Jim French Stepstool

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?

As soon as the game ended, Vaughn held up one finger on one hand & two on the other in the dugout, right in front of Ashbys' face, signaling "12". He must be getting a lot of good-natured heat from his 'mates, which I love.

The chasing........really good in the first few innings despite the runners left on base, then got kinda ugly again. That idea of passing the baton & trusting one another is intermittent recently. When they grind this team scores more than enough runs. Of course if people got on ahead of Mitchell tonite who knows how many they put up. That oppo stroke he had going was sheer beauty. All things considered, there's a chance for the BP to be in really nice shape. If you get length from Misiorowski tomorrow, in essence it's kinda a semi-day off for much of the pen since you have over 24 HRs before Friday night in Phoenix. About one-third through the busy stretch. So far so good.

It had to be the whole 'did his foot touch the plate' deal, with the review guys needing 100% confirmation that he DID, since they aren't overturning it w/o that proof. So the real culprit IMO was the HP ump making that call to begin with. I'm sure Mitchell was safe, since he couldn't do anything wrong all night.

Maybe it IS selfish, but I've always held the mindset that I couldn't care less about a Brewer playing in the ASG & haven't since I was a kid & got a kick out of hoping to see Lary Sorensen get into the game, or Jim Colborn or whoever. Like Contreras. I'd much rather see him get off his feet for three-four days than monkey around with all that stuff. I'd imagine it's a big deal for the players though, especially those that haven't had a long history of being selected.

Are they calling all the players by their first names, like they're all close friends? It's hilarious when they do that.

Yep. It was nothing like the LF distance in Sac, but El Paso was very hitter friendly, too. I think that's where Lavelle Freeman hit .370 or something like that. Thomas & journeyman Bill McNulty both went for over 50 one year playing in Sacramento.

The only time I remember seeing a power display like this in the Brewer system was in the 1970s, when the AAA team was in Sacramento, the ballpark had something like a 240ft LF distance & a young OF named Gorman Thomas enjoyed himself.

Looked to me like he was leaning on the changeup today, possibly as an equalizer to his not throwing in the upper 90s anymore. And it WAS a good changeup. We'll just have to wait to see where the velo settles in I guess, but after throwing an inning then a couple days off yeah I'd have liked to see the gun glowing a little brighter too.

He works after only one day off yesterday, then goes again tonite. And like you said, great results. Have to admit I'm shocked. Really nice to see.

Sort of in-between the two, right? What impressed me the most about Sproat is that he endured through an outing where things didn't always come easy. The command wasn't what it was his last time out, and he had to work through the ridiculous number of foul balls & the resulting high pitch count. Maybe scaling those obstacles & making it through 5.1 innings was another box checked off in his development. A few of his earlier outings, I don't think overcomes what he did tonite.

I've probably been as big a critic of Yelich as anyone on here. But he's going to keep getting ABs in the hope he can get hot, and in the meantime I don't really want him coming up with runners on base. It's not ideal leading him off but I'd probably just leave him there vs RHP. I mean, right now he's hitting behind Chourio & still not getting a lot of pitches to hit because pitchers don't need to; he'll chase anything. But right now hitting him among guys like Pratt, Hamilton & Ortiz probably makes it even worse. For now I'd leave him be & sit him vs LHP.