AJAY

Thank god it's over. BREWERS WIN Get to bed everyone !! Goodnight.

Mota sure wasn't fooling anyone. As usual.

Well, hopefully MLB's schedule makers are smart and keep the Twins on the road for the majority of the early and late part of the season...but it's not like they can be on the road for three to four weeks straight, either. That will never happen because teams in warmer climates still don't want more home dates in April, May, and September. The kids are all in school.

I had a great time on Satuday. It was awesome to see Brewer Nation come out in big numbers. I especially loved the "Let's Go Brewers" chants. We had a lot of Brewers fans in our section and we all sang "Roll Out the Barrel" during the 7th inning stretch. Sunday was a different story. There was absolutely NOTHING to celebrate. I actually liked the MetroDome. It's so different from every other park and for me it was something of a novelty.

One of the Twins announcers made some comment in the 9th tonight about how "There aren't as many Brewers fans here as there were Twins fans in Milwaukee, of course," Miller Park is an attraction. The MetroDome is not. Plain and simple.

Thanks to some last minute planning, I will be there on Saturday and Sunday. GO BREWERS !!!

I think Sheets is just stating the obvious. We all knew he was going to test the market. I do hope he remembers all the time he missed and shows some sense of loyalty and obligation when it comes time to negotiate.

Wow, that's twice this Orioles closer loaded the bases and then got out of it. CUBS LOSE !!!!

Torres has been way overworked lately. He should not have been in there. I hate how Ned always manages by the book instead of having a sense for the situation. I do give Ned credit for walking that lefty batter to face Corky Miller. It obviously paid off. Thank god the Brewers held on.

I almost had a heart attack tonight. http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b273/AJAY_02/brewers1-med.gif BREWERS WIN !!!

Breaking News . . . The Associated Press is reporting that God himself has stepped down from his position and is turning things over to Russell Branyan. Sources close to the situation are saying that Branyan is expected to be named the new Holy Spirit and Master of All Creation at a press conference tomorrow at Miller Park.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b273/AJAY_02/BrewersWin6.gif

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b273/AJAY_02/BranyanStatue.jpg

Also, my belief is that if you use it for many other calls the games will last longer than they are now Actually, it will save time because you won't have to sit through long arguments between managers and umpires. They can have a rule that nobody is allowed to come out of the dugout and argue a call that was decided by replay. I know the umpires mess up enough, but that human error is part of the game, it's gone long enough just fine, I just don't see a reason to change it now, simply because the technology is there. I think getting the calls right is more important than maintaining silly outdated traditions. History is full of examples of where machine replaced man. It's called progress.

It's about time baseball adopted replay. In this era of technology, there is no need for human error anymore. I would actually like to expand replay and overturn ALL blown calls, not just homeruns.

Jayson Stark of ESPN has some interesting comments about Yost's job situation . . . . Nobody wanted Ned Yost to walk the plank when the 2007 Brewers won 24 of their first 34. But that was before a 7½-game lead in July disappeared by Labor Day. That was before the 2008 Brewers plummeted to 20-24, seven games back of the Cubs, a month and a half into the season. And that was before the fire-Ned-Yost talk began to feel like more than typical talk-show blabbering. It was all over baseball for a while there. Brewers players were telling their friends they thought the end might be near. Scouts were saying they'd heard it from their sources inside the club. Friends of owner Mark Attanasio were talking about the owner's feeling that this was a make-the-playoffs-or-else kind of season. How true that was, how close Yost actually came to getting gonged, we may never know -- because a 12-out-of-16 streak made it all a moot discussion. Now GM Doug Melvin can honestly say his team's record after 64 games (33-31) was only one game worse than last year. Now he can look to ESPN.com's own RPI chart and point out that his team actually has outplayed its "expected" won-lost record. So Ned Yost isn't going to get fired. Not anytime soon, at least. And his GM is fighting to make sure people get that message. "I'm going to defend Ned as much as I can because I feel it's the right thing to do," Melvin said. "I feel strongly that Ned has done more for this organization than the won-loss column shows at times. ... "Ned brought a culture change to this organization," Melvin went on. "People don't remember where the Milwaukee Brewers were when he got here. Just like I think Joe Maddon has changed the culture in Tampa Bay and Mike Scioscia has changed the culture of the Angels, I think there's a culture change that managers bring to an organization that's more important than wins and losses, and nobody ever talks about it." Yost has backed his young players more than they even know, Melvin said. He has promoted longtime minor league soldiers to his coaching staff. His team plays hard. So why does his seat still seem so hot? Expectations have a lot to do with it, of course, particularly in a town that hasn't seen a postseason game since the Reagan administration. But some of those expectations, Melvin says, were based on an assumption that "our division was supposed to be the weakest in baseball. But right now, it's one of the strongest." And Yost's bullpen -- which ranks 12th in the NL and 20th in baseball -- hasn't made him look brilliant at times, either. "What's hurting some of these managers more than anything in the game today," Melvin said, "is bullpen situations. Most of the second-guessing you hear is about pitching moves." Yeah, good point. It sure is coincidental how ingenious Ozzie Guillen and Charlie Manuel look now that their bullpens lead their league in ERA, isn't it? Nevertheless, "in the end, we're all judged on wins and losses," Melvin said. "But I really believe, for all that Ned has done for this organization -- four years ago, our organization was nothing -- I really believe Ned deserves every chance." So he'll no doubt get it. But there's also no doubt the endgame hasn't changed. And the endgame is: Yost very well may have to make the playoffs to save his job. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=stark_jayson&page=rumblings

I have heard that Prince Fielder is a lot quieter this season and may possibly be unhappy about his contract and / or his performance so far. I know Bill Hall is not happy as a platoon player. But what else is going on in there? Is there more trouble than we think?

Interesting comments from Richard Justice (who covers the Astros) . . . The Cardinals have 11 players on the disabled list in all, including nine pitchers (five starters). They've got the game's best manager and a great core, but losing Pujols and Wainwright changes everything. The Brewers? Take a walk through their clubhouse after a game. There are so many bad vibes in that place it might explode. The Brewers are going nowhere. As for the Astros, Reds and Pirates, the Reds are getting more interesting by the day, but they simply dug themselves too big a hole. So go ahead and believe, Cub fans. http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/viewtopic.php?t=422691

"We were doing everything we could do to try to salvage the series," the Brewers skipper said."You shoot the moon. I can't ever remember bringing my closer in in the eighth inning for a five-out save on the road. We did whatever we could do to win this ballgame." Six years into his managerial career, he finally tries to go all out to win a game. Better late than never I guess. Seriously, I should be praising Ned for his sudden sense of urgency. But instead, I am finding myself feeling even more disgusted that he didn't do stuff like this last season when we only needed TWO more stinkin' wins to tie the Cubs for first place. I just can not get over the fact that he single-handedly cost us the post-seaon and yet he still has a job. People in the real world get fired all the time for small and stupid things, but somehow Ned gets to keep a high-proifle job despite being completely brain dead and incompetent. It just seems like the more he speaks and tries to explain himself, the more I find myself praying that he gets fired and thrown out the door.

I am glad it's over. That was really stressful. BREWERS WIN !! http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b273/AJAY_02/311206478_32cd2ba274_o.gif

Tom Haudricourt is reporting that Craig Counsell will replace Rickie Weeks tonight. When playing in a spacious park like Coors Field, I personally prefer Weeks' speed and ability to drive the ball. This place seems like a good park for triples.

Had the Brewers gotten Kendall home, Yost said he would have stuck with Villanueva another inning. Why? "It's not a save situation," Yost explained It reminds me of last season when it was very late in the year and Houston had the winning run at second base and we badly needed a strikeout. But Ned didn't bring in Cordero because it wasn't a "save situation". Instead, he stuck with Matt Wise even though Wise hadn't gotten anyone out in over a month. Every fan in Wisconsin knew that Wise was going to fail, but somehow our braindead manager couldn't see it coming.

I guess beat writers are not allowed to come out and call the manager an idiot. So I give Haudricourt credit for finding a more creative way of saying it.

Did anyone hear Ned's post-game comments? "We didn't let anything get away tonight" (ARE YOU KIDDING ME NED?)

This is exactly the type of loss that makes everyone say "here we go again". I so badly wanted this team to win the first one on the road just to erase any doubts. Unfortunately, the stench of losing on the road still remains. I still dream of the day when we have a manager who is really good with the X's and O's of the game. What happened tonight was just absolutely disgraceful. From now on, I don't care if the Brewers go undefeated at home for the rest of the season. I want to see some real progress in road games because this garbage is getting old.