rluzinski

The reason he stopped running was not b/c he was conceding the out, it was b/c the 3B (atkins I believe) turned to him and was going to tag him if he kept running. Yeh. That was pretty obvious and to suggest Prince was just being lazy was..... something.

Trenni reported during the game today that Ned was "thinking about" flipping Cameron and Hardy. Which is pretty funny, considering his offensive production so far. Logic is thrown out the window these days.

It's a shame that McClung could have been skipped but the Brewers want him to make a start? I'm starting to lose faith.

Overall improvement is theoretically possible without improving the road record. Like I said, they can improve their road record while keeping a large home/road split. They just have to win more games overall.

This is the point where I usually say that one bad move by Yost doesn't have much of an effect on the outcome of a game. But the fact that he's made about 6 bad decisions in the last 3 innings keeps me from saying it this time. The Brewers really don't deserve to win this. It's funny to say that I hope they can steal one today when they have the lead but it sure feels that way.

This is just such a joke.

yeh, have your third best hitter bunt for Hall or Branyan to get a sacrifice. Makes perfect sense.

Thank you! Is Torres coming out for the 9th?

Solid defense there. Got your contact out.

6 straight fastballs, Torres? EDIT: 8 straight for the walk.

At least Yost is using Torres correctly here.

I just don't get it. Melvin spent some money to get a former gold glover in CF and we treat him like garbage that doesn't even deserve to be a late inning defensive replacement? Is this a situation, ala Helms, that Melvin has to call Yost and tell him to stop being a fool?

Hey look, Kapler makes an error! Sorry Yost. You suck.

So both of Yost's batters got to bat. No excuses now. Bring in Cameron and Counsell for the defensive upgrade. NO BRAINER!

Please put Counsell in at 2B next inning.

Four of the last 5 batters were LH and still no Shouse. Crazy.

The second the RH, I would have thrown Shouse in there. What's the argument for NOT doing that?

Dillon is NOT a 2B! And why isn't Shouse in here now?

Will Branyan PH here? Of course not.

Can Villy pitch until he'd pulled for a pinch hitter? Please?

Barring injury, Jeter will in 2011.

Historically, there's about an 8% difference between a team's home and road win%. Home field advantage is up this year, for whatever reason (probably no reason). That advantage usually comes from players just performing better in general at home than on the road (better component stats). I looked at this a little while ago and I think the Brewers' pythagorean record was just as extreme. I think this needs to be looked at on a player by player basis. What players have more extreme home/road splits from 2006-2008? You don't seriously believe that a team that cannot play .400 ball at home has a legitimate shot at doing anything? I haven't done any studies on this or anything but common sense tells me it would be a bit difficult without improving our road record. Had they had even a more extreme home/road split last year and won 3 extra home games, they would have made the playoffs. If for whatever reason, the Brewers continue to have a larger than average home/road split, so what? If they get better overall, they will still win more games at home and on the road. The difference will just remain atypically larger. No study. Just common sense.

Just think: Haudricourt had to sit there and listen to that. Without laughing. Yost was trying to make a point (and it's a fair one) that you can't just look at the results to determine if it was a good or bad performance (meaning, they are two different things). Putting aside whether Mota's outing on Friday was a good performance, or not (I don't recall how he looked), it just illustrates how result-based fans and the media are when trying to judge performance. A pitcher could give up 4 straight weak infield hits and that's a bad performance. A closer could give up a lead off walk and then give up 3 line drives right at defenders and he had a good performance. I can just look at a box score and the play-by-play if I want that kind of analysis. Tom H. would read the above and call me crazy , of course. He'd say, "Mota lost the damn game! How could you NOT call it a bad performance!?" I already know that, Tom. Was his velocity down? Was his location bad on the single? Could he not throw his off speed stuff for strikes? Give us something. Despite statistical evidence to the contrary... My sirens always go off when Tom decides to pull out the calculator and "prove" things with the numbers. He's using hopelessly small samples as evidence, as he generally does. Mota has a huge LH/RH split for the season but it's June, Tom! You'd think a veteran beat writer would appreciate the folly of drawing conclusions from 31 AB agaisnt LHers. Hell, look at Mota's splits from (2005-2007): vs. LH: .244/.326/.458/.784 vs. RH: .270/.328/.438/.766 On another day, Tom might have said, "Mota is a great option against LH hitters, as they have hit only .244 against him over the 3 previous seasons". Of course, the correct thing to do is start with his CAREER splits" http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/psplit.cgi?n1=motagu01 So, LHers have an OPS about 50 point higher than RHers do against him. That's pretty close to an average split. If Mota shouldn't have been pitching in the 8th, it's because he's not a very good pitcher against anyone at this point in his career. The splits are meaningless.

There is something seriously wrong here and untl it is fixed we really can't go anywhere. Why?

What really concerns me now is after a team has been on a roll like the Crew was, and then to completely meltdown in an instant like they did last night Maybe because Yost is right and there is no momentum? The Brewers won a couple of those games during their streak with luck alone. That's how it works.