TheCrew07

The pitcher Mike Gosling was a reliever making a spot start. He told his teammates before the game that he was retiring and that's exactly what he did following 6.1 shutout innings of baseball. Full Story Here edit. I just want to reiterate that I believe Cleveland to be an incredibly classy organization. Not only after reading this story, but from first hand accounts of a former MLB pitcher as well.

I would like Parra to be given one last extended look as a starter and this seems to be the perfect year for it as we aren't going to playoffs regardless. If he fails again then I'd be satisfied with him in a bullpen role and be ready to move on. I would be willing to concede that whatever he had when he pitched that perfect game in AAA, he'll likely never find. Parra has been Macha's doghouse for a long time now, Parra and Narveson are the only pitchers who I remember Macha openly criticizing, and Macha has demonstrated a willingness to let Parra work through things on the mound, he's had the quickest hook of any pitcher. Manny has made his own bed here, but so have Macha and Melvin, I just don't like this entire situation. edit. By extended look I'm talking at least 15 starts in a row, but since he's going back to the BP, I doubt that's going to happen.

Excellent job as always gentlemen. I'm not sure where to peg Bucci and Lasker upside wise, and I'm not sure who I like better as a pitching prospect. Both are walking way too many people (my least favorite organizational trend),but from listening to the games I get the impression that Lasker is more of a nibbler than a guy who's struggling with his FB command like Bucci. I'm hoping both will add another tick or 2 to their FB, even so both consistently work in the low 90s which is better than Krestalude who tops out 88/8i9. Up until his last start Lasker had gotten most of his K's in a starting role, his K/9 as starter was over 9.0, then mysteriously he only BBs and Ks 1 batter each on the 29th. I honestly think Lasker has pitched better than his ERA would indicate, part of the problem here is that once again WI is horrible in the running game. Tunnell talked last season about FB command being priority 1 for every pitcher, then developing secondary stuff, then about the time they hit AA the organization starts to work on holding runners and all that good stuff. Charlie Greene has pretty much said the same thing about the catchers, they worry about the blocking and game calling first, correcting the rest as the catchers progress. The rattlers have already given up 73 SBs (prior to today's game) on the season, that's an awful lot of extra bases leading to extra runs. I guess what I'm saying is that it's very hard to isolate the pitching in WI because all aspects of the defense have been so bad. The team leads the league in Errors, but many games there's another a couple of plays that aren't scored as Errors but allow runners to move up and runs to score. Some how in the midst of all that chaos Bucci has managed to thrive with far and away the worst BB rate of any starter, amazing. It seems like whenever the other starters walk a guy he comes around to score. I've been considering him very fortunate but at some point here I'm going to have to accept it as a trend.

That's just Melvin's way of moving forward... he just comes back around to the same players again and again.

Trout just stole his 2nd base of the game, that's 27 on the season, and he's 10 for 10 against the T-Rats... more than 1/3 of his steals against 1 team... cripes.

Garrett Richards has struck out 10 T-Rats so far, and 8 of the last 10 batters, at one point he had stuck out 7 in a row.

The medical staff does exactly inspire confidence in me anymore. They started this year on fire with Gamel's "not serious" injury that ended up being a Lat tear, and Schafer's groin pull became a tear and he hasn't played yet this season. Schafer's injury turned out to be so serious he's seen 3 different specialists already. This on the heels Green's injury resting all winter before surgery last year, which screwed up his entire season and Periard's should injury that was just left to heal on it's own over the winter as well.

LOL. I turned off the Brewer game after the first HR and went back to the T-Rats, just catching up on the IGT now. This made me laugh pretty hard.

Ha, Chris just mentioned the Kernels have successfully stolen on 27 of 30 attempts against the T-Rats this season. WI has only converted 8 of 16 steal attempts of their own. I'm sure a large percentage of Trout's 25 are against the T-Rats, he seems to steal a base or 2 every game. Jean Siguira has 19 on the season and seems to swap a base every time he gets on as well.

Please no....

No I would say that's only a universal opinion of those that have fallen in love with McGehee's production and aren't being objective. He's made some nice plays in the past 2 weeks, but he has had his stretches where's been abysmal in the field as well. Throughout his minor league career Total Zone had him as a scratch defender, he was as average as average gets in 993 chances (Minor League Splits, no linkage is available from that site). I've watched all the same games and I see him as an average defender with below average range. Gamel has above average range, a similar glove to McGehee, but unfortunately he's not able to accurately throw across the diamond. Most of Escobar's errors are of the throwing variety as well, it is it a tough sell to believe he could be an above average defender? This reminds me quite a bit of the Braun debate from last season... even the people who made excuses for Braun in that past aren't going down that road anymore, he's clearly a bad outfielder, even to the eye test. Casey is in his peak as a player and he's average at best, he's not going to get better, and in fact he'll likely slowly decline as his range further erodes with age. Furthermore I feel you're disdain for Gamel is misplaced at best. You've take your frustration regarding the many criticisms of Macha and focused it into a McGehee vs Gamel debate, when that's not the point people have been making for over a year. I don't really want to rehash the whole Gamel PH debate, I think the evidence is pretty clear that it ruined his confidence, he wasn't the same player in AAA as he was before the promotion. It's very clear his MLB experience last season has adversely affected his short career. We get that you don't care about service time, but that doesn't make your opinion on the matter correct. I believe you're clearly biased in that you believe Casey is the superior player in every way. He may certainly end up to be the more productive player in the end but Gamel has the vastly superior tools... he's faster, has better range, a better arm, and I still believe that he has the potential to hit for more power. Your refusal to accept that Gamel was misused once again calls into question your credibility and objectivity. Casey took advantage of his opportunity, he also gets the most out of what he has, but just because he got the first shot and made the most of it doesn't mean he's clearly the superior player. Then again you'll probably argue that it made sense for Lucroy to come up and burn service time playing every 5th day behind Kottaras when the site is debating how wasteful the organization was with his service time, but I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

To listen in to Arnett's start, or not to listen... decisions, decisions...

Not surprised by this at all, he just never put it together. I hope he gives football a try, he still has time to pursue at least a college football career and get a secondary education. I'm not sure what to make of the "family" issues, and Lucroy's comments regarding Brewer always stuck with me, he didn't seem to be a popular guy in that WV clubhouse. I bet X is severely disappointed, and it's too bad that Josh wasn't more forthcoming, the whole situation just became very unfortunate over the last 8 months.

Odorizzi will stay in WI this year I would think, they'll bump up his IP over 100. Next year I see him getting the bump halfway through the season if he performs to AA, starting the following year in AA with a bump to AAA to finish the season. Once he hits AA if he's called up as an injury replacement he could conceivably perform well enough that he wouldn't come back down. The guy that already has enough IP and is performing well is Heckathorn, he could see a bump up to A+ before the season is out. A 30 inning bump in his IP would put him right where Rivas finished last season. I wouldn't have guessed I'd be willing to move him faster than Arnett given their scouting reports, but he's pitched pretty well, though I'm surprised he's not striking more batters out.

I'm not so sure that's true from his quotes in the paper, in fact I would go entirely the other way, he's never once been remorseful in an interview in print or on TV. As for the booing itself, normally I'm not a "boo" guy, but I'm not going to tell people they shouldn't boo when they are spending their money on the team and I'm not. I'd honestly rather go watch the T-Rats than drive down to Milwaukee for a Brewer game, and I used to make a point to get down to at least 6 games a year, even when they were really bad in the early 2000s. Yes Suppan isn't very good, but why does Melvin keep him on the roster? Why does Macha keep pitching him? Shouldn't he be getting the Parra treatment from early in the season where we only see him once a week? I'm so disgusted with this whole pitching debacle I really don't care anymore... I don't care if the players get booed, I don't care of Macha booed, and I don't care if fans boo Melvin when they see him around the stadium. Nothing else has worked, maybe shame will force some action. Sports are a young man's game, if you want to supplement the roster to fill a couple of holes with oldies then fine, but to have Hoffman, Hawkins, Suppan, Zaun, Edmonds, and Wolf on the roster is extreme. It's 3 or 4 old guys too many and FA isn't going to put this team over the top.

Ritchie sure is having a tough season, I like his FB velocity for a LHP, he throws harder than Meadows who is having an excellent season. I really like that he went 3 IP today.

I'd really like to know where these blow up innings come from with Braddock. 1 in the AFL last year, 1 in AAA, and now 1 Milwaukee. He doesn't seem to give up a run outside of them, learn how to limit damage young man.

Hmm, Howell just walked the first 2 batters, the last on 4 pitches, this might not be good. 3-0 already on the 3rd batter. edit. Walked him, that's 9 straight balls... edit2. Make that 11 straight, Garfield is out for the 2nd time in 3 pitches. edit 3. Ground ball to Dykstra, who bobbles, doesn't get the runner at home, then throws badly to 1st. Trout comes up and singles to CF, Richardson throws the ball over Dykstra's head. Now 5-4 Kernels without an out yet in the 7th.

Odorizzi just gave up a run and I'm not even disappointed. Trout doubles off the wall, then a perfect bunt base hit down the 3rd base line puts runners on the corners with no out. Odorizzi strikes out the next batter, then gets a ground ball in the hole that Gennett and Marseco almost turn 2 on but the throw to 1st is just late. A soft fly to RF ends the inning.

Mike Trout is impressive, that is all.

Is he a top of the rotation starter now? Is has to be a statistically oddity but he's actually given up more HR (16) than BB (15) so far. His peripherals are still good BB and K wise, but he's been getting hit hard to start the season, he's given up 12 more hits than IP so far, in addition to all those HRs. He's also 29, he's much older/expensive than I would be looking for when trading Fielder. To acquire Haren I'd much rather the deal be similar to what LAA gave up for Kazmir. LAA gave up Sean Rodriquez, Alexander Torres, and Matthew Sweeney. Torres is pretty nice LHP prospect, his FB sits 91-93 and touches 95, but he doesn't have much in the way of secondary pitches, and he's very small for a pitcher. He's listed at 5' 10" 185 LBs. He's pitching well as a start in AA, and was at the time of the trade as well.

There's always possibly of that PEDs were the culprit, the organization has added many players recently who've lost significant velocity and it's always been in the back of my mind, but I'm not sure a pitcher would reasonably pickup 4-5 mph either, that seems awfully high, 2-3 seems much more likely. It's too bad pitch f/x is just becoming popular, it would have been interesting to compare average fastball velocities from the steroid era to now. There's been talk of testing all the way down to high school as a deterrent for PEDs. The problem with both the NCAA and High School is who pays for the testing? High Schools across the country can barely afford their sports programs now, there''s no money left to randomly test all the athletes. In college it would further strain athletic budgets that in most cases are highly dependent on men's football and basketball to keep the rest of the programs afloat the way it is. The other question is if you're testing for PEDs do you also pay to test for illegal drugs that are athletic code violations in most high schools and have implications for college scholarship players as well? As a coach I can see both sides, I'm certain we've had athletes that have used even at the high school level but there's really nothing we could do. The parents didn't think so, the athlete denied it, but the athletes didn't put in the time necessary to do it naturally, something fishy was going on. However, the funding of testing is a tremendous issue, as is the application of the rules. For example, we have parents that smoke pot, even if their children aren't smoking, would they potentially test positive being in the same house? A college player has quite a bit more control over his/her environment than they did in high school. That's just one example an issue that came up during the meeting I attended that no one had a good answer for.

Yea every team has 93 errors through 49 games. Wisconsin leads the league with 84 errors, the error I attributed to Dennis was actually Dykstra, my bad Chris, however that's 84 errors in 49 games. I was obviously exaggerating for effect above. Fort Wayne (San Diego) was tied with WI coming into today with 81 but had clean a defensive game. The next closest team is Peoria (Cubs) 70, the best team is Bowling Green (Tampa Bay) with only 45 errors in 49 games. Even if you can explain away ten of those 84 errors (which would be highly unlikely as I listen to most of the games) the T-Rats are still one of the 3 worst defensive teams in the league. Also the T-Rats have the advantage of playing on Time Warner Cable Field which is one of the better tracks in the league. This has been a bad defensive team so far this season.

Yea every team has 93 errors through 49 games.

You know, I have no confidence that Parra will get a hitter if the count ends up 3-2. Wright had a great AB no doubt, but I never had the sense that Parra had a chance to record an out. 68 pitches, only 39 strikes, Manny you frustrate me to no end.