pebadger

Guess my edit to turn the text blue didn't work. So now I'm venting with respect to my technical abilities or lack thereof. From now on I'll just use tags.

If Sheets loses tonight the season is effectively over.

Glad I have reserved seats, because I think it's going to get crowded in here.

Was 2001 "The Year" for the Mariners? I'm just trying to enjoy the ride. The Crew could win the pennant or even the Series this season and then the organization could field a 'better' team every year after this until 2010 and never post the same results. I think the Brewers will very probably get better in an 'on paper' sense in the coming years, but as anyone who has followed the Packers for the past 15 years can attest, that doesn't mean it will be any more satisfying to watch them.

It may not be fair to bame Ned for runs 1, 2 and 3, and maybe even 4, but it's eminently fair to heap a generous amount of responsibility on him for every run after that. Giving yourself a better chance to get out of an inning at 4-2 rather than 7-2 is what managing is all about. Cappy is not fine, but he's really not much worse than anybody on the staff with more than 3 starts not named Sheets.

It's pretty sad being reduced to this, but, CUBS LOSE! CUBS LOSE! So now they boys can offcially take the rest of the day off.

The only thing surprising about Redding's performance today is that he didn't have a season/career high in strikeouts. That seesm to happen more often than not when the Brewers don't light up a guy like that. Don't konw how anybody can defend Yost today, from the bullpen issue on down to not startgin Jenks against a RH pitcher. Gross, Gwynn, Counsell, Pitcher is a great way to make Redding look good. Granted, with Hall hurt and Weeks being awful there weren't a lot of alternatives, but Jenks not playing against a righty going in to the break makes no sense at all. And, if I see one more 'favorable schedule in teh second half' post, I will simply refere the poster to the record of this trip and other futility with respect to the Brewers against bad teams (on teh road) and bad pitcher (in general) this season.

His swing looks simply awful right now. He's always been quick with his hands, but now it looks like he's being too quick with everything. That's not the worst mechanical problem, either. It almost appears on some of his swings that BOTH of his feet are off the ground when the bat is going through the zone. He reaches so much that sometimes his center of gravity is outside his outline of his body. It's hard to know what's in his head, but it almost looks like he simply has completely out-thought himself up there. I think at some point he decided to be patient, but now he's so patient that he lets good early pitches go and gets himself behind. If I thought Rickie could get some confidence back by beating up on AAA pitching I'd send him down. But the way he's swingin right now, I don't know that it matters who is pitching to him. It's not major-league stuff that's getting him out right now. It's a marginal Legion ball swing that's doing it. It's just somehting he's going to need to work out of. But for right now, I'd start platooning him with Graffy unitl unitl he shows he can do the job at the plate. Even tehn though, it's just hard to put Weeks in teh lineup anywhere. The team is having enough trouble scoring runs without the longball, and putting weeks anywhere in the middle of the lineup won't help, as he can't even be counted on to make productive outs. On the other hand, he's rarely going to see any decent pitches in the 8 hole either, so he's not going to get much help in breaking out of this dungeon from any decent opposing pitcher. Never thought I'd say it, but I'd trade him straight up for Belliard right now.

Lost a(nother) first inning advantage. Lost to a(nother) *bad* pitcher. Lost a(nother) road trip. Lost a(nother) game in the standings. Lost the hitting streak. Second baseman couldn't put wood on ball swinging a canoe paddle right now. I could go on, but I won't. Posted a long time ago that even if the Brewers had a great homestand prior to this trip, this trip would still be an important measuring stick. Chances to win the division are still very good, but there are still a lot of things that need to be tightened up going into the second half.If Cappy doesn't show something good tomorrow I'm going to start to worry about the long term prospects for the season. Suddenly the post-break homestand looks really important again, but this time the Crew won't be beating up on the dregs.

Is it physically possible to hit the ball hard if neither of your feet is on the ground when you swing at a pitch?

Because when you're 48-37, nobody wants to say you're 5.5 games above .500?

Been drifting in and out of the game with a bunch of people over. It was 6-1, then Spurling was in and the 'Nats were threatening. Then I heard BA mention "The Ignitor". Was he reminiscing about Paulie, or renaming Spurling?

OK, I've seen this show twice in one week's time. I hope they changed the ending, because it's pretty much sucked the other two times I saw it.

The Brewers are standing at 48 wins on July 5. SInce the year 2000, here are the National League teams with at least that many wins on this date: 2000: Atlanta (50-34), St Louis (50-33), Arizona (49-35) 2001: Arizona (51-33), Chicago (49-34), Philly (48-36) 2002: Atlanta (55-31), LA (53-33), Arizona (51-34) 2003: Atlanta (54-31), San Fran (52-34) 2004: St Louis (50-32) 2005: St Louis (53-30), Washington (51-32) 2006: New York (50-34) Obviously, record after an equal number of games would be a better point of comparison, but the date is close enough for my purposes. The point is, even with the Brewers not playing especially well at times, they're still in first place, and have one of the best records in the National League and are in a very good position to win their division. Ten of the 15 teams on this list went on to make the playoffs. After 25 years of waiting, I'll take those odds with this young team. I guess the big question is, do you think these Brewers are more like the '05 Nats than they are last year's Cards?

Anyone read/heard anything with respect to how the pitching rotation will be set coming our of the All-Star break? WIth 18 games in the first 17 days following the break, the entire staff will be tested regardless of the rotation. It would seem to make the most sense to pitch Sheets on Friday, so as to maximize his starts. With a Friday start, Benny also would then be in line to pitch one of the ends of the Saturday, July 28 doubleheader in St Louis, which may be desirable in terms of trying to save the bullpen in at least half of the twinbill. The only question is whether Ned believes Benny will be ready to go on Friday. Since Tuesday would be his 'normal' start day anyway, I don't think that the inning he throws in SF should make any difference, but maybe the travel and associated AS game commitments will. No way he should start any later than Saturday. After Sheets, it almost seems you can pretty much put the rest of the guys' names in a hat. I guess it could come down to prospective matchups (both in terms of opposing pitcher and which teams hit which pitchers) in figuring out who starts when after that.

Billy Hall's catch not a Web Gem. De Rosa shows off a 12" vertical and makes the countdown.

Looks like the ump just screwed Miller out of a team record.

Dlipped over to ESPN during the pitching changes. They showed the Miller slam highlight, prefacing it by saying the Brewers need to be paying attention to what the Cubs are doing. True enough, I suppose, for the midway point of the season. But they really do seem to be ignoring altogether the fact that the Brewers have the best record in the NL and the second biggest division lead in baseball. I'n guressing before long they'll have Santo on the payroll in Brostol.

Or maybe a whole bunch of championships. Just ask the San Antonio Spurs. Too many media members are full of BS. They always give the line about rooting for the best story, but all too often that turns into rooting for the easy-to-sell story. That's because the consumer/public is full of BS, too. Too many just want the easy-to-understand stories, or they want complicated stories dumbed down, tarted up and turned into morality plays so that they seem easy to understand.

I thought Ned looked a little peeved earlier today. I hope he lights into the guys a little bit after this one. Yeah, they had some bad luck with some hard hit balls, but overall they haven't looked very sharp, mnetally or physically. Maybe they were just happy to bounce back, get 1 yesterday and not lose too much ground in the series. Today was a day for killer instinct and it just wan't there. All too often in their losses the Crew makes guys like Marquis look way too good. Not writing off the 9th, but this team has to aggresively attack the rest of this road trip.

Calling for a big day for Jenks today.

Brett Favre.

When is the last time the Series was 9 games? I know the Black Sox series was a 9-gamer, but not sure when it went back to 7. I guess being on the net I could look it up, but what's the fun in that?

Is it just me, or has it seemed in the past that Benny often had to operate with his ownn team putting out a less-than-optimal lineup when he has pitched more often than some other guys on the staff? For instance, almost always having Moeller back there didn't do him any favors in terms of offensive bite the for a few years. And it often seemed like at least one other non-regular was on teh field when Benny pitched as well. As noted sarcastically earlier, the Brewers must love Gallardo, because it seems like he's been getting a bit of the Sheets treatment in terms of all different kinds of support since being called up.

I'm guessing this could end up being something like an MVP type proposition. If Ryan Braun and the team continue on the current pace, hitting in tand 3-hole for a division winner should give him the nod over Pence, unless Pence is just so much better. That said, even a 'trendy' Milwaukee team isn't going to grab a huge amount of media attention. Even now, Milwaukee seems to be the team to doubt, as the national media almost audibly roots for the Cubs, with their big names and big $$, to get back in the race.