pebadger

Yeah, it's the kind of inning that would drive Zambrano insane. The Marlins have to be really frustrated right now. Just hope it doesn't boil over into something ugly.

If Braun goes deep here we just might have a ballgame.

I'll remember this one forever if only because of what I didn't see. Left home with the Brewers just having taken the lead. Drive to neighboring town. Hear about the 6th inning explosion just as I'm going into the pool. Don't give the game a second thought. Get back in the car after TWO HOURS and the game is still going. Ueck didn't give the score until after the Reyes error, but I KNEW just from listening what had happened. Then I get hom just in time to see Aoki just miss and everything that followed. Unreal.

I remeber a few year back when an ARam homer turned around a Brewer season. If he learns how to pitch it might happen again.

I almost died coming out of my daughter's summer swimming tonight when I started up the engine and hear Ueck still calling the game. WAAAAAAAAA!

In this age of video and data, I think we are sometimes in danger of forgetting that sports are physical and that what these guys do isn't just some sort of virtual activity. This is much more applicable to hard-core stats fans than people actually in the business, but even then I sometimes get the impression from reading various items that the game itself has become barely more than the tedious data collection phase of an ambitious QA project. It's easy to lose the wonder in sports if all you do is watch the video. Going out to see PGA tour pros is almost unbelievable if all you've ever done is watch on TV and play a few rounds of golf every summer. It's easy to lose sight of things that matter if you don't actually get out there and see the differences (subtle and otherwise) between guys that are good and those that are really good. I'm very much a huge fan of advanced analytical techniques, but I also think that at some point the whole idea of scouts and scouting became unduly discounted and perhaps even demonized. Too many scouts and the organizations that employed them came to overestimate the importance of their observations, often to the exclusion of other intelligence, and the value of the information provided by scouts was rightly reevaluated throughout the industry as a result when other techniques became available. Nonetheless, there is no substitute for going to watch games if you want to get the fullest possible picture on a player. It's certainly fair to ask whether the cost/benefit analysis works in favor of sending a scout when deciding whether the information added to the analytical picture by scouting can justify the cost of scouting. Of course good scouts will do a better job at this than bad scouts most of the time. That's a big part of the problem with scouting as opposed to using math: both are capable of providing valuable insight, but it's much easier to evaluate and validate the mathematical tools than it is to evaluate your scouts. Given that, and given the massive amount of intel you can glean just from the numbers, relying primarily on analytics is a no-brainer. Nonetheless, at some point you still have to get out and watch to get answers that numbers can't always provide.

Well, if you want to be an optimist, 30 of the 77 games after the break are against the Red, Pirates and Cards. Another 16 are against the lowly Cubs and Astros. (With another 3 vs the 'Stros going into the break). There is plenty of opportunity. There is also not much room for error. Let's see what happens with the next 15 games. Go 10-5 with a series winover the Reds. Gets you back to .500 and probably within 4/4.5. At that point, you can take action what you want to do moving forward (provided you haven't cut your own throat before then by tanking the early portion of these 15).

I'll take it, but I liked that Little League walkoff better.

Whew. And we get to do it all over again with Ax next inning.

Why was Izturis not hit for there? Maybe I'm overthinking this . . . .

Guillen and Zambrano is a match made in opposing-fan heaven, isn't it?

One problem, at least from my perspective as a TV viewer, was that we as TV viewers KNEW that there was a serious medical situation, having been so informed on the broadcast, and yet coming back from the second commercial break, TV viewers were greeted by a "Get Up and Dance" message on the Miller Park jumbotron. I can't speak to the needs of the folks in charge of keeping things under control at the park, but in this day and age the need to control perceptions outside the immediate audience in the park is also very important. I noted my thoughts on this matter in teh game thread yesterday. I'm sure that many, many folks in the wider broadcast audience made similar observations wherever they were watching. It was a horrible situation all around, and I'm not going to kill the Brewers for everything that happened. I just hope they and others will continue to evaluate every angle of response to situations like these for when, God forbid, response is again needed in the future.

Is it just me or has there been a whole lot of Bad News Bears type baseball by both sides in Brewer games this year?

How can the Brewer faithful be stunned, Craig? I think the Brewer faithful were hopeful yet realistic.

Anybody who didn't know it was going to come to this point today hasn't been paying attention for pretty much the whole season.

Not cool having the "Get up and Dance!" going on the scoreboard when they came back from commercial.

Did somebody fall in? People in the stands seemed somewhat oblivious to what is going on so I'm guessing that's not the case.

Swing harder, GoGo.

How 'bout batting around and giving Gomez an outside shot at two cycles by different guys in one park in two days?

That superimposed view of Braun's two swings was a nice use of technology.

Great. I'll be even more excited when they can do this enough to be a week away from getting back to .500.

Well, I tuned in at just the right time. My growing and now noticeable level of apathy is making me sad. In fact, I think I'm just gonna check out for the night. I think if we learned anything on Wedenesday afternoon it's that the Brewers best chance to win is when Braun is on the bench.

Barring a comeback against Chapman, the Brewers will be closer in the Central standings to the MLB-worst Cubs than they are to the Reds. So much for that "one good week and we're back in it" argument.

Yep, I HAVE see this one before. Ax is just lucky his name doesn't lend itself to as many descriptive variations as does Turnbow.

Why, so Arroyo can start off the inning with two punch outs? And how would that be any different than what's already happening? Obviously the overload on the lefties hasn't worked. Get some guys in there who haven't been fooled all night so far. Maybe see it/hit it is the answer. I don't think there really is an answer, but Izturis/PH then Aoki doesn't seem like much of a formula breaking it up, much less making a rally.