adambr2

If we lose this game, we didn't lose it now. We lost it in the 2nd and 3rd innings when we had golden opportunities to score and blew it. This game should never have gotten to this point. Too many squandered opportunities tonight.

I've said this many times in the past, but sometimes the pitcher just wins the battle. Not every out or even every strikeout is an abject failure or some pathetic effort by the batter. The pitcher made some good pitches. The last one was great. Looked like it was going to be close enough for Braun to protect and then dove out of the zone. The pitcher did his job. Whenever our pitchers strike a guy out, we're all like, "Yeah! Great job! Nasty stuff!" When their guy does it, we're like, "Pathetic." To be fair, Braun did get a mistake pitch that AB and couldn't take advantage.

Another K looking for Reynolds. Wang up to motivate the offense that if they want to win they better do it now.

Well....coulda been worse.

Ugh.

Really piss poor situational hitting tonight with a man on 3rd and less than 2 out.

Better AB by Yo than than the two previous by Reynolds and Segura.

Unless Yo comes through, 2nd day in a row having a runner on 3rd with nobody out and not being able to drive him in.

Bingo. You'll play in a lot of close games when you're always playing for 1 run.

Joke that Snider is also appealing his suspension. Wish they could increase it to 5 on appeal.

Gomez will appeal and Maldy will serve immediately, Wonder if the Brewers agreed to pay him partially for the suspension.

He still drives me nuts. I hate watching him give away outs. That said, I've probably underestimated the maybe less obvious positive that he brings. Not to defend RR further but I disagree with those who have said Maldonado is a bad bunter. I don't have the stats in front of me but as far as I can recall he's been a successful bunter on numerous occasions and is even always a surprise threat to bunt for a hit.

Judging a trade by 2 circumstantial grand slams is just silly. You'll need most of this season at least to really evaluate this deal.

This is coming from someone who has been critical of Doug in recent years, especially with trades that focus primarily on the short-term like Lawrie for Marcum. For what it's worth, I do suspect that some of these deals may be done with some encouragement/pressure from the top. I also hear a lot of heat for the Rickie Weeks deal. Look, Doug missed on Weeks. But 90% of us would have done that deal at the time. He was coming off a tremendous season. His value at the time was comparable to Braun. It didn't look like a bad deal. Now it is, but you know what? Look at our 25. It's the only "bad" contract on the roster. Most rosters are going to have a Rickie Weeks contract on it. Ramirez, Lohse, Gallardo, among others, are all performing at their market value or higher than it. Contracts like Lucroy and Gomez are tremendous steals, and as of right now, Braun is still one as well. Doug managed to get a guy who is a bonafide top closer for us for cheap. Not only is the rotation filled with underrated #2's, the bullpen is full of guys who are legitimate 8th/9th inning guys. The pitching is suddenly stocked, and underrated moves like with Mark Reynolds have really covered us at 1st. I will be honest -- coming into this season I did not think this team had any chance to compete. My logic was simply that we were already too far behind teams like the Cardinals and Pirates, and the fact that they were also well ahead of us in the farm system would make it almost impossible for us to close the gap. If I end up being wrong, and they certainly look good so far, that's definitely a testament to what Melvin has been able to do to improve the club from last year with the resources that he had to do so.

Puts us in a tough spot. If you want another backup, you have to get rid of someone else or send someone down. There's not even another catcher on the 40. Do you really want to make a 40 man roster move to cover yourself at backup catcher for 5 days? My guess is they make no move for him, serve it immediately, and try to get by for 5 days without Lucroy getting hurt. Who is the backup/emergency option?

"You feel like you just gave up an at-bat". You did. That's exactly what you did. We do not need to play smallball 9 innings every day. It does not need to be constant. Especially with the big boys.

Walk wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. IF you can use the bases loaded to your advantage and not let this one get away.

Don't walk him Wily. They're giving you an out, take it.

Now the low strike is gone again.

Pedro Alvarez leads the NL in strikeouts looking with 9. Entering play tonight Reynolds has 5, Gomez has 6 Reynolds up to 7 then. More great D for Wily.

Without looking it up, it seems like Reynolds gets rung up looking a LOT. Don't know if he just guesses poorly with 2 strikes or what but he seems to look at some perfect strike 3s.

Yup. Gennett hit it hard, right to the 3B. I also thought the first two strikes on Braun were pretty bad calls, though I am not looking at a game tracker or anything. I was pleasantly surprised with how well the ump called the balls and strikes to Gomez, but then all of a sudden, he changed it up with Braun. I'm not saying it was the case with that at-bat, but I can't help but wonder if there is some subconscious bias against Braun with some umpires given the events of the last few years. Certainly not all, but some. Until balls and strikes are called by machines, there will always be so many that fall into the "gray area" every game that could be called either way without anybody batting an eye. They can easily go one way or the other with this. The strike zone was pretty notably different in Braun's AB versus Gomez's. If Braun gets the same zone as Gomez, he'd have been ahead 2-0 rather than being down 0-2.

Well, I'm glad for them that they like it after 11 at-bats. I hope they like it as much after 1,100.

I never understood this mentality, if that's really what they are thinking. If I own a company that is thriving, but I have one or two really bad, incompetent employees, I am surely not going to somehow draw a conclusion that they are actually vital to my success and thus should be retained. Overbay is pretty bad. A .600 OPS aged first baseman with no power, no versatility, and no upside is not worthy of a roster spot. And I was a big fan of his 10 years ago.

Just to clarify, is that the equivalent of a mid round 1 draft pick from Bruce Seid, or the equivalent of a mid round 1 draft pick from a competent scouting staff?