Jim French Stepstool

The Mets wouldn't approve, either.

There was a time when I thought Refsnyder would make a nice bench bat. Didn't know he's dropped so far off the face of the earth. Good points. I think when the Brewers struggle to score offensively, don't get runs in from 3rd w/less than two outs, etc a lot of fans watch the highlight shows & see people hitting the ball out of the park, running around the bases, etc. Those are HIGHLIGHTS. The Vasgersians of the world are usually able to ignore the other 90-95%.

Well, we've seen THIS movie before. All the elements that usually involve a "Brewers-y" type win were here this evening, except for a couple defensive miscues that needed to be overcome. And Drohan helped immensely in that regard. The way he & Sproat have stayed strong through rough patches in some of their recent starts is just so impressive. Sounds from Murphy's presser like it might be a little while for Hamilton. If so, the affiliates have a day off so we can't check to see if anyone got pulled from their game. Not fair. I would imagine if a move is needed it would be Jett Williams? If there's an Unsung Award on the team, just box it up right now & send it to Chad Patrick. What he's done, while changing around the way he was used, the days off, everything. Standing O. There's a hitting theory that goes something like 'the first two strikes are yours, the third one is for the team', meaning you can pretty much cut loose then w/two strikes try to use the whole field, the "humble approach" Brian Anderson likes to call it. I could be wrong but after his first week or so it seems to me like Pratt has adopted that mindset. If he has, I wish he'd stop. Go back to the CF-to RF swing we saw earlier. Shelve the hero stuff for another couple hundred ABs or so. I thought Contreras had his usual nice game behind the dish (the way they set up Burleson was fantastic), but at the plate he looked like he was playing in his 38th game in a row. And that's after a day off yesterday. He deserves the All-Star recognition but I'm not thrilled about him travelling & going through all that stuff instead of getting off his feet for three days.

The kudos Ortiz deserved Friday for his play in the 9th inning keeping Carroll from coming to the plate w/a couple runners on---same thing re Frelick yesterday. tying run on; Carroll at the plate representing the winning run & he does the Spiderman thing on the foul ball taking his AB away from him. So far Bauers has been better in the OF than I thought he'd be, but pretty sure he doesn't make that play. The challenge here is you're going into a 5-gamer & your longest start in Arizona was four innings. Like @long ballsaid, you'd love 5-6 from Drohan tonite.

Fitzpatrick just underwent TJ surgery, so he's done until later in '27 at the earliest. Hopefully good things happen from here on out re Koenig, Hall, Rom, Rob Z re health/effectiveness & we won't need a decision re Manfredi until the off-season. But his command improvement since moving to AAA does intrigue me.

None of them had to worry about being labeled 'worst umpire in MLB' as long as Angel Hernandez was around. Now that he isn't..........time to pull the plug.

Detmers would be a worthy target. But IMO this would have to involve Milwaukee unloading some of the corner INF talent they possess, rather than someone like Pena. If the Angels aren't interested in that category, so be it. Also, I'd imagine we aren't nuts about letting Quero go given the clock ticking on Contreras' time here.

I've always liked Boeve, but I think the organization pretty solidly puts Burke ahead of him. Perhaps the lack of HR pop hurts Boeve, but a bigger factor might be his defense. He still hasn't found a fulltime home but I can understand them moving him around because as you alluded to, being a good hitter but not a big HR guy doesn't exactly help you as a 1B. I imagine as the phones heat up this month his name will be brought up.

With the way LH bullpen guys have been dropping like flies this year, I suspect Manfredi is on their radar not only to be protected but perhaps even called on this year. It's not really surprising that he was promoted to AAA (he's 26) but it IS a pleasant surprise to me that as you said the command has gotten much better. I believe his best offspeed is the slider, which he tries to get the majority of his chase on. Along with getting the walks under control, he's allowed only 3 HR in his last 96 innings going back to the beginning of '25. The FO has to like that. If Rom and/or Koenig have issues & Hall still isn't ready it looks like Manfredi or Zastryzny would be next up from the left side. I don't think Wood will ever be better than acceptable defensively but he has an idea at the plate & has some power. I think he'll find his way on someone's roster eventually but they'll probably have to flip the coin & bank on him not being selected this winter.

With Schwarber, it's the HRs & the Ks but it's also the walks drawn. I don't know about the 40% mentioned but if he can be around one-third Ks & take his walks in addition to a high HR total I think that's doable for one spot in your batting order.

Any mention if he came from, you know, somewhere else?

The other day I brought up Sacramento, a Brewer AAA farm team in the 1970s that had a ridiculously short porch in LF. Bill McNulty hit 55 HRs there in 1974. He played in a total of nine games at the big league level, none with Milwaukee, and went 1 for 27. He was a third baseman, so maybe if Joey Ortiz doesn't start hitting better............nah.

I think the racing presidents in DC is a pretty good schtick, how Teddy Roosevelt went such a long time w/o winning (I believe he finally did).

About the RISP thing, there were a couple good comments from, of all people, media guys. I have no idea who he is but there's this guy who does the post-game call-in thing on WTMJ. I seldom listen to it but heard a little last night, and he said the good thing about the 3-18 with RISP was the 18. That sounds dumb on the surface but he's right. Keep getting base hits; keep getting runners on base. This team, for the lions' share of the season, has been among the top handful of teams in MLB in hitting in those situations, including two-out runs. It sucks when it goes dry for a stretch, but over 162 games it would be a miracle if that DIDN'T happen. Keep getting people on base. Because then when it turns there'll be, you know, people on base. The other guy who brought up something I agreed with was Dillard. He puts runners on 3B w/less than two outs in a separate category. He's right because that's where you don't necessarily need a base hit to succeed. I think in both categories they're guilty of changing their mindset when it's important to change nothing & stay with your normal approach. Bauers' AB in the 1st inning with Turang at 3B was horrible & looked nothing like what you'd see him turn in with, say, one out & nobody on. I cringe whenever I hear an announcer say things like "He needs to just try to get something in the air". No, if he's a capable ML hitter he needs to keep the same approach he always has. Vaughn, same thing. I can count on one hand the ABs he's had this year that were as bad or worse than the one he had w/runners on 2nd & 3rd and one out tonite. I can't believe the situation didn't get into his head. Trust yourself, trust your teammates is an adage they talk about all the time but don't always adhere to. Other than that, Yoho suddenly looks useable if he can spot the FB enough to where hitters have to honor it. Hopefully he (and Contreras) figured something out. And after giving up the run in the 8th, it's like all of a sudden Koenig decided to use the FB along with his other pitches. It wasn't his 2024-25 FB but tonite it was good enough. Hopefully it wasn't just there for a brief visit.

Yeah, underline the 'at least'. His approach was more than acceptable, he started to get pitched upstairs a little bit more & reacted to it poorly, and now seems to be 'adjusting to the adjustment'. He probably needs to at least for now go back to basics a little bit more & concentrate on RF. In a perfect world we have a major-league average hitter & defender at SS & Pratt is still growing in AAA. As big league careers go, he's still in the incubator. He'll be fine.

I'll piggyback off this by mentioning Ortiz. In the 9th inning last night, it was obvious Megill was being timed up & hit pretty hard. Reconstruct the inning (admittedly not scientific), and if Ortiz doesn't rob a base hit with the full-out lunge to his left the following base hit puts two runners on w/one out. Unless Perdomo hits into a DP--something he's done only twice since May 1st--You're facing Corbin Carroll with the game on the line. You might not ever get to the 10th. This isn't an attempt to defend Ortiz' offense; it's been bad. It's to try to show that defensively he's been more than just a 'nice defender, but...........'. He's flat out won games with his glove. He may have done it again last night. Should they look into trying to upgrade the position? I question if there are a lot of opportunities to do so but sure, look into it. In the meantime, he's won games for them defensively, at not one but two positions. That shouldn't be ignored

I was excited about Binelas when they drafted him. Local guy (Oak Creek) with big power who IIRC stalled once he got to the high A level. Sounds like he may be figuring things out. AFA Brewer farmhands, there are so many optimistic numbers to look at. A couple blurbs that I believe may be flying under the radar: Josiah Ragsdale now has 374 PAs in his career, and has maintained an OBP of .455. And like Adamczewski, his performance has if anything picked up since jumping to AA. That HAS to have folks talking. Even has a little bit of XB pop. And Mike Boeve, after a weak April, has hit .331 since May 1st. He doesn't have a defensive home & is a LH bat (something the organization isn't exactly lacking) so I wouldn't be surprised if his name is bantered about over the phone this month. But I've always loved that bat.

I wonder if the last couple games Chicago has played might be a microcosm of their season going forward. Big offense when they're all clicking, but those pitching issues............

Yep. It looks to me like his body is in the position it should be in when waiting for the throw, except the left foot should be near the corner closest to the pitchers' mound. Then when the ball is released, you read the trajectory & stretch into the throw to meet it; it doesn't appear he did that at all. There may be merit to @BruisedCrew's comment about losing it in the crowd background. But that doesn't excuse the foot placement.

Just watching him today, I thought he was picking the ball up much better. But yes, there has to be a leash. I have no idea how long it needs to be. I know they love to have the Vaughn card to play late; I'm sure they knew they needed a lot of good things to happen the last two innings & if that happened they had him available when they got around to the 8-9 spots again. Can they continue to afford to do that? That's up to Yelich, I guess.

There are some old adages in baseball, like You don't make the 1st out of an inning at third base. If you walk the leadoff hitter, you're asking for trouble. If Jose Trevino & TJ Friedl combine for 2 HRs & 5 RBI, it's definitely not your day. I didn't think the approach was horrible today. There was some chasing of the Burns slider; he does that to people. A handful of hard hit balls that found leather. More than anything, Burns had a number of 3-0 & 3-1 counts and was left off the hook instead of the hitter being able to work the walk, pick up a hit, foul off a few pitches, whatever. I haven't seen much of his work this season, but I suspect he was a little vulnerable today. Just didn't happen. All things considered, we go into Phoenix with the BP in pretty decent shape. He sort of seems like he may develop into one of those guys you love to hate but damn, I'd take Sal Stewart in a heartbeat. The guy really owns his ABs. Sort of like Pete Rose, he relinquishes nothing every time he steps to the plate. Too bad it happened in a loss, but I don't think we'll see a better play by a Brewer 3B all year than what Ortiz turned in in the 8th inning.

Runs could be tough to come by today. We haven't gotten a running game going this series, which might be something Cincy is susceptible to. They've made a few defensive mistakes; might be a day to push the envelope, maybe hit & run a little, etc.

More than likely.

That's what's always bothered me. Would there have ever been a rule adopted if, say, Johah Heim or Erik Kratz was run over & injured?

I guess "hours" should be small-case, huh?