparently, for Wes Clarke and Ernesto Martinez) is playing for Tomateros de Culiacán RHP (and late season Montgomery Biscuits nemesis) Victor Castañeda is in the pitching stables of the same Tomateros de Culiacán Wild side bits: OF Troy Stokes Jr. is manning the OF grass for Águilas de Mexicali (Mexico) and C Jacob Nottingham (Oh Jacob!) is playing a back stop for Tigres del Licey (Dominican)

Staying current: - The Milwaukee Brewers selected the contract of OF Chris Roller from the Nashville Sounds

RHP Justin Yeager pitched a scoreless 2/3 inning picking up his first AFL Save as he continues to excel after his rough first outing. The Saguaros trailed 6-2 heading to the bottom of the 6th. They put three on the board but Salt River grabbed one back. Trailing 7-5 headed to the bottom of the 8th, Surprise put up a 7-spot. With a runner aboard at 3rd base with one down, and the Rafters already having pulled within 12-9, Yeager was brought aboard. He conceded a sac fly to CF, he hit the next batter, and then he induced another fly out to CF to end it. Surprise moves to 12-8 pulling out the 12-10 victory even tho they were outhit 20-to-13 (whew). 1B Wes Clarke batted third in the batting order and finished with a strong 2-for-4, 2 R, 1 BB, 1 K, 1 2B evening. SS Eric Brown Jr. batted eighth and finished 1-for-4. Surprise is now in first place - 1/2 G ahead of second place Scottsdale.

Closing the Lauer loop and Brewers tenure: - LHP Eric Lauer was sent outright to the Nashville Sounds by the Milwaukee Brewers. He opted for Free Agency.

Let's add RHP Sam Gardner to the mix. The Timber Rattlers' key second half set-up man joins the Brisbane Bandits for their 9-week season beginning November 17:

RHP Joseph Hernandez continues to struggle mightily in Arizona: 1 1/3 IP tonight 8 H 1 BB 2 K 4 ER His AFL ERA currently sitting at a ripe 15.19. Yikes. LHP Adam Seminaris started for Surprise and put forth 4 IP, 6 H, 1 BB, 1 K, 3 ER (4.50 ERA overall). EBJ was the lone Brewers field player to make an appearance for the Saguaros. He replaced SS Cameron Cauley (unknown reason) in the 5th frame hitting an RBI single to RF in the bottom half of the same frame. He finished 1-for-3 with 1 R, 1 RBI, and 1 K. That is his 12th RBI of his AFL season. The Saguaros came back from an early 3-0 deficit to win 11-7. Seminaris picks up the 'W' moving to 2-0 overall while Surprise moves to 11-8 overall just 1/2 GB of first place Scottsdale.

I have to say it is pretty spectacle-like amazing witnessing the vast majority of Packers fans (albeit, I'm looking at the Bird App) entirely incapable of accepting the growing pains or 'rebound' (poor word choice) of being outside the bubble of Favre-to-Rodgers brilliance. It's as if people only allowed for the smooth and seamless transition to further excellence and more post-season runs? It's a pretty poor look from the fanbase. People are not handling this well. They should probably go back and watch those 1980's games for a refresher course. Now, this being said, I continue to not enjoy this Packers product. Just no identity. All the same issues repeating themselves. I don't trust this organization to make any intrepid decisions in any form of right timing. It will be certainly interesting to see how the entirety of this season travels and what types of decisions do end up being made.

Clarke has improved his K:BB ratio after 2 AB's tonight to 17:12. Love this trend for him.

Surprise will face Peoria tonight. It's about 40 minutes til first pitch and it would appear Clarke, EBJ, and Mendez are all in the line-up.

100% agreed. And I do fear Giannis may not see that or understand that. It's a legit concern. At this juncture of his HOF career it really is about evolving the mental side of his game. His limits to being even more impactful and evolving further have little to nothing to do with his desire to win by my eyes. I personally 'believe' it had everything to do with how he can advance the basics: seeing the floor; knowing what your team needs to be successful; and getting back to fundamentals (ie Box out for crying out loud, make the simple pass because you know where your shooters are, and for crying out loud get back to 70% FT). I can only hope he will see this as the season advances. I remain skeptical.

Watched the last two pre-season games. With the addendum, it's the pre-season and means zilch, here were my observations: 1) AJJ is definitely a player. He 'should' get PT and enter the rotation this season. The earlier the better. He pops and impacts the entire game every time he's been on the floor. 2) Beauchamp lacks consistency and consistency of confidence but when he is playing confident he is very good to the rack; can shoot from distance; has an improved handle; and has length for defensive impact. It's all about the mental side of the game here it would appear. Hopefully, he solidifies that. 3) AJ Green is arguably the best pure distance shooter on the team. His stroke is straight butter. Hard to fathom he won't get minutes and it's hard to fathom his stroke from distance is purer than Lillard but it just may be. His release point is extremely hard to block as well. He looks like a completely transformed player after one year (physically ripped and speed of play) and this after an unexpectedly decent rookie year. 4) RoLo is, sadly, absolutely washed. He shouldn't see the floor. He likely shouldn't hold a roster spot but there may be some form of agreement with the Bucks and BroLo (as we know they clearly do those things for their core players). He was awful in these meaningless games. It was fairly shocking how far he's fallen off the playable cliff. 5) Giannis was #1 in usage in the NBA last season. Dame was #4. In this equation, Giannis absolutely needs to let go of his own ball dominant fetish. Get the ball in Dame's hands. It's the pre-season, yes, but I did not like how the half court was initiated 90% of the time with the starters and this was largely due to Giannis absolutely hogging primary ball handling duties. This can not remain the trend. There was a reason Giannis was like a -19 yesterday: he played a lot of boneheaded basketball with Dame on the court. He is still in love with his undisciplined distant shooting - man, I sincerely hope he realizes anything more than 2 3's a game from him is egregious with the shooters they have. It's a stubborn refusal to dominate the void within the offense and it actually muddles the offensive flow. Dame relegated to standing in the corner?! This had way too many shades of J Kidd's time with the Bucks. I found this, perhaps, the most disturbing possible trend of the pre-season. I can only hope they were keeping things in the bag for the regular season. It was ugly. Giannis has to understand his role has changed. I fear he may not. If you claim you will set 50 picks if need be, can you please be willing to set 10? My gods. His trend of play offensively is pretty concerning if you're not wearing rose colored glasses. And, the FT's continue to just plummet toward Shaq levels of inefficiency. Yikes. 6) Jae Crowder looks completely reinvigorated. This is a very good thing. 7) This is the most exciting lotto ticket compilation of youth the Bucks have had since...? TyTy looked very good yesterday. Green and AJJ have been discussed. As has Marjon. Livingston could continue to develop as well and has flashed. Obviously Griffin had a conflict with Stotts and that led to a departure. He certainly seems to be the guy to help develop these young guys, however. Given the Bucks Salary Cap implications this will be key moving ahead. 8) I think it's going to take longer than people think for this team to really gel. And, that's just fine. The defensive philosophy is entirely different and more aggressive. The offense will be a work in progress. To me, it's entirely up to how Giannis learns to fit himself into this type of talent. If he continues his #1 usage ways and ball dominance, this team will likely see repeat disappointments. If he truly is the unselfish superstar he claims he is, this team will flourish. That's how I see it entering Game 1.

Ah, yes. It's that athlete posts eyes thing to keep everyone guessing.😅

Still no Mendez in the Saguaros line up. I believe he last played four games ago now. EBJ is the sole Brewer playing so far tonight.

This is another streaming reminder: The Surprise Saguaros will indeed be streaming again on this fine Fall Friday. They will be taking on the also 9-7 Salt River Rafters - both teams trail League leaders Scottsdale and Peoria (who also go head-to-head tonight) by 1/2 G apiece. It certainly appears to be a very intriguing pitching matchup as the Saguaros and Blue Jays AFL Ace, LHP Ricky Tiedemann, faces Salt River and Tigers' former first rounder (2021) Ace RHP Jackson Jobe. The bats may be quiet early so hopefully the bullpens are up to the task. Tune in HERE as game time approaches for the Live Streaming window. Tentative start time is 9:30 EST.

Article linked for subscribers. On Yoho, particularly: *personally, in the clip, particularly fond of the audible 'Whooof' grunt we hear from the video taker at the 8 second mark. I believe that pitch may have had some 'nasty'😄

He surrendered a lot of soft contact (in Double-A) across the board by my eyes. Part of his walk schtick is he doesn't offer a lot of meat on the bone to hitters - the downside (and, i guess, plus side?) of this is he is unafraid or unused to working from behind or in full/elevated counts batter-to-batter. Like Miguel Cabrera's fearlessness in an 0-2 count, Carlos is unfazed in 2-0;3-0; or 3-2. The downside of this, going further, is the greater impact this has within each of his Starts. I can recall numerous prolonged first innings, for example where he hit the mound nibbling and missing and suddenly had the bases juiced. He quite adeptly can work out of these jams but we all know that won't be sustainable the higher he travels in the circuit. It is uncanny the number of starts, for instance, where I ventured to other games to check in on certain other players and I came back to Carlos (who may have elevated his pitch count into the upper 20's after one of those vintage inaugural innings, for example) who had once again managed to K 8-10 and was improbably entering the 6th frame. Anyhow, I attribute all of the above to youth and accumulating experience. He is a very smart pitcher with very good stuff who is still evolving. Because his raw stuff and his head for the game are so good as is, today, I go back to his age. He is doing things at his age from an entirely different end of the spectrum than a Misiorowski. Given he concedes such weak contact, however, the free passes are a distinct area I personally want to see improvements. I compare that quality to Gasser's own struggles...who, oh by the way, has 2 1/2 years of age and experience on him.

The lone Triple-A Nashville showing was, quite simply, very rough. But, it also was a positive in that it showcased what that bump up in competition is going to need: sharpening of the tools. No more getting away with the walks. It will be a very necessary assignment to get him truly pro ready. In that outing versus Jacksonville Rodriguez walked four, hit one, and gave up five knocks in 4 2/3 IP. You'd have to go back to mid-May @ Chattanooga to find a comparably ineffective start by his standards. He just wasn't sharp - his pitches were sailing...he was likely over-amped or just off. And, it will be challenge he needs to evolve his already advanced arsenal to MLB-caliber. BUT, and this is what I harp on with Rodriguez: he will play the entirety of 2024 as his age 22 season. He's 2 1/2 years younger (with room to season) than LHP Robert Gasser. He's literally only six months older than Misiorowski. Sky is the limit here. Much to what you point to above is key to that growth. That change up is an amazing pitch. It's surreal how that pitch sneaks up and then sinks down past bats. I'd put it in the top 10 pitches of the Brewers Minor Leagues. Which, come to think of it, would be a very fun article: The Top 10 Best Pitches in the Brewers Minor League System.

And, after those activations, as has often been the case with the new roster limitations, came the releases: - The ACL Brewers released RHP's Domingo Mejia, Jared Albir, and Samuel Dario - The ACL Brewers released INF Alberis Ferrer - The Carolina Mudcats released Jhoan Cruz

EBJ and Clarke continue their fantastic AFL campaigns. Each 2-for-4 in the late innings. EBJ hit his 5th dub and stole his 7th base. Surprise now leads 5-0 after INF Cameron Cauley finally woke up his bat hitting his second long ball of his evening. And the score is final: 5-0 victory for the Saguaros who move to 9-7 overall. Mendez was once again left out of the lineup and no Brewers prospects pitched, unfortunately.

We can certainly make this argument. I was already feeling him the first couple of weeks in Zebulon. And, then I saw him fire off his cannon arm and I was stunned. I had that very thought then. He solidified himself as the season went on. He's an absolute weapon out there.