adambr2

A head scratching grand slam by Thames here would be wonderful.

Ok I haven't been able to switch it off yet, but if we can't get something going this inning with 2 on and the top of the order up, it won't be happening today.

Didn't see the ones you are referring to with Chase, but Gameday shows that strike 3 to Keon as plenty in the zone. Watching it live, it looked like it looped up and around high, but dropped in at the top of the zone by the time it hit the catcher's mitt. Looked like a ball to me. I thought so too watching in real time, but Gameday showed it easily in the zone. I really don't know how accurate and consistent Gameday is with the actual strike zone.

Time to shut this one off for awhile. You suck, Chase.

Didn't see the ones you are referring to with Chase, but Gameday shows that strike 3 to Keon as plenty in the zone.

He's always going to strike out a lot, I can live with that but for the love of God don't sit there and stare at one with 2 in scoring position and 2 out. Gotta protect.

Damnit Keon. We've had our shots. Just cannot come up with one big hit with RISP today.

Need to get something going here off Arrieta. Even a 2 run inning would put this right back in striking distance.

Not really, more so just sucks today. But I haven't seen any egregious problems with the strike zone .

Good to hear Rock and BA calling out the Winky, Winky, scratch your head, too rainy to play in the sun when we have a tired pen Cubs for the bush league organization that they've been so far this year.

Thames needs to start finding that power stroke again. Especially on a day like this with the win blowing out. We need him to slug, he's had RISP both times up today.

Good to see JV swinging a good bat today.

No. They are underperforming. Badly. They both have an OPS around . 750 in a pitcher favored league and Clark gets on base at a .368 clip. Neither is setting the world on fire but badly underperforming is overstating it.

Well that was a productive series of ABs.

Kind of feel fortunate that we're only 3 down. Arrieta has been plenty hittable this year and the wind is blowing out...

Cripes Arcia, scoop that.

If the game is even still within reach after the 1st.

Too bad we didn't get that out at 2nd, would have been big.

Only 2 hitters in but Chase looks brutal.

Real nice start there Chase.

Too bad. Looked like it was going to be another productive first inning.

If karma exists, we'll get into that Cubs pen in the 1st inning today.

They should change the rule to MLB having the final say, with the home team being able to offer a recommendation. Since the Cubs obviously can't make decisions on rain delays and cancellations without abusing the rule.

Its not a mutual decision, it's up to the home team, at least those are the MLB rules. Where did you hear anything yesterday about it being mutual? Wouldn't matter if the Brewers said something as its not their decision. And from some of the comments coming out today it sounds like they did care.

Giving some thought to the Brewers apparent preference to carry 8 relievers on the roster (actually 9 at the moment), I'm curious as to whether this was done more out of necessity (mediocre starters), or out of actual preference and design. As far as I know, and I admittedly haven't done much research on this, it's still the preference of most teams to carry 7 relievers and 5 bench players. I even recall a Brewer team under Yost that carried 6/6 for a time. If it's by design, you can understand the need for versatility, and why we feel no real need to give a player like Perez a permanent position. In my opinion, 8/4 actually makes a ton of sense for a variety of reasons. First of all, your bench players are playing pretty regularly, and not just rotting away on the bench without ABs. The versatility lets you plug and play guys just about anywhere, with the exception of Aguilar, but if you have 2 to 3 guys who can play anywhere, you still have the luxury of one 'bat only' guy. Secondly, and probably more importantly, you've got an extra guy in the pen to eat up innings throughout the year, easing the burden on both your rotation and pen. I recall a number of years watching a completely depleted pen just wear down in late months and struggle, and any method that helps keep them fresher and last longer in the season seems like a smart move to me. It also affords you to have a quicker hook with your starters which I think is something we're beginning to see more of around the league. Is it going to burn you at some point? Sure, you've got to be more frugal about how you make your substitutions and may run out at some point in an extra inning game, but that's better than running out of pitchers. I think that bigger bullpens and demand for more versatile benches may become the norm, not the exception around the league in the future. Just my $.02.