Illegitimate Thoughts

-Weeks watch:
Weeks: 6/13, HR, 5RBI, BB, 0SB
Durham: 0/1

So far, not a really fair fight, since Weeks has been busy "achieving" at the major league level. He has been great this week though.

I am still cleaning up semen from CC's game last night. Easily the best stretch for a Brewer starter in my lifetime. Hopefully Benny can sweep the Cards tonight.

What if the Crew actually pulled off a trade for Houston Street? Not the greatest closer, but would dominate as a setup man. THEN maybe we could get rid of Mota.

-Orenthal James Simpson Football Association Update:

The following three guys were kept by the O.G. Team from Stoughton, WI: LDT, A-Peter, Carson Palmer. WOW. Are you fucking kidding me? Cobra, you are fucked in the ass when you play him.

Right now I would have to say that team and Bear's team are the odds on favorites.

I just bought a fantasy magazine and am in the process of putting together a master(bater) list.

The Weeks Watch is ON!

C'mon Neddy. Really? I mean, even Bear's boy Hardicourt couldn't come up with anything good to say about Weeks, and he sucks whomever's dick the manager and GM tell him to. An average of .216 is horrible for any regular starter, much less the fucking leadoff guy. And it is late July now. It would be hard for Neddy to claim he is suddenly going to turn things around. You gotta think in the very near future that Neddy is going to start feeling pressure to leave Ray Durham in after he gets two or three hits the first few times he plays. My favorite comment from Yost: "For me, he has never underachieved because he never achieved up here. How can you say he has underachieved?" I mean, that is classic Neddy. Just a dick whenever he wants to be. Contradicting himself at every turn. First getting offended at the mere notion that he would take out long dong Weeks, and then saying he has been a piece of shit for the last three years to claim he isn't an underachiever. Whatever. From now on I am going to waste time chronicling how shitty Weeks is compared to Durham, until I get lazy and forget about it.

We are mere minutes away from a HUGE series in fucking July for the Crew. Gotta believe they are guaranteed to win at least one of the CC (I can't call him BF anymore, he is too good) Big Ben back-to-back, meaning they really only need one of the first two to declare the series a moderate success. I would be happy with a road split, although a series win would be as gigantic as it could be in July.

Nuggets RE: Wisconsin Sports

-LOVE hearing this shit. UW in the Rose Bowl? Abso-fuckinglutely

-FUCK. Say goodbye to the best Brewer pitcher in 20 years?

Other Illegitimate Thoughts

-Tonight at 10pm CST on NFL Network: Divisional Playoff: Green Bay at Philadelphia (2004)....Um, no thanks, I think I'm washing my hair or something. Fuck. That fucking tape should be destroyed forever along with the Broncos Super Bowl, and last year's NFC Championship among others. I'm too shaken to come up with the rest of my list....and there is a list.

-Derek Fisher has been on Mike and Mike in the Morning or PTI every day for the past two months. Does he even fucking play? How does he have time to do all these interviews? Michael Strahan thinks you are whoring yourself out to the media.

-On the Brewer telecast tonight, the announcers mentioned how Gabe Kapler was playing because Yost said he is "rewarding performance". Which seems to be true except for fucking Rickie Weeks. It's like Yost blacks out during all his at-bats. He is fucking janky. I had a nightmare last night that Sheets got hurt and went out for the year. Then I realized he was starting tonight...Then he pitched pretty well and is fine so whatever.

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.

Quick Brewer Post

-Weeks Watch: 2-5, K, 2R, HR, RBI, SB, 16 Total Pitches (Season: .206/.686) Is he turning the corner?

-ALLEGEDLY, Gagne is injured. Blessing in disguise? I feel that maybe even if one of these lower level guys was given the title of "closer" while Gagne was healthy, they would always be looking over their shoulder because there is a $10M dude sitting behind them that the GM obviously wants to be the guy. It is going to take pressure off them.

-Ryan Braun is spectacular. Big Ben is huge.

-Playoff chances are up to 9%

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.

Sir Richard Weeks

What is the saying? Even the moon shines on a dead dog's ass? I don't know, I've never been good with those sort of things. Anyways. A win is a win. One hit doesn't make Dick any less shitty. My theory is that everyone on the team got them about 3 slumpbusters a piece, except for Soup who is a born again, and possibly doesn't enjoy the company of such a people.

Big Ben goes tonight. Lets make it two.

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.

Brewers v. Cubs Series Preview

I don't normally like to do this, but Brewers/Cubs holds special significance in that I want to punch random people on the streets in the face when I see they are wearing Cubs gear. It frustrates me to no end that there are so many bandwagon fucking Cubs fans in Wisconsin, and nobody can give me a good reason for it.

Wrigley is also a pile of shit. There. I said it.

GAME 1: Sheets v. Marquis: The return of Sheets from the DL and Cameron from the SL (steroids list). Sheets has been ridiculous this year (0.97 ERA) and I don't see any reason the Crew shouldn't win when he pitches.

GAME 2: Soup v. Dempster: No way the Brewers sweep (in fact I would be thrilled with 2 of 3), so Cubs win this one.

GAME 3: Yo v. Hill: Gallardo has been more ridiculous than Sheets in his two starts (0.64 ERA). He is probably nearly as good as Sheets when both are on their game.

There it is, Crew takes 2 of 3. Place your bets now. (Note: This only applies if my plot to kidnap Yost and replace him with a blowup doll succeeds.)