Brewers Baseball: Rated R

The Crew has dominated Atlanta the past two nights. Other than Prince mashing, and playing a mean first base, one thing stood out to me. The tirade that Mike Cameron went on that got him kicked out of last night's game, in front of 40 of his closest friends and family. The following is not an exact transcript of the festivities, but it is close: "Fuck that! Fuck that! Fuck that! Fuck you! (to the ump, who tossed him), Fuck you! You fucking suck! You fucking suck!"

(Macha tripped trying to sprint out to get in between them, but it was too late, and he had to use Bill Hall in CF for the ninth of a three run game.)

Good thing Hoffman is unhittable. Look for a suspension for Cam, because he quite possibly bumped the umpire. It was awesome.

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.

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.

Mike Cameron is a Bad, Bad Man

3-4, double, 2 runs.

Look, I realize this is only one game, but if we can get even SOME of the same production, it is going to be an upgrade over whatever Gabe we have in CF. What struck me about him was how ANGRY he seemed. It was like someone that looked like a baseball spiked his energy drink with banned stimulants and now he was going to take it out on that ball. My wife actually had to turn away from the TV at one point because she was afraid of him.

Finally some clutch hitting and good bullpen play. Which offset the two things the Crew had been able to do all year and didn't last night: starting pitching (Sheets was not good) and Defense (Hall was wretched).

Scoreboard bitches.