Semi-Daily Brew Crew Hangover

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Best Post in the World (Tribute)

Believe it or not, I had the best post in the world written, and fucking Blogger malfunctioned and I lost all of it. And I can't remember what that post said, so this is the Best Post in the World Tribute. The funny thing about it is that the Best Post in the World doesn't actually read anything like this post.

So my back is getting sore again from carrying this blog. We have FIVE fucking writers and we can't get ONE post out of anyone but me? Really? SportsBottle: put down that night stick covered in the blood of innocent minorities and write something, Twinkie: put down that dude's nutsack and write something, Bear: put down that cigarette and write something, LoafCobra: come back from the dead and write something.

BREW CREW HANGOVER:

I think my brother was right in saying that Hoffman was merely bored with perfection, and wanted to pitch under some pressure to make sure he was alive and not a cyborg sent here to destroy the earth.

Big ups to Kendall on that throw to third on the bunt. That was skilled.

I will now bitch about Billy Hall. I'm growing tired of his: "I was really good once, you should let me bat against right handers even though I hit .195 against them for the past two seasons." Ned Yost, errrrr.... Ken Macha is lucky that this "trust" in Hall only potentially cost us one game and not two. Gamel has to play against right handers, and should be given the opportunity against left handers. He allegedly had about the same average in the minors against both. Gamel is the future, Hall is the flash in the pan robber of salary.

Should be a fun weekend series in that cesspool, piece of shit, rotting, festering corspse, cesspool of pus filled, pandemic fostering, cooze known as the Metrodome. The Twinks won 20-1 yesterday, but then I heard that they were like 4 games under .500. Twinks are going to have a harder time withe Crew because we can do that thing called "Pitching". They don't really do much of that in the AL, and I've heard it is an important part of winning games. Also, the Crew can hit the shit out of the ball, and the Twinks are going to be throwing out two left handers, which is a bad idea because "Braun DESTROYS left handed pitching." If you don't get that reference then you haven't watched many Brewer telecasts this year. (P.S. "I'm not sure where that one missed." and "You know J.J. is seeing the ball really well when he drives one to the opposite field. It's just a shame it was right to a guy, or that would've gone for extra bases."). My prediction is Braun hits a rocket through the roof, which then collapses and kills a bunch of useless Loonies. Oh, that thanks go out to Richard/Bear/Twinkie for inviting me out for a game, you fucking pricks.

I will be stealing a literary device on one of these games tonight or Saturday.

OTHER

The NBA conference finals have been bananas. All three games have been epic, and I've been lucky enough to catch the end of all of them. Probably will do the same this weekend.

Finally watched the "Lost" season finale. I'm now dumber. I have no fucking clue what is happening. How are they possibly going to wrap this up????

Juice is Famous?

I'm gonna agree with Twinkie about this site reaching a new low and do my best to bring us out of the cellar.

Does anyone on here care about the NHL Playoffs (Twinkie, the North Stars are no longer in Minnesota)? In my opinion it's the best postseason in pro sports (baseball is a close second). I grow nostalgic and think back to those 5 OT games we used to watch in college. Early morning class the next day, trying to fall asleep in those heavenly beds in the dorms, but not willing to turn off the game at 1am in the middle of the 5th OT. I love that they don't use the shootout in the playoffs. I placed a Vegas bet on the Blackhawks a few months ago. I can name Khabibulin and no one else. I'm a huge Blackhawks fan.

I'm getting used to the awful Brewers pitching staff. Manny Parra is an enigma to me. I still think he's gonna be very good. He definitely has the stuff - mid 90s fastball, good off speed. But he's missing something, probably intelligence and experience. If you gave Jamie Moyer Parra's stuff, he'd be unhittable. I'm on the verge of lowering my overall wins prediction.

Braun appeared to bust out, finally. But, seriously, Ricky would smack that 83 mph fastball around the yard. The one thing I notice about the Brewers is they swing and miss at a lot of mistakes. They miss lots of hanging curves. Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun swing and miss more than any players I've ever seen.

Is it just me, or does it always seem like Bill Hall is late b/c of his batting stance. It just never seems he's gonna be able to get around on the ball.

What good will Trevor Hoffman do if we can't get to him in the 9th anyways? And, keep in mind, he's 64 years old with a Moyer like fastball.

I'm intrigued by the Pedro Martinez talk. Not because he would help us. I'm just simply intrigued.

Percy Harvin tested positive for ganja. There must be some level of stupidity that I'm too stupid to understand.

I won the NBA fantasy league. Just thought I'd point that out.

I beat Juice's #1 seeded team to get to the finals, just for the record.

Robin Yount will never win any acting awards.

Conspiracy Theories!

I wasn't going to type anything today because I wanted to see how long we could keep our riveting Slim Fast discussion going. Today in the comment section, I think we should concentrate on really listening to our partners, and tips for doing so....

But seriously, I came into "work early" this morning, which for me means to waste as much time as I can before doing any actual work, and then making it completely pointless to come in early, since I didn't get anything done anyway. And I hear a pretty good rumor, and am starting one too. Because I love me some conspiracies.

Conspiracy #1: This has started to wane a little since A-Rod is going to attempt to play through his injury, but I heard this yesterday: That baseball a) doesn't want A-Rod to really admit anything wrong, b) doesn't want to embarrass their biggest star with a publicized suspension, c) wants to punish him for fucking up. So they make up an injury that is invisible to the naked eye, and that is coincidentally going to keep him out about 10 weeks, which according to my calculations, would be around mid-May, and right around 50 games, which coincidentally, is exactly the suspension for a first time offense under the steroid policy. I heard this on local sports radio the other day, so I can't take credit.

Conspiracy #2: I'm making this up. ESPN last night was tossing around all the third basemen the Yankees would look to get if A-Rod was out awhile. Bobby Crosby, Mark Tehean, and some other losers came up. But you know who didn't come up, but SHOULD have? How about Billy Hall? Wouldn't THIS be a fucking blessing? Not only are you shedding an enormous (for the Brewers) salary on a below average player, but you'll get something probably pretty good in return, AND it gives you an excuse to bring up your choice of Matt Gamel or Alcides Escobar. Believe me, Billy is VERY available. CALL ME BRIAN CASHMAN!!

-Arch Madness tonight: CU v. Wichita at 6 p.m.

-Video Game news: I think I'm going to use the 45 seconds of personal time I have between now and April 15th to buy MLB '09: The Show. Reportedly the best baseball game ever.

So Long It's Been Good To Know You

I was watching the Twins' game while surfing the web when I learned some information about my favorite "planet" from Yahoo!. Apparently, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) has decided on the term "plutoid" as a name for dwarf planets like Pluto. As most of you know, Pluto was demoted to dwarf status in August 2004. This infuriated me because the elitists at the IAU had the nerve to cast aside a planet that had worked so hard to become the nine pizzas that my very educated mother just served us. Plus, in fourth grade my group was assigned to build a model of Pluto and write a report for a class project about the solar stem. I have built quite an affinity for the tiny, wayward planet and am distraught about its path into irrelevance.

Of course, this got me thinking about the Twins. I started to wonder which current member of the Twins is destined to experience the same fate as Pluto. The criteria was simple. The player once had to actually be good and now suck to the point of demotion (the suck part is easier because just about every Twin does right now). I scoured their roster and one named just jumped out at me; Juan Rincon. This man is Pluto. He was once a key member of the bullpen but is now reduced to the dwarf planet status that comes with being the 13th member of a 13 man pitching staff. Recently, Ron Gardenhire has pledged that once interleague play begins the Twins will go back to a 12 man staff. This, more than likely, means Rincon will be cast aside with the rest of the plutoids, a.k.a the Rochester Red Wings.

That was kind of fun. I wonder who the Brewers' plutoids are. Billy Hall comes to mind. Derek Turnbow, too. Any thoughts?

Update: Rincon has moved one step closer to becoming a plutoid.

"The Committee" v. Eric Gagne Update

Solomon Torres has been solid after being named head of "The Committee". The Committee is now 4-1 and Gagne is 11-7.

(Honestly, Billy Hall is the luckiest guy alive based on last night. And Yost tried SO hard to lose that game too.)

Billy Hall Will Do My Dirty Work For Me

"Going on the last four years, nothing makes sense" --Billy Hall

Not exactly a ringing endorsement for Neddy. I like it.

Great Symbolism

Billy Hall's at-bat in the bottom of the 9th pretty fairly symbolizes the Brewer's entire season so far. Bases loaded, two outs, Marlins bring in their closer. Billy Hall softly lines the first fucking pitch to RF. Ball game. Way to work the count Billy. Its crazy to think that perhaps someone that just came out of the bullpen may not have it that night, and may have difficulties throwing strikes...

Congrats to the Twinkies for breaking up that no-no last night. At least you had that moral victory. More than I can say for the Crew.

State of the Brewers

This weekend was terrible, on a lot of levels for the Crew. The way they are playing has me thinking about what the long term effects on the team might be.

This team is built to win now. Or I should say WAS built to win now, because I think the injury to Gallardo is going to put a big dent in that.

Before I get to my apocalyptic predictions, I would just like to say that Gagne got fucking jobbed by the umps yesterday. I know, I know, we got a call earlier, all the bad calls balance out, blah, blah, blah. The bottom line is, Gagne threw 35 pitches yesterday, 18 of which were called strikes, 17 balls. At least 6 of those balls were changeups right down that middle that were strikes. You give a major league hitter an extra ball in an at bat, and they are going to make you pay. Was Gagne good yesterday? Obviously not, but he wasn't helped in any way shape or form by the shitty job at home plate, and it just might have cost them the game.

Now, onto my scorched earth theory:

Manager: I'm not sure if this is the manager or not. But if this team is so good, and so talented, why does it seem like they can never do any of the little things right. They aren't going to cut everyone on the team, so someone has to be blamed at some point, and that falls on Neddy. The powers that be hired Ted Simmons for the sole purpose to put pressure on Neddy, and it obviously hasn't worked. At some point, if things don't change in a hurry, the Brewers will have to rid themselves of their Yost infection.

Closer: Part of me doesn't think Gagne is as bad as everyone thinks. But, he's not doing the job he needs to. They aren't hitting well enough to not need a closer that is reliable, and Gagne probably isn't it. He has 9 saves, and 5 blown saves, which is far too many. He just seems to have awful luck. He doesn't really melt down per se, but he does just enough to give the other team a chance, which they can't afford. We need to give Mota a crack I think.

Bully: As a whole, the bully has been pretty solid (save for Tunrblow who is gone). Problem is, they have to pitch 4 innings every day that Sheets doesn't pitch. They are improved in this area.

Starters: Here is where things get interesting. I fear that this Gallardo injury could cause them to blow the whole thing up. The way I see it, one of two things are going to happen. a) They play pretty well, stay in the race, and make a move somewhere to get a decent starter; or b) They suck, trade Sheets for $.50 on the dollar. I think b) is more likely. What is the right answer here? If Sheets stays healthy, he will cost the Brewers way more than they can afford in free agency. But if they don't spend the money, I don't think they have the pitching in the long term to get to the playoffs next year. When healthy, he is a top 5 pitcher. But he has been extremely unreliable. If we suck and trade him away, we might never make the playoffs.

This is that never ending question in baseball, and that fine line that teams must tread: Do we blow all of our money and hope for the best? (Yankees/Red Sox) or Do we stay conservative, develop from within, and let our best players go when they hit their big payday? (Twins). I sincerely hope they don't go the way of the Twins before they even have the chance of getting their hearts ripped out in the first round like 5 times in 10 years (cheap Twins blast), but I have no hope that will actually happen. The worst case scenario here is: Sheets wins (or comes close to) winning the Cy Young, we lose the division by 5 games, lose Sheets in free agency, but probably should have traded him because we were never really in the race.

Hitting: Maybe we aren't as talented as I (and everyone else) thinks. Right now Braun, Fielder and Hart are the only players I trust at all to come through in the clutch, and even they are a little more inconsistent than I would like. It is too early with Cameron, and Kendall is fairly light hitting and slow, although he has been serviceable. The problem is that Weeks, Hardy and Hall have been fucking terrible. If there is one out and a guy on first, and one of those three are up, you might as well change the channel, because a double play is coming. It is a virtual guarantee. Hardy leads the league in 500 foot high infield pop ups, Weeks leads the league in strikeouts looking. So maybe those three aren't that good. Maybe they aren't the answer. Because they are killing them right now, and they always seem to find a way to kill a rally. Perhaps the answer is to trade one of them for a starting pitcher. Weeks is like a .220 career hitter and he is in the leadoff spot (which goes back to Neddy). On paper, we should be one of the most talented and feared hitting teams in the league, but in reality, if we aren't hitting home runs, we aren't winning many games.

Verdict: I have serious doubts about our long term chances with: Yost, Gagne, and the Hall/Hardy/Weeks triumvirate being so prominently involved.

How Ned Yost chooses his lineup for games...

I pulled this little tidbit directly from the Yahoo Sports news and notes about Bill Hall.

"3B Bill Hall was out of the starting lineup Sunday despite collecting five hits in the previous two games. Manager Ned Yost wanted to give either Hall or 2B Rickie Weeks the day off to let INF Craig Counsell see some action. Yost put the names of Hall and Weeks in a baseball cap and had Hall pick to see who would be out of the lineup. Hall picked his own name, and thus had to sit."

I haven't been too bad of a Yost basher in the past, I've questioned some of his decisions, especially concerning how he manages our starting pitching. The frightening part of this whole scenario is that I'm not even really surprised that this is how he made his decision. Instead of going through his lineup and making a rational decision based on recent stats, who they were going up against and who needed a day off, he just chose to randomly pick a name out of a hat.

Maybe this wasn't the worst way to handle the situation, basically taking away some of the potential backlash from the players who might have to miss a start. At some point however, you are the manager and they are the players, if a player is struggling on the field, shouldn't they understand if they have to sit a day because of it? I wonder how Yost decided which starting pitcher he was going to option down to Nashville, arm wrestling tournament between Manny Parra, Carlos Villanueva, and Dave Bush?

Maybe instead of having his throwing mechanics mucked around with during spring training, Yost should have been having Bush practice his arm wrestling technique to keep his spot in the rotation.