crewcrazy

The past couple years, I've been able to get every WMLW game on Dish Network, but it doesn't look like I'm able to get tonight's game -- that makes me 1-for-3 so far, only getting the Cincinnati game. Casey's right that Dish is a crapshoot. I've never understood the blackout rules for any pro league, but MLB's are probably the most asinine. The NCAA is actually brilliant for the way they handle March Madness On Demand (totally free to watch any game regardless of where you live, but I believe you can pay for more features). In my ideal world, MLB.com would lift the MLB.TV blackouts and let you buy a single game for $1 or $2. It's a minimal fee people wouldn't mind paying, and the full MLB.TV package could still be advertised as the better per-game deal. For a couple extra bucks, they could even let you download a digital copy of the game...if a no-hitter or something historic happens, they'd make a killing.

Kind of a bummer to see his career end like this, because he's probably up there with Pujols as the scariest right-handed hitters over the past 10 years. The sad thing is you pretty much have to be a moron to actually get caught cheating under the MLB drug testing policy, and he's gotten popped twice now. Still a Hall of Famer in my book.

Mitre is out of options, which is why the Yankees wanted to see if they could get anything for him via trade when it was clear he wasn't going to make their roster. He strikes me as the type that would be quickly snatched up by someone, too, even if it was the Royals or something.

Thank you, Fredi Gonzalez, for continuing the insane practice of batting Jason Heyward 6th.

Usually I get WMLW games here on Dish Network, but that doesn't seem to be the case tonight with bad NBA/NHL games filling up all of the ALT channel spots. That's a bummer if it doesn't pop up by 7.

Just a quick housekeeping note -- with all the excitement about this season starting, it looks like we forgot our yearly reminder about what's expected out of the IGTs. The rest of the BF.net staff and I would appreciate if you all took a couple minutes to review the Fan Forum Etiquette post again, especially if you're new to the boards. It's all important but the stuff that applies most to IGTs: - Condescending talk toward other posters (including but not limited to name-calling, baiting and flaming) is not allowed. Other Brewers-related message boards are more tolerant of "talking smack" to other users, and we suggest you go there if that's what you're about. - Following the Brewers means accepting their bad days as well as their good ones. If you want a place to blow off steam by declaring players or team staff worthless when the Brewers play poorly, Brewerfan is not the forum for you. Other sports message boards fill that niche better than Brewerfan does. This does not mean we allow only praise of the Brewers; but constructive criticism that remains civil and mature contributes more to the overall discussion than saying "TurnbLow SUX!!!11!!" or "I hate this team," or declaring a game "over" in the 3rd inning. Please refrain from impulsive posts expressing knee-jerk frustration in the form of vents, rants and complaints. If you find that most of your posts take this path, you may want to switch to a forum that's more your style than Brewerfan is. - Keep basic play-by-play action out of the In-Game Threads. It's fine to describe the details of a particular play for posters who lack video, but in an age of online real-time game updates, play-by-play one-liners (e.g. "Kapellusch with a single, Brewers up 2-1") are unnecessary. - Avoid repetition. It doesn't take long for an initially interesting topic to turn into a dead-horse beating session, or for you to become known on the forum as "that guy who is obsessed with Player/Issue X." This includes posting the same basic thought in multiple threads or repeatedly within a single thread. It can also include authoring a significant percentage of the posts within a given thread. Site staff will lock or merge threads that they believe duplicate an existing discussion. - Go light on 'one-liner' posts. Sometimes a one-line post is appropriate, but a constant stream of snarky one-liners detracts from the forum's quality. For example, messages that say nothing beyond "I agree," "Ditto," etc., add nothing to a discussion and are candidates to be hidden by moderators. Don't chime in on every thread just because you can; instead, pick your spots for posting, and add something back into the site. Less can be more. As for this game, for the sake of everyone's sanity, I hope they win tonight. With it being the first 7:00 game of the year, if they magically start playing better, I think we can all logically assume that they're vampires.

They won't be better without him, but the dropoff won't be so large that 2011 is the only real "go for it" season. First basemen with a good amount of pop (although not as much as Prince) and decent defense aren't all that hard to find. As long as they don't end up with a player similar to Kotsay playing first next year, the offense should still be good enough to keep the team in the playoff conversation. Losing Weeks would have been a much bigger blow than losing Fielder.

Yeah, a Top 10 prospect in one of baseball's deepest farm systems and the guy rated as having the best control in the system is a total bum. Come on. It was a frustrating day, but the only mistake Beachy made all day was to Weeks. As for the Cain-for-Beachy rumor, it's hard to tell just how much validity there was to it. It was a Winter Meetings rumor, and those tend to get blown out of proportion. I'd personally rather have Greinke, anyway.

Adam McCalvy had a good line -- Zack Greinke doesn't get hurt, Shaun Marcum doesn't walk batters, and Takashi Saito doesn't give up home runs...these are the bizarro Brewers. It's a tough way to start the year, but also a very unusual way. There's not a lot of shame in losing 4 games to two of the NL's best teams. They'll need to beat them eventually, but this is no different than a 4-game skid in June.

Beachy has looked very sharp aside from his mistake to Weeks. It almost doesn't seem fair that one organization can have so many good young pitchers.

I'm 90% sure this is the issue. Even though they're using HD-capable equipment, if the station isn't broadcasting in HD yet, there's nothing they can really do to improve the quality. Not being from Milwaukee I don't know WMLW's situation, but switching to an HD signal is expensive and takes a lot of time for a station. If they are in the process of switching to HD, it's entirely possible they missed their target date.

I'd be very surprised if it took 95 to win the division. Every team in the division has some pretty big flaws (even if we aren't seeing Cincinnati's yet). Wouldn't surprise me if the division winner only wound up with 88 or 87 wins.

There's really no reason to ever let Mitch Stetter pitch against a right-handed hitter. Yet Braddock will be the one used as a LOOGY.

McGehee was playing a bit too deep and didn't charge the ball all that hard, and Kottaras probably could have blocked the plate better. Still, Wolf's control has to be a bit of a concern, since it never really came along this spring. The Reds are probably one of the best hitting teams in baseball, though, so I probably won't put too much stock into this series when it comes to judging the pitching.

Yeah, the bullpen looked really good tonight. Aside from the one bad inning from Axford, the bullpen as a whole has looked good to start the year. The key will be getting deep starts to keep them fresh, though.

I prefer to think of Cordero as "a closer who has become Cincinnati's version of Eric Gagne." Incredible just how quickly they turn on him when things start to look like they might go wrong. Every 2-0 count is an adventure. Stinks to drop the first two of the season, but Wood was incredible tonight. Looking at the pitch f/x stuff for him tonight, it wasn't even like he was getting help on bad strike calls -- he was legitimately hitting the zone. I just wish Marcum got the same calls in the bottom third of the strike zone.

It should be noted that the guy calling balls and strikes tonight is the same one who blew the Kotsay call on Thursday.

That's not really true. He only had two starts with 4+ walks last year, and only had seven of those games in his previous 120 innings. CC Sabathia had 5 walks in his Brewers debut. That guy was a bum.

With Marcum only being slated for 80-85 pitches tonight, I think odds are pretty good we'll see Sergio Mitre's debut, too.

It's at least a little better than the Opening Day lineup that had Kotsay instead of Almonte, but yeah, until Hart gets back there isn't much reason for the opposing team to worry about the bottom 4 spots of the lineup. Especially if Roenicke insists on making Yo bunt with a runner on second and nobody out.

Time has been corrected in the thread title and first post. Interesting note from Tom Haudricourt -- when they were piecing together the schedule for this year, the Reds had the choice of scheduling this as a day game or going up against a Final Four game, and they chose the latter. It's not like a sizeable portion of the Cincinnati fanbase also happen to be huge Kentucky fans or anything.

The Brewers are fortunate they have 11 games against the Pirates, Nationals, and Astros this month. I'd be more worried if they were trotting this lineup out there for that brutal June stretch of Interleague games.

It appears it could be a slew of Packers...a Tom Crabtree tweet from a couple days ago: "Gotta get my arm ready! Opening Day is a week away! #Brewers"

I saw something similar (I want to say Tramon Williams and Donald Driver), but it seems like something they might save for another day in that homestand. The home opener should be strictly baseball related, IMO, unless it's a special occasion like the President. Would Selig count as "someone special?"

That was my first thought, with it being Brewers-Braves.