Got RIT of 'em

So I was all excited to get home from work at 8 p.m. last night and fire up the DVR for my second UW hockey game since the last time they were in the Frozen Four in 2006. And then they kicked the shit out of something call Rochester Institute of Technology. They won 8-1. Not much of a game. Bucky plays for the National Championship on Saturday. Good times. Should have put $10 on them in Vegas. Damn.

Hey Twinkie, where was the Fighting Sioux? According to my perusal of Yahoo!, they were busy agreeing to no longer exist. There, there buddy. I went through this with my high school (the Indians) in or around 1989. You will live. I personally think that the Fighting Sioux is less offensive than the Indians or especially the REDSKINS on the racism scale, because it is concentrating on one tribe, who is native to the area. I also saw that while William & Mary is allowed to keep the name "Tribe", they had to change their mascot from a Native American feather to a Griffin. Which doesn't make any sense at all.

In other, non-college hockey related news, the Brewers took advantage of a rather messed up system that screws young talented baseball players (and which the NFL should really look into, although the NFL screws older players) by signing Yo to a 6 year 42.5 million dollar deal (or a 5 year, 30 million dollar deal if he sucks/or wins a Cy Young). While they are paying him more than they need to this year (if you include the bonus $1.75 mil v. $450k), if he pitches anywhere near a number one starter, they are going to be coming out well for the rest of the deal. He certainly would've gotten a huge raise in arbitration for all three years, and a deal far surpassing that even if he is average (we are paying Wolf and Suppan $22.5 mil combined) for the final two years. This is muy similar to the Braun deal. GREAT job by the Crew. Now cue the elbow tendinitis and inner ear infections. Looking forward to seeing Brewer baseball this weekend. "Big" series against the Cards this weekend, with two games on National TV.

I laughed out loud when my first J.J. Hardy Twins highlight was him grounding into a double play. Get used to that Twins fans. (Then I looked up his stats and saw he is hitting .313 with 2HRs. Well fuck you, it won't last).

Finally, SIX DAYS until my working for $3.00/hr ends, and my pay gets bumped up to my usual $6/hr.

Semi-Daily Brew Crew Hangover #2

YO!!!!!!! I'll admit, after working for 14 hours plus yesterday, I had no shot in hell of watching much of that game last night. And I didn't see the three run homer Yo hit off the Old Unit. I didn't even see a highlight. But I imagine that it was a 524 foot blast into the San Francisco Bay that had so much velocity that it put a hole in some asshats kayak causing him to drown. Bask in its awesome glory.

QUOTE OF THE NIGHT via Mrs. Juice: "Rickie Weeks is a terrible human being." --after 59 year old Randy Johnson made him look ridiculous on a strikeout. And about 2 seconds before Sports Bottle texted "I will never like Rickie Weeks."

Baseball and Stuff

-I purchased my first Milwaukee Brewers tickets yesterday. I "won" the "privilege" of buying tickets for the Cubs games (the non-home opener variety) before most people could buy them. I'm not sure how many people they let through, but the buying started at like 9 a.m., and I didn't think of it until about noon. When I logged on, I was able to get two tickets together for the May 9th game (which is a Saturday night) in the top row behind the foul pole in right field, at a jacked up "marquee rate". Whatever, it should be fun. Every year I have this love/hate relationship with Brewer/Cub games because those asshats from Illinois fill up about half the stadium with tickets purchased on the secondary market, and they are fucking obnoxious. But it is fun because the crowds are always more drunk and more raucous than normal. I would sell them for $100 each, if scalping was legal.

-The Crew started playing baseball games against other teams yesterday, and the fucking TIED. I don't know why that would even begin to bother me, but ties are stupid. Corey Hart will win MVP if he plays like the box score makes it look like he played yesterday. 2-2, HR, SB. Jeff Suppan got the start, pitched two innings, and was Jeff Suppan. If he is our opening day starter to "take pressure off of Yo", I'm going to be PISSED. I'll take Dave Bush as our ace over Suppan. This year is going to be another classic "Soup" year, with every stat line looking similar to this: 6 IP, 12H, 4ER, 1K, 2BB. He will go 11-12 with a 4.98 ERA, which is not good for your "number one" pitcher.

-At least Marquette can blame their loss to UConn on losing their third best player to injury, and not on the fact that they gave up 93 points at home. Whatever makes them sleep at night.

One Other Nugget

I heard on the broadcast last night that Yo may return in September, and that according to the trainer it is a legit possibility.

I hope they only try if they are within 3 games or so of a playoff spot. He would at most give you like 5 starts, so his effect in terms of actual games won wouldn't be that great. Emotionally, it would be huge, and would help the bullpen by putting Bush in it. But, if they are out of it, I wouldn't risk it.

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.

Karma is a bitch

She is a dirty, dirty whore. She giveth Turnblow to the minors, and taketh away our best pitcher. The Crew's playoff chances just took a HUGE hit.

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.)