Jesus.

Let's all celebrate the return of a convicted serial arsonist! Wheeee! If he makes the club, the Crew is fucked. My day is ruined. Tomorrow I'm going to find out that we brought back Ned Yost.

Das Fuhrer

Ned Yost said that he would "think about" keeping Torres (who has been great) as the closer over Gagne (who has been shitty) when he comes back.

He is also rethinking his stance on the Holocaust being a myth and allowing women to vote.


-The Brewers are on fucking fire right now.....and are still 6.5 back.

Kimbo Slice Popped My Cherry

-I had never actually sat and watched a Mixed Martial Arts card until last night. I guess I am probably a late adopter when it comes to this sort of thing, as I know people who pay $49.95 to watch pay per views. Last night, CBS debuted MMA on network television. I figured if CBS picked it up, it must be good, so I tuned in. Much to my delight, CBS tabbed none other than Gus Johnson to do the play by play. Gus Johnson could announce me taking a shit and make it sound like the most exciting thing ever.

It was sort of a strange show. It started showing a bunch of skanks dancing around to some song I've never heard of. Then, when the matches actually started, they shot off fireworks ala WWE, and had Busta Rhymes come out rapping to introduce the first guy. The first two matches ended in first minute KO's. The second guy that got knocked out was some dude that called himself "The New York Badass" and brought out two different skanks with him and he danced around. This left me a bit confused, as it definitely reminded me more of some lame WWE intro than anything else. Although, I suppose there are plenty of flamboyant boxers that do the same thing.

After the first two, the third match featured "Crush" from American Gladiators (the new one) against some freaky looking chick with dreads from Minnesota (I think it is fair to point out that two of the fighters were from Minnesota). Crush beat the shit out of the dreadlocked chick.

Next, there was a really good match for some title or another that got called because a dude got poked in the eye and couldn't see out of it. So I guess it was a no decision.

Finally, in the main event Kimbo Slice's beard fought some English dude with an ear that was all fucked up. Eventually the dudes ear "burst" and was gushing blood everywhere. And even though the English dude nearly beat Kimbo, the breaking of the dude's ear, and three or four ridiculous punches in a row forced the ref to stop the fight.

-In other news, I hoped Big Ben was going to punch Neddy in the face last night when he came out to pull him. I guess Neddy has turned over a new leaf here as he had a bad habit of leaving guys in FAR too long. Although, when Gagne comes back, he should learn to pull him before he loses the game. The Committee is 6-1 (Gagne 11-7)

-That Jay Bruce guy for the Reds is incredible. He is 11 for 19 with a walk-off HR so far. He is taking on legendary proportions. He is on pace for 14,000 Hits and 1253 HRs.

"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.)

Who is Seth McClung?

Rather than rehash the entire game from last night's beautiful Brewer win, I thought I would take the opportunity to meet the 6'6" 270 lb. mountain of a man that is Seth McClung.

But first few observations from last night:

-I'm sure someone intelligent will explain this to me, but why did McClung pitch 1 1/3 innings four days before he was going to start?

-Eric Gagne was Eric Gagne last night.

-Weeks Watch: 2-4, K, HBP!, 2R Season: .200 BA, .665 OPS, 734HBP

-Billy "Rob Deer" Hall Update: 2-3, 0HR, 1K Season: .207BA, 9 HR (second), 47K (1st by 9)

-Good win, Yost is safe for another day. But, As The Wolf would say: "Let's not start sucking each other's dicks quite yet."

OK, back to the matter at hand. I think putting in McClung isn't a bad move. Carlos has struggled, and McClung gives the Crew a true power pitcher (has thrown in triple digits). He really has generally been very good so far (1-1, 3.54 ERA, 20K in 20 1/3IP, 1.37 WHIP). I guess they really had nothing to lose. So who is he? A few facts about our new starter:

1) It is fitting that he be called a "mountain man" because he is from West Virginia.

2) He is a ginger kid.

3) Career Stats: 18-26, 5.97 ERA, 1.61WHIP, 207K in 283IP, started 37 times for TB

4) He's 27 years old.

5) He eats small children and shits diamonds.

What I was most intrigued by was his ginger status. I wanted to find out the likelihood of him being any good based solely on his red hair. Very quick research located the following MLB "stars" with red hair: Wade Boggs, Mark McGuire (sort of), Rick Sutcliffe. That's the list that I could find in five minutes. If he is as good as Sutcliffe, I'll take it. Clearly he is destined for the hall of fame.

Gagne, the bullpen and Prince Fielder

I was going to write this as a comment to Juice's blog, but it started to get too long so I said screw it, new post! I hope last night will shut some people the fuck up for a while. Everyone that was screaming for Gagne's head because other people in our bullpen were so much better. Pro tip: They're not. Out of all the guys in our bullpen, no one has any extensive closing experience at all. I will make an exception for Torres here because he probably had a closer role for about a year total, but then I'm going to take that exception back right away because at the beginning of the season he very clearly stated he doesn't want to close. He's not comfortable in that position and feels he'd do much better as a set up guy. Enter Mota, some 34 year old career set up guy. Juice claims he didn't seem mentally tough out there last night. Really? Because with all the closing experience he should be able to tap into that mental toughness whenever he wants.

Mota's not a closer, Torres doesn't want to close, Shouse is a lefty specialist, Stetter is mostly a left specialist(I saw his "mental toughness" in the 9th a few days ago, not impressed), McClung is still on the team? This all leaves us with one POSSIBLE, POTENTIALLY viable pitcher to close other than Gagne. Mr 87 MPH fastball that seems fast because of a funky delivery motion David Riske. Who got hurt last night anyways so toss his name out the window if you were even considering it for a second. We have Gagne, if this season is going to work out, it's going to be with him as the closer, no one else in the bullpen, RIGHT NOW, is going to be any good at closing, unless Turnbow gets struck by lightning down in Nashville, goes brain dead, gets called up and then can still face a batter and throw pitches.

I don't believe Ned is going right back to the committee bullpen though, I think he was just doing something about what I was complaining about yesterday, giving Gagne a rest after he pitched 3 innings in 2 days. Better to give someone else the ball than chance a reliever after consecutive nights and multiple innings pitched. This post was more about bitching at fans that think the committee is better than Gagne, than bitching about the bullpen decisions from last night specifically.

Also, let's continue my Prince Fielder hate indefinitely, you can say what you will about Mota, but a 3 run game in the 9th is a much different situation to work with than a 1 run game and that fat fucker booted another ball today. He's fucking up routine grounders, that is unacceptable for a first baseman, especially one that's supposed to be such a superstar that deserves over 10 million a year. Well if you're getting the money because of your hitting alone Prince, you better start earning it, because right now he looks like an overweight version of Bill Hall, who's got an inflated OBP because of what he "might" do.

I also just read that Braun is about to sign a monster 7 year contract today. I think that pretty much just punched Fielder's ticket out of town. Hopefully he doesn't shit the bed on his way out and we only get 30 cents on this dollar.

Well, There Goes That Theory

Tough one last night. Parra pitches probably the best game of his career. Gives up two of his three runs on a booted easy out at first, a near miss of a diving catch, and an infield single. Then Mota does his best Gagne impression and the Crew loses. That makes "The Committee" 2-1 and Gagne 11-7. I don't know what was up with Mota but he didn't seem mentally tough enough last night for some reason. Here is where I put some blame on Yost: Why no quick hook? When it appeared he didn't have it after the walk and the single, why not bring in McClung or Stetter? Why let Mota give up 3 runs? I know there wasn't really many options left, but when you could win a game, and it is clear that the first guy from your committee isn't working, why leave him there?

Anyways, here is a comparison of Mota and Gagne as I see it:

Mota

Gagne


I don't think that got me anywhere.

The Weeks Watch (Mike Cameron Edition!!!): My man Rickie had a much needed night off, not getting on base is tiring! Season: .190 BA, .651 OPS, 5HR, 13RBI, 7SB. So Mike Cameron (he really is a good center fielder!) stepped into the leadoff role. This makes complete sense to me. We should obviously put whoever has the worst batting average on the team in the leadoff spot. Last night: 0-4, 3K, GIDP, Season Totals: .190BA, .645 OPS. Cameron is actually worse than Weeks. Although, to be fair, Cameron has only been playing about three weeks, so he should be given a little leeway....but NOT be batting leadoff.

Billy "Rob Deer" Hall: 0-4, 3K, 0HR Season: .195 BA, .684 OPS, 9HR (tied for team lead), 43K (leads team by 10)

I refuse to get off of these guys until they consistently bat over .200. I don't think that is a lot to ask of them.

Looking forward to three hours watching red and blue streaks go across my computer screen as I take in the GameCenter from MLB.com while sitting at work doing nothing today. I thought about "live blogging" it but live blogging a game where you can't see or hear what is happening wouldn't be real interesting. Big Ben goes today. Should give the Crew a legit shot.

I may or may not put anything up until Monday morning depending on whether I have time tomorrow or am not dying on Sunday due to Shit in my eye.

My personal opinion of the Gagne situation

I'm actually glad that Gagne is back in the closer position. I hear a lot of non-sense about the "committee" being 2-0 and gagne having 5 blown saves on the year. I know Gagne isn't pitching as well as we'd like our closer to do, but he's also appeared in half of our games this year already (That's 19 games out of 39 for the non-math endowed people). Since the NL has expanded to 16 teams, the average number of saves for a team has been pretty steadily around 40. The league average for save percentage for the last few years was around 67%, that's 2/3. So I can safely assume an average team will see around 60 save attempts per year. The Brewers are less than one fourth of the way into the season and yet Gagne has appeared 19 times already. That's a lot of work for a closer, especially when you consider that not all of those 60 potential save attempts are going to the same guy. The Brewers blew 20 saves in total last year, we are one quarter of the way through the year and Gagne has blown 5, the team total this year is 7. That seems to be slight ahead of the average, but the league average last year was 20 blown saves. As I've mentioned before we are ahead of the league average on save opportunities for the year as well. Only two teams had less than 14 blown save opportunities last year. Does that make it ok that Gagne has blown these saves? No. However I do think it helps to put things into perspective. Give the averages time to even themselves out and get Gagne a normal work flow. Popping into games 5 nights in a row is going to put a strain on any closer, not just our popular quebecois scapegoat.

Take this into account as well, for every team in the major leagues, only two have a reliever that has been their closer since earlier than 2004, the Yankees with Rivera and the Padres with Hoffman (the latter of which is probably soon to end). The closer position is so damn volatile and so closely scrutinized that sometimes fans forget to take a step back and realize, that's just the way the game is sometimes, no closer is going to be perfect. Granted Gagne is quite far from perfect, but I think before people continue to jump down his throat they should consider this, I don't think there's a better answer than him to be the closer in our bullpen right now. There's a lot of pressure when you are put into that situation and it's not really a spot where you want to be doing trial and error testing on pitchers that are unproven in the closer role.

Also just a little food for thought in contradiction to what I said here, the only team this year without a blown save? The Reds. Of course they've only had 7 save opportunities, so once again take that number with a grain of salt.

Rickie Weeks Hates Eric Gagne

Look. I don't know what Neddy was thinking last night. But I survived the heart attack and vomiting episode I had in the bottom of the 8th/top of 9th to have an opinion. I guess you can be benched and then just say "I'm ready to have my job back.", and it just magically falls into your lap. I plan to lose my job by punching my boss in the face, and then going back the next day and saying I'm ready to go, and get it back. I guess there are no consequences to anyone. No accountability. Especially if you make $10 million a year. So Gagne comes in, fills the bases with runners yet again, but gets the save to go to 11-7 in these situations, while "The Committee" remains 2-0.

The funny thing I took from the game is how my favorite player Weeks nearly cost Gagne another game by screwing up a routine double play. He has done this at least one other time too. Weeks has been very good in the field until the 9th all season. I think it is safe to say that Weeks hates Canadians.

My platonic boyfriend Ryan Braun continues to stay mental at the plate.

Weeks Watch: 1-4, 11 total pitches, 1 R, 1K, 1SB, E (Season Total: .190, .651 OPS, 7 SB)

Billy "Rob Deer" Hall: hit his 9th HR (1-4 and only struck out once!) (I stole that reference from my brother, and I think it is a fairly clever one)

Actual Text I received last night from a police officer friend of mine: "I am going to use excessive force on someone tonight if Gagne blows this" Truly one of Wisconsin's finest.

2 days 'til Shit In My Eye

The Morning Dump Vol. 2

- The Brewers appear to be firmly out of their slump. They hammered the Cards' ace last night (with the help of a timely error).

-My torrid, non-sexual, love affair with Ryan Braun is officially heating up again. 4HRs in 6 ABs will do that to a guy. I have as many feelings as one man can legally have for another in the state of Wisconsin. ETA on when I have a Ryan Braun jersey is under 30 days.

-Oh, and forget what I had to say about Mitchy Stetter in any sort of closer role (21 pitches, 16 balls, will do that to a guy).

-The Brewers had FOUR people in their starting lineup with a BA under the Mendoza line. Weeks (.188), Hall (.199), Cameron (.180) and Bush. That is pretty unacceptable for a major league team in mid-May. NO thought on Yost's part to at least shuffle the lineup a little, or to give Gwynn more starts.

-Starting a new feature here, the daily Weeks update where I write down Weeks line last night and then I point and laugh, and then throw something across the room. Last night: 0 for 4, saw 11 TOTAL PITCHES, GIDP, 0 BB, 0 HBP (solid effort). Season: .188, 5HR, 13RBI, .654 OPS (on base plus slugging percentage, .750 is considered average for all players, .650 is considered poor, a good leadoff man is usually above .750).

-A little confused on how Mota got a save last night. I think the way it works is if the number of guys on base + the man at bat + number of outs left= the # of runs you are up you get a save. Mota came in with bases loaded with two outs, up by five. Either way, I guess that makes "The Committee" 2-0, and Gagne 10-7. Gagne sucked again last night by the way.

-That dunk by LeBron in the 4th last night was spectacular.

-Asdrubal Cabrera's unassisted triple play was the 14th in MLB history, which is insane.

-Friday afternoon I am leaving to go to Syttende Mai in Stoughton, WI, which I guess is Norwegian independence day or some shit. Playing in the annual golf tournament which is called Shit-In-My-Eye which a bunch of college buddies. The tournament usually involves carts tipping over and at least one person being hit with a golf ball. Inevitably, I get black out drunk and puke. This year will be the wife's inaugural (and probably last) appearance.

Someone woke Neddy up from his Five Year Slumber

Apparently, somebody nudged Neddy and let him know that he has a baseball team to manage. At this point, the only obvious thing he is doing that I can't stand is batting Weeks in the leadoff spot. The decision to FINALLY pull Gagne and go with closer by committee is welcomed. I am also incredibly impressed with his decision to yank Torres in the middle of the inning yesterday. It shows that he actually does want to win games, although part of me is curious why he refused to ever do this with his "closer". Whatever, it worked yesterday. I still think Mota is the best candidate, and that Stetter might be a better lefty option than Shouse, but I am actually going to give Yost some slack here. Especially if he is quick with the hook. What I don't want to see is him going lefty on lefty in the ninth all the time if the righty option is pitching well. That tends to get dangerous. My other worry is that we aren't going to have 5 options going into the ninth all the time (especially when anyone but Sheets is pitching). Still, and upgrade over Gagne. I am interested to see how he uses Gagne now. For the rest of the year, I am going to keep a tally on how the Gagne v. Closer By Committee thing works: So far the Crew is 10-7 in games where Gagne comes in to "close" or when the game is tied, etc. and 1-0 with the "committee".

PS. Ryan Braun is starting to remind me of the guy that played 3B for the Brewers last year (minus all the errors of course). Very, very good sign.

Weekend reflection

I've been slacking as of late in keeping up with this blog. The only real sports news going on right now is Brewers stuff and I never feel the need to regurgitate the same stuff being said by Juice or other sports writers out there. We looked ok this weekend, we got two wins and Sheets lost, so that's somewhat comforting. It's probably about time we addressed the Gagne issue. I've been in his corner up until the last week or so, the main reason is because regardless of what everyone thinks or says about a closer, it takes a special player to get it done and I don't think we have anyone of that caliber in our bullpen right now. That being said, the best situation with Gagne unable to get it done is what we are doing right now, closer by committee, maybe someone steps up in the next few weeks, probably not though.

It was good to see Braun get some hits, however it's a little dis-heartening that he's not getting them in clutch situations. I just hope that he doesn't turn into Carlos Lee Jr. Mr I can hit over 30 dingers in a year but not top 100 RBI's. He should be fine, it's just always been a concern for me since that stupid fat fucker was hanging around.


P.S. I'm totally fine with us trading away our current fat fucker for as much as we can get for him while his stock is still high. This is my first post announcing my hate for Prince Fielder...

Seriously.

A couple of things from yesterday's Brewer abortion.

- They will never be as good as the Cardinals until Yost is gone. La Russa can make the tough decisions like telling his closer of 5 years to have a seat when he isn't performing. Yost can't do that for whatever reason. Also, I don't know what the fuck happened in the 8th inning with Hall. It seems that Kendall missed the sign. Hindsight is 20/20, and if that worked, we would all be talking about what a great move it was. Still, things like this tend to happen way too often with this team, and not just with Kendall.

- Officially, Gagne sucks. Here is what he had to say yesterday, with a typical response from our faithful leader:

"I don't deserve that ninth inning right now. It's pretty simple," Gagne
said.

The beleaguered reliever was slumped in his locker room chair with his
eyes closed for several minutes before putting his hands on his head. After a
clubhouse official asked if he wanted to talk, he told reporters he doesn't need
a "mental break" like Cardinals counterpart Jason Isringhausen asked for on Friday night.

"I don't need breaks. I need to keep going out there. I need results," said Gagne, who has a major league-leading five blown saves along with Isringhausen. "I get myself in a situation, in a jam, every single time I'm out there. You can't pitch like
that."

"I am never nervous in that situation. I love that situation. I have been
blessed with that opportunity a lot since I've been here and have been fortunate
to come through in a lot of the situations I've been in," Ludwick said. "I feel
like that's what baseball is all about -- that situation, being in that moment."

Gagne said his struggles have been embarrassing for him.
"Every time we get a little momentum, I come out there and kill that rally," Gagne said. "It's a matter of going out there and executing your pitches -- not thinking results -- and I'm thinking results. I'm going out there thinking three outs before I
can even get one."

"Closing is an emotional job," Gagne said. "It's a roller coaster. You do
good, you're a hero. You do bad, you're a zero."

Brewers manager Ned Yost refused to pull Gagne from the closer's role immediately after the game.
"I don't sit here and make decisions five minutes after a tough loss. I'll sit and
think," Yost said. "You guys have known me long enough, I take a long time to
analyze things and give everybody the benefit of the doubt and try to make the
right decision."

- The only bright side yesterday was Braun getting 3 hits, including two doubles. Of course he couldn't get a hit with the bases loaded.

Those cocksuckers got me back into it after the big win Friday, looked good (although they still didn't actually drive in any runs) coming back. Only to have Gagne choke on it. They are so frustrating. Oh, and I called it yesterday, didn't I?

State of the Twins

Amazingly, Juice stole my idea. I won't let that stop me from recapping what has been a pleasant start to the season for the Minnesota Twins. I will preface this by saying that if I had written this five days ago, I would have been a lot more negative. I'm glad I waited. Here goes.

The Twins currently stand in first place in the AL Central. This is a tremendous surprise. The beginning of the season has been filled with a lot of disappointments, mixed with a lot of intrigue, with little to be excited about. That is until recently. The Twins now stand at 16-14 and are coming off homestand in which they swept all five games from the White Sox and Tigers. All this has happened with only three starting pitchers and an offense that would finish fourth in the River Falls Lower Division Men's Softball League.* Color me pickled tink.

*League play for Emma's Bar begins on Tuesday, May 6 at Hoffman Park in River Falls, WI. Bring your tubas!!!

The Lineup: It has been pretty bad so far as the Twins are 13th in the American League in runs scored, T-13th in home runs, 14th in on-base percentage and 10th in slugging percentage. On the plus side we are 3rd in batting average (.266, sooooooooo good!!!) and 3rd in steals. Carlos Gomez has been fun to watch, but needs to get a clue at the plate and quit swinging at sliders in the dirt. He seems to be getting a little better of late, as he has only 2 strike outs in his last 6 games after wearing the golden sombrero in Oakland. Joe Mauer (from here on, Butt Stink) has been very good, especially during the Twins recent surge. He would be even better if Abner Doubleday hadn't invented the second basemen. Justin Morneau is third in the A.L. in home runs and 13th in slugging, which pleases me. In fact, when I recently cast my all star vote, I chose him on merit and not on my usual Twins bias. The rest of the lineup has been more or less horrendous with a few glimmers of hope (Brendan Harris, Jason Kubel, Matt Tolbert) and a few flops (Delmon Young hits like Chuck Knoblauch).

The Rotation: We have three starters!!!. There names are Livan Hernandez, Boof Bonser and Nick Blackburn. I'm not sure why, but this seems ominous. These guys have been doing fine so far, but I am extremely skeptical that they will keep up this level of success. Combine this with the disaster that is Francisco Liriano and the fact that Scott Baker has the face and body of an eight-year-old boy and there isn't that much hope for the Twins pitching to get much better. The good news is that Twins' starters do have been generally effective and Kevin Slowey is about to return from the disabled list on Thursday; not to mention the plethora of options there are in the minor leagues. Basically, so far so good, but we need some help.

The Bullpen: This has always been the trademark of all recent Twins' teams. It is a major reason for the success of the starting rotation and their record in close games. This year, however, there have been a few meltdowns (the whole series at Detroit). This is a little disconcerting, especially considering the current status of the rotation. I think that these meltdowns are merely aberrations based on the bullpens performance in the rest of the games. Joe Nathan continues to prove that he is the best closer in baseball (11/11 saves, 1 ER) and I bet he is reminding Brewers fans that they maybe should have tried to trade for him during the offseason before he got his new deal. Oh well, they all can' be Eric Gagne.

Coaching: I think that Ron Gardenhire is one of the best game managers in baseball. He knows how to use a pitching staff and he isn't afraid to be aggressive on offense. I just have one bone to pick. QUIT PLAYING NICK PUNTO!!! He isn't good. I don't quite understand the infatuation. I know he tries hard and makes nice defensive plays, but he hits like he's batting from the wrong side of the plate and he's a switch hitter. Let's just relegate him to pinch runner and defensive replacement for Mike Lamb and leave the hitting to the less experienced Matt Tolbert. On a side note, Gardy might be looking over his shoulder a little bit due to the phenomenal job Scott Ulger did while managing in his absence.

Overall, I am super excited just because the Twins are in first place. I bought season tickets this year with the realization that I was going to watch a young team struggle and learn while losing a lot of games. Every day that they are in first place makes every game I attend way more riviting just because of the allure of a potential pennant race. I just hope the mathemeticians have it right and we stick to our, as of now, projected record of 87-75 and the rest of the division continues plays under .500 baseball. But as someone once said, it's gonna be a bumpy ride.

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.

Kerry Wood: Arsonist

The Brewers, Cubs and 40,000 fans were all equally lucky to get out of Wrigley alive yesterday afternoon as an inferno raged. The arsonist Kerry Woods struck again, burning Wrigley down. I personally and thoroughly enjoyed the wailing and gnashing of teeth of Cubs fans burning alive, from my perch 300 miles to the north.

Seriously, does anyone REALLY thing Gagne is that much worse than Wood? Admittedly, Gagne has made a few games a little more exciting than he needed to, and blew a couple, but I think overall he's been pretty effective.

Wood is a mere apprentice. He could only hope to be half as good at what he does when compared to Mr. Gas Can himself Derrick Turnbow. Actually, Turnbow is beyond combustible. He causes cancer. It's true!