Ball And Glove

Dale Sveum isn't going to magically cure the Brewers' hitting woes, but at least the Brewers won't have him coaching third anymore. If I'm a Cubs fan, I hope the Brewers find a way into the playoffs, virtually ensuring that this guy is the manager to start next season: http://milwaukee.brewers.mlb.com/pressbox/photos/headshots_players_coaches/123011_90x135.jpg He looks like the dumb brother from "My Name is Earl".

The key to avoiding a complete turn by the fans in a situation like this is to find a scapegoat and crucify him. Yost is the obvious lightning rod. He'll get fired, everyone will blame the collapse on him. They'll rationalize it by pointing to what happened to the Mets in '07, and how they turned it around in '08 once Randolph was fired. What the Mets have done this year after replacing the manager will give Brewer fans hope for '09 once Yost is run out of town. While duplicating the results is unlikely, the two situations do mirror themselves pretty well. Last year's collapse was so bad that Doug Melvin intentionally neglected to tell the media that he had extended Yost's contract through 2009 after the season ended (the story came out in Spring Training in a kind of "Oh yeah, I almost forgot..." comment) because he knew he'd be crucified if they made that announcement right away. Coming into this season, most people seemed to realize that if this team had two glaring weaknesses, it was the bullpen and a manager who doesn't know how to use bullpens effectively (that was a big knock on Randolph as well). In May, both teams were struggling horribly. Randolph's team didn't bounce back and he was fired. The Brewers responded to slipping into last place for a few days by reeling off a strong finish before the All-Star Break, saving Ned's job for the rest of the season. While firing Yost seems to be the quick fix (well, that and guessing correctly which relievers are going to be good and which are going to be crap), there distinct possibility remains that the end up hiring someone even more incompetent than Yost. Milwaukee is never going to be a hot destination for big-name managers. They're going to have to rely on guys who were disgraced elsewhere, guys who are holding on way too long, or guys who have never managed before (promoting guys from the minors or hiring other team' coaches like they did with Yost). For a long time, that's why I was so hesitant to jump on the "Fire Ned!" bandwagon -- most of the time he seemed like an average manager, and most of the hate was coming from people who were just sick of seeing the guy in the dugout after 5 to 6 years. Potentially presiding over two late-season collapses should be enough to get the guy fired, though. I'm just terrified of them hiring Buck Showalter or something.

No one in the Brewers lineup can buy a hit these days.

In Moyer's first start against the Brewers this year, he gave up 8 hits (3 each to Ryan Braun and Bill Hall), but only 1 run in 6 innings. Considering the current state of the Brewers offense (non-existent), I wouldn't say it's out of the question for them to get beat tonight, especially considering the game is in Philly and Sheets tends to give up his fair share of HR's. Really, this is a game the Brewers need to have, because the rest of the series doesn't look so good as far as match-ups go. A win would guarantee that they'd at least leave Philly with a slight wildcard lead, IIRC. Brewers lineup (can't find Philly's yet): 2B Rickie Weeks SS J.J. Hardy LF Ryan Braun 1B Prince Fielder RF Corey Hart CF Mike Cameron 3B Bill Hall C Jason Kendall RHP Ben Sheets

It won't be pretty, that's for sure. I don't see it setting baseball in Milwaukee back 20 years, but it could pressure an inexperienced owner like Mark Attanasio into doing some really stupid things. Once Yost is gone, Doug Melvin would probably be on the chopping block next, whether that's fair or not. Firing Melvin probably would set the team back a few years, though, since he's the first solid GM the Brewers have had since the early 80's. Next year they'll definitely take a step back either way, but I could see them contending for a wildcard spot again if it's a down year and 86 wins or so will win it. It pretty much depends on how healthy Gallardo is -- he was insanely (and likely unsustainably) good this year before tearing that ACL. I wouldn't rule out them going after a veteran pitcher on the free agent market like Derek Lowe or something, but they might be scared to do so with Suppan's albatross contract hanging around. They could probably trade Hardy for a decent young pitcher, but then they'd be losing quite a bit of offense at a valuable position (not to mention their one good defensive infielder).

He actually broke it attempting to bunt earlier in the at-bat, but stayed in long enough to hit the game-winning single. Not as bad as getting shut out by a pitcher with a broken leg last year, but it comes close. :shock: Looks I remembered it a lot worse than it was (6 or 7 shutout innings was what I was remembering for some reason), but it was still pretty pathetic: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2966509 Jason Hirsh took a liner off his leg in the first inning, and later it was revealed that he broke the bone on that play. He stayed in to pitch 6 innings, allowing only 3 hits and 2 runs. That game pretty much epitomized the Brewers' collapse last season. Well, that and the Ramirez walkoff. But let's not dwell on the past. :doh:

He actually broke it attempting to bunt earlier in the at-bat, but stayed in long enough to hit the game-winning single. Not as bad as getting shut out by a pitcher with a broken leg last year, but it comes close.

Once they get past the Cardinals. The 4 games back might not seem like that much, but jumping St. Louis, Philadelphia/New York, and Milwaukee isn't going to be easy for them to do with only 17 games left. That's an insane amount of games that have to go right for the Astros to take control of the wildcard. At this point, I think the Brewers are more concerned about the possibility of playing poorly in Philly this weekend, since they're the more imminent threat.

Cool. Go put on your Packers gear, then, unless you're also one of those people that burned everything Packers-related in your house when they traded Brett Favre. Try not to hurt yourself jumping off the bandwagon. The Brewers are making the playoffs. I still wouldn't be shocked if they won the division. I'm one of the few that still fully realize that the Brewers have a hell of a lot better chance at making the playoffs than almost every other team in the NL not named the Chicago Cubs. I don't consider a 2-8 stretch a "collapse", and I don't think this stretch means Ned Yost and Doug Melvin need to be fired as soon as the season is over (well, Yost maybe, but more for a large collection of screw-ups not directly related to this. Firing Melvin would be immensely stupid and send the Brewers into another vortex of suckitude for 20 years.). I'm still reluctant to say they still have a chance at winning the division. I said a few weeks ago that the Brewers would need the Cubs to fall into a relatively long losing streak for them to have a real chance at it. Well, that happened, but the Brewers haven't been able to capitalize. They really needed to gain some ground to start September, and haven't been able to do it. Obviously, they still have those 6 head-to-head games left to pick up some ground, but it's less likely each day that the Brewers win it. And really, I don't care. This is a team that hasn't been in the playoffs in my lifetime. I really couldn't care less how they get there. This mix of Brewer fan and Cub fan paranoia is really interesting to see at work, though. The majority of Brewer fans seem to think that this team is destined to fail because it's just a loser organization that will never win anything, and they're choking away the entire season again. I've seen comments from some tortured Cubs fans (I won't say majority because it it doesn't seem to be the case here) that seem to think that they'll falter down the stretch again because that's just what the Cubs do. I don't buy into that from either side -- roster turnover is so high year to year that it's not fair to say one team is going to fail "because they're the (fill in team name)." Edit: And apologies for the "fight" with the other Brewers fan. I try to keep that stuff to a minimum here, but I slip up every now and then.

Cool. Go put on your Packers gear, then, unless you're also one of those people that burned everything Packers-related in your house when they traded Brett Favre. Try not to hurt yourself jumping off the bandwagon.

Brewerfan is a flaming wreck right now. Apparently the Brewers' playoff odds went from 82.5% to .02% because of this loss, judging by some of the comments. They're getting swept by the Reds, they're going to stumble into Philly and lose the wildcard lead, then get swept by the Cubs to virtually eliminate them from the playoffs, blah, blah, blah. At least most of the casual fans that only started following the team post-Sabathia trade likely won't notice until tomorrow since they were so consumed with the Packers game. Thank God Tarvaris Jackson remembered he was a sucky quarterback, otherwise the entire state of Wisconsin might've offed themselves if the Vikings came back to win in the final drive and Torres blew a save in the 9th.

His Milwaukee debut was at home against Colorado, but it wasn't a great start. Most pitchers dominate the bad teams and are average against the good teams...I don't think Sabathia is some kind of fluke just because he's excelled against subpar teams. Like you said, he's a very good pitcher either way. The difference between good starters and bad starters is that the good starters do incredibly well against bad teams, while the average/bad starters are a lot less consistent all around. I'm not trying to start a riot or anything, but if I had the time to look through Carlos Zambrano's starts, I think I'd find a similar pattern (if anyone actually can do this, it'd be interesting to see, and I'd admit if I was wrong). I do agree he has no business being in Cy Young discussions, though.

Braun winning the MVP would fall somewhere between Justin Morneau and Jimmy Rollins in the "what the hell were the voters thinking?" category. Yeah, he's slugged the crap out of the baseball, but he's also gotten out more than almost everyone in the league and he swings at way too much garbage to be really valuable. I don't think he's even the most valuable player on his team -- I'd put Sheets, Sabathia, and maybe even Fielder (down year and all) ahead of him. Without Sheets and Sabathia, the team doesn't even sniff the wildcard, and Fielder is much harder to replace in the Brewers' lineup. But yeah, it wouldn't surprise me if Braun got a few votes, especially if he gets close to Joe DiMaggio's record for most HR's in the first two seasons. It's a dumb record, but it seems to be the kind of thing voters care about, and the casual Milwaukee fans are eating it up. If the Mets end up winning their division, it wouldn't surprise me to see a big David Wright or Carlos Delgado get a few votes. It's got to be Pujols' to lose, though.

Since the name is "JenksFan5" I'm going to assume it's an old username from when Geoff Jenkins was still with the Brewers. He wore #5 and was nicknamed "Jenks". It most likely has nothing to do with Bobby Jenks. ;)

The funny thing about this whole ordeal is that it almost happened earlier in Sabathia's stint in Milwaukee against the Giants. It was a similar situation in that a runner got on via an infield hit/uncleanly fielded ball between third and short, and there was no throw. The Giants scorekeeper called it the first hit of the game, and Sabathia took that one hit into the 7th or 8th inning before giving up another hit or two. The entire game Brian Anderson and Bill Schroeder were debating the idea of awarding the first hit of the game on a bobbled ball, even in the hole between third and short. Schroeder took Joe Morgan's stance, IIRC, in saying that the scorekeeper should think twice about it just in case something like that happens. I believe Schroeder added that if a real hit follows soon after that, the scorekeeper could always change that first questionable call to a hit later.

Jon Niese and Manny Parra pretty much both stunk tonight. It looks like Mets/Brewers could be headed in the direction of Braves/Marlins with Mota coming in with 2 guys on and nobody out in the 6th.

The Brewers usually stink against young pitchers, good or not. If it's a guy who's debuting, they'll almost certainly strike out 8-10 times. After the game, Ned always "tips his cap" to the "kid who had some really good stuff tonight" and says his team "battled hard, but it's hard to hit a guy you've never seen before." Because, you know, Milwaukee has never heard of scouting reports and video before.

Pedro Martinez came damn close, winning it in '97 with the Expos and finishing second in '98 with the Red Sox. That's probably the most recent example I can think of. These days, most teams won't get rid of a reigning Cy Young winner to allow that to happen. If the Indians didn't get off to such a god-awful start, they'd probably still have him right now. The discussion would be moot. Of course, it probably is, anyway. Even if Webb completely collapses, I'd be more willing to give it to Lincecum than Sabathia. CC's been great, and maybe if it was an underwhelming year for candidates you could toss him a few votes, but there's no candidate shortage this year.

Hopefully he is fine. Did Sheets have a groin injury last year? They seem to linger for a long time. I believe it was a game against the Cubs last year when he strained his groin or something like that. I seem to remember it being one of those early-season cold and rainy games at Wrigley, and he tweaked it warming up after the rain delay or something. My memory's not too good, though, since I have successfully blocked out most of last season. ;)

Thank you, Fat Elvis.

The last I heard, they had a slew of meetings in June to decide whether or not to include a referendum on the stadium in November. This article says that right now, plans have been suspended/postponed/abandoned. Apparently, the residents of St. Pete were afraid things were moving too quickly considering the large amount of public dollars that would be spent on the project: http://suncoastpinellas.tbo.com/content/2008/jun/25/251935/rays-may-postpone-public-vote-waterfront-stadium/. Obviously, it's a few months old...maybe someone down in that area has an update? To me, it seems like a chicken/egg debate. The Rays want a new stadium to draw more fans, but the city won't build it until more fans show up. At least the Marlins managed to get their stadium plans for the Orange Bowl approved...not forcing fans to drive 45 minutes out to Dolphins Stadium 81 times a year should benefit attendance a bit.

Cubs beating Phillies Absolutely fine by me Helps wildcard chances

Can't say I can blame Tampa fans...I wouldn't go see the '27 Yankees play at Tropicana Field, and the school year has already started down there. It makes you wonder how they'd do if they had a decent stadium to attract fans, but no one's going to approve those stadium plans until people start showing up at the Trop. It's a sucky situation all around. You'd hope that they'd sell out for playoff games, but the Marlins have had problems in the past even selling out those games, so who knows. If you're a Cubs fan, I guess a Rays/Cubs World Series would be good in that every game would virtually be a home game for Chicago, right?

1992 92 and 70 Still a long time, though Who was on that team? Rollie Fingers' moustache would Eat them for breakfast. Molitor and yount quirky lefty dan plesac young gary sheffield No Sheffield that year Listach Rookie of the Year Greg Vaughn and Bichette After '92 Milwaukee fell on hard times Drowned sorrows in beer Dumb Sal Bando said "Molitor just a D.H." Brewers sucked since then

1992 92 and 70 Still a long time, though