owbc

Gibson just got a lefty throwing in the bullpen in case Prince gets up again. There's 2 outs in the 9th in an 11-3 game. Got to give him credit for not giving up.

What a game for Yuni B and Casey!!!

Serious lack of effort there. He should be removed from the game.

It was the plan all along to remove Braun early.

First 6 have reached this inning. Time to finish them off with a granny.

This inning is not going well for the D'backs.

Gotta love the bottom of the order loading up the bases for Hart.

Name one third baseman that Melvin could reasonably trade for.

First time a D'backs pitcher has ever given up 3 bombs in the 1st inning.

For as bad as the Brewers were defensively yesterday, Betancourt didn't make any of the mistakes. I think he earned another start just for that.

I went away for like 30 minutes and half the game went by. Bottom 6th after 1 hour 20 minutes?

No, the umpire is not Yuni Betancourt. Edit, this defense is a joke, 3/3 this inning.

Grace: "Betancourt came over from Seattle as a defensive wizard." I'm not making that up. Grace then suggested that Betancourt may "not be bringing something to the ballpark every day", suggesting that his play on the field isn't the reason that the Brewers want to trade him.

Can we bring in that minor league umpire from the Rockies series?

When Sedar was waving him in, Bloomquist was on his belly.

Morgan runs into another out, but it was probably a good decision to run there. Bloomquist made that throw from his knees.

The Yankees/Rays game was delayed for 15 minutes after lightning struck Tropicana Field, knocking out some lights. Unfortunately, the "ballpark" was not destroyed. I guess that it why it used to be called the "Thunderdome".

Yuni only getting 1/2 of the starts would be a major improvement. It would be nice to get that new shortstop sooner or later. I wish teams didn't wait until the last minute to make deadline moves.

I have to thank the Reds and their fans for helping to expose the Cardinals' blatant hypocrisy. Back in 2008-2009 it seemed like the Brewers were up against the other 29 teams, but I think most of baseball is finally realizing the truth about the Cardinals.

The Brewers are on a road winning streak. I like that. It would be nice to win tonight, and not by one run again please.

The Yankees and Red Sox only compete every year because they have smart people in charge. The 1990s Braves and the 2008-2010s Phillies combined high payrolls with great starting rotations. The Cardinals have a great coaching staff. The Cubs, Mets, and Dodgers fail due to incompetency by ownership, management, or both. The Brewers will probably never be the Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies, or Braves. But they can be the White Sox, Angels, Twins, or Cardinals--where every year in Spring Training you know they have a chance to make the playoffs that particular year if things go right. Think of the 2010 Angels or the 2011 White Sox and Twins. They are not playoff teams, but the reason is primarily due to injuries--had things gone right those teams were fully capable of making the playoffs. The Brewers are not quite to that level, but they were not horrible in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, and 2010. They averaged almost 80 wins over those 5 non-playoff years and drew enough attention to keep the fans filling the stands and generally still were contending at the all-star break. The Brewers are also helped by being in a low payroll division. Why bother to compare the Brewers to the Phillies, Yankees, and Red Sox? The Brewers can stack 3 good starters together and have almost a 50/50 chance of taking them down in a 5 or 7 game postseason series. The average payroll in the NL Central is $85 million and the highest payroll team (Chicago) is incapable of spending its money properly. The Brewers can't just throw away seasons to rebuilding and expect the fans and free agents to show up the next year. Any free agent that signs a 3-4 year contract in Milwaukee does not want to give up 2-3 of those years to rebuilding. The Brewers' track record shows that even in down years they still field a reasonable team. They spend a reasonable amount of money every year to keep a steady amount of interest and revenue coming in. The continue to give themselves a shot at the postseason, even if it doesn't work out every year. The area of improvement that needs to be made is moving from averaging 80 wins/year to averaging 85 wins/year so they can make the postseason every other year or so (especially with the 2nd Wild Card). What happens if they go through a 3-5 year rebuilding process, get a 95-100 win "World Series Contender" team, and then dump the NLDS to an 86-win team due to random luck?

Congrats on maintaining running for 8 months and dealing with all those injuries. If you have a pair of shoes that is working, don't mess with it. If you are landing on your heels it is essential that you have at least some padding. As for myself, 2011 has been my best year ever for running. I just surpassed 550 miles, right on pace for my goal of 1,000. No major injury problems at all, half-marathon PR and finished my first marathon in May. My emphasis on form is the reason for my success. I have found that running is like any other sport, you have to practice your form and if you are going to push yourself beyond a certain threshold you have to place minimum pressure on your feet/legs/joints. I continue to train once/week with my Vibrams to emphasize landing properly and if I feel my legs starting to hurt I know that I am doing something wrong. When things are going right I can mow through a 13-15 mile run and be fine enough to do another 6-8 the next day. I could never have done that without fixing my form or in the ridiculously heavy $130+ shoes that I used to have. My latest mission has been to figure out how to run in the hot/humid Florida summer. It isn't easy but I can now handle a heat index of up to 90-95 if I carry a water belt and use gels/electrolyte tablets on runs over 10 miles. It does cost me about 45 seconds/mile as opposed to ideal conditions. Will do some more races next year, my wife says I can try an ultramarathon (50k) if I finish 3 marathons. I think that will be easier than qualifying for Boston, which now requires a ridiculous 3:05 marathon.

The road record doesn't really matter if they win at home. They only need to win 2 Postseason road games to win the World Series, one in the NLDS and one in the NLCS. The postseason is a complete crapshoot, the Brewers easily could have beaten the Phillies in 2008, that series hinged on just a few key at-bats and the Suppan decision. Anything can happen in a 5-game NLDS. Regular season wins do not really matter. Winning 116 games did nothing for the Mariners in 2001. Being 1 game better than 2nd place is all that is necessary. The monetary gain of making the postseason is also huge. Melvin can take the extra profits and reinvest it into the franchise. In fact, they already got most of the monetary gain. Even if they completely collapse, they are guaranteed 2.7-2.8 million fans. Without the Greinke trade they were facing a precipitous decline, 2.2-2.3 million or less. So the other option besides going "all in" was to put the franchise prematurely in a funk, give Prince Fielder away a year early (when there was no market for him), lower the payroll, and go back to hoping that things pan out again in 2013-2015. Attanasio and Melvin have thrown away the notion that the Brewers are a small market team: based on attendance, revenue, and payroll they are clearly now a mid market franchise. The only difference between Milwaukee and the other mid-markets is that Milwaukee requires a higher percentage of fans in its market to be interested. It has paid incredible dividends--more fans at the gate, big names want to sign here, the national media takes Milwaukee seriously, and most importantly, the Brewers no longer have to go through a constant rebuilding cycle. I would hope that a period like 2002-2007 is never necessary again. Yes it would be nice to have a better minor league system, but most fans couldn't care less how Brevard and Huntsville are doing this year. If anything, prospects are overvalued in MLB right now and if teams are going to give away top-tier players like Sabathia, Marcum, and Greinke in exchange for minor leaguers, then Melvin should keep doing it.

I refuse to believe that is real until I see video evidence. But regardless of its credulity, it is a piece of comic brilliance.

Tim Dillard. I feel like he never contributes anything productive, although the statistics say he has pitched well a few times this year. Usually he comes in after I have already turned the game off. Every other Brewer (including Yuni) has at least brought me some excitement at one point or another.