adambr2

This ump is really easily fooled by a decent frame job.

Yeah, I thought that Rizzo ball was way gone. Still, nice looking first inning for Espino.

Espino debut. Here we go...

Nice one Bandy!

Not trying to pick on you but you do realize that these guys are facing major league pitching and every once in awhile they are fooled, right? It happens to the best of them. What was the point of this, especially in an in game thread full of immediate game reactions? Never did I say anything otherwise and I'm a big Shaw fan. I simply pointed out that it was a bad swing and he was fooled badly ? Are you really meaning to say you don't regularly give a quick criticism of the immediate performance of players in IGTs against 'major league' players?

Wow Shaw, brutal swing.

Counsell just can't bring himself to move Villar to the bottom of the order.

Fans can stop whining about the strike zone as Butler simply isn't throwing strikes.

They aren't moving Villar around anymore, haven't all year IIRC. He's our 2nd baseman.

But what's the proof of this? I don't buy that at all. Neither do I. Nieuwenhuis was on pace for almost 400 PAs in a rebuilding year until he got hurt. Sogard was immediately thrusted to near the top of the order when being called up. Don't get me wrong, the results have been there so its hard to argue with it in this case, but those are two pieces of evidence. There's about a 1% chance that Sogard is having some career renaissance. He'll cool off, probably significantly. Not to take too much away from the optimistic tone here, just what I think on him, but I do overall think Counsell is doing a good job, and Stearns is doing a better one.

I don't expect us to trade any imminent MLB ready top prospects like Hader, Brinson and Woodruff, and even guys like Diaz and Ray I think would take a lot to give up. I only ask if we do make any moves that they be for controllable assets, not rentals, and we only do it if we're actually contending, not treading water 5 games out of a WC spot with illusions we can make a run . Its just fun to talk about the options now because in the recent past it really didn't matter if we wanted to make a move, our farm system was too bad for it to even be an option. Remember when we traded Erik Komatsu to the Cardinals? I'm pretty sure he was a top 3 prospect in our system at the time. What would 2011 Erik Komatsu be in this farm system? Top 15? Top 20?

As long as a manager isn't completely botching obvious moves or bunting every time they get a runner on 1st (I'm looking at you, Roenicke,) I really don't think there's much difference between the majority of MLB managers. All I really ask is that they keep an open mind about their moves, not being tied to 'convention,' and earn the respect and effort of your players. In those regards, Counsell seems fine to me. I don't agree with all his moves and I think he still has somewhat of a tendency to favor veterans and scrappy journeymen over young players, but I generally like him. I do think that calling the roster 'Counsell's castoffs' is kind of a disservice to the job that Stearns has done finding and acquiring talent .

Do these Suter moves still require a candid manager office visit and discussion, or are they basically just sending him thumbs up and thumbs down text emojis by this point?

I know I'm just being greedy, but why does television even have 'dark' days in this day and age? You're already in San Diego, are you not? Why not just do the last game? And I know these guys need days off from time to time, but don't you have any backup commentators and a skeleton camera crew? I know, I think back to the early 90s and there were like 30 games on a year and now we get like 150, so I shouldn't complain, I just hate the non televised games.

This. I actually think Peralta is perfect for the pen. I think if he knew he was only pitching the one inning, he can easily get into the upper 90s with his fastball, could make a big difference. I hope they don't just make him the long man, as he'll encounter the same problems. I'd really like to see what he can do going one inning at a time. Peralta certainly pitched his way out of the rotation, and I'm excited to see how some of the guys from the minors due. That said, this move probably assures that Peralta will be let go after the season. He's making $4.275M in his second year of arby, meaning he'll likely make $6-7M next year. If by some chance he could have "found it" as a starter, he could have justified that salary, but I can't imagine the Brewers will pay that for a middle reliever. But, we might as well see if we can get some value out of the $4.275M we're obligated to pay, so hopefully he will pitch well out of the pen for the rest of the season. Couple ways they could handle this. If he flops in the pen too, then yeah certainly we just go ahead and non tender him. Best case scenario, Peralta turns into a dominant late inning guy, and if so, you probably tender him anyway, even at that price. If you don't want to pay that, you can tender and trade him, marketing him as a late inning power reliever, and with the price of bullpen pitching these days, you probably get a nice return. If he just pitches 'ok' out of the pen, they might see if they can just sign him for a lesser rate than they would pay in arbitration, either before or after non-tendering him. But I don't see any scenario that he pitches very well out of the pen and they just let him walk for nothing. And I don't necessarily know that they see him as a middle reliever. Not eventually anyway. I think they envision him pitching important, and maybe late, innings.

Seriously, I know this is way jumping the gun, but if Espino turns out to be this year's Junior Guerra, Stearns deserves GM of the Year. And before anyone says he needs to have a contender -- well, if Espino turned out like that, we probably WOULD be.

Win! This one feels good as it just didn't seem like one that was going to go well. Glad to be wrong about that. Knebel is awesome. If you're going to trade him you better get a king's ransom because he's the only guy I feel safe about closing these games out. We're in 1st. Alone!

Nice play Domingo!

Umpire just squeezing Knebel for whatever reason.

Walking the tying run to the plate. Gotta love it.

Please score here. We had a nice big emotional sweep against the Mets and it would suck to have a letdown series immediately following against a bad team.

JV should be running here.

How long before Dubon becomes a legitimate competitor for Arcia's job? I'm guessing a long time, by the way. I'm just curious as to whether anyone thinks otherwise.

How can a pitcher and catcher not be on the same page on a pitchout?

The 3.22 ERA that Torres is sporting is enough to completely shake my faith in the ERA stat.