With Jerry Hariston Jr. coming to town, who goes??

Please be Counsell.
Please be Counsell.
Please be Counsell.
Please be Counsell.

Your guide to the stretch run Part 3, St. Louis

With a little over 2 months left in the season the NL Central appears to be headed for a four team race. Here is your handy cheat sheet for the teams and their corresponding cities. You decide who has the advantage.  Up next St Louis.

Part 1, Pittsburg(h)
Part 2, Cincinnati

St. Louis Cardinals  

• No longer a football team
• Originally the St. Louis Browns
• Realized a team named the Browns would never be successful
• When will Cleveland figure this out
• Changed from Browns to Perfectos in 1899
• Party like it's 1899!!
• Changed to Cardinals a year later
• Perfectos is a stupid name

Doug Melvin strikes again

Brewers traded minor league catcher Wil Nieves to the Braves for cash considerations.

What could he possibly get??  Jokingly when I hear stories like this I think to myself "what 50 cents??"

Not our Doug Melvin!!

Your guide to the stretch run part 2, Cincinnati

With a little over 2 months left in the season the NL Central appears to be headed for a four team race. Here is your handy cheat sheet for the teams and their corresponding cities. You decide who has the advantage.  Up next Cincinnati.

 Part 1, Pittsburg(h)

Cincinnati Reds

• Original name was Red Stockings.
• I'd rather be the Alleghenys
• They kinda won the 1919 World Series.  
• That other team might have might have tanked to make some money.
• Baseball's first professional team
• Won first game 45-9 
• Went 57-0 in their first season
• Well they were the only pro team
• The competition stepped up in 1870 when they actually lost a game to the Brooklyn Atlantics
• And I thought Alleghenys was a stupid name

Your guide to the stretch run, part 1 Pittsburg(h)

With a little over 2 months left in the season the NL Central appears to be headed for a four team race. Here is your handy cheat sheet for the teams and their corresponding cities. You decide who has the advantage.  First we look at Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh Pirates

• Loveable America's darlings
• Last time they were relevant I didn't have a driver's license yet (19 years ago)
• Had the first home run in World Series history (Jimmy Sebring)
• Lost the first World Series in 1903 setting the stage for the next 108 years
• Won the World Series in 1909 1925 1960 1971 and 1979
• There was no steroid testing in 1909 1925 1960 1971 and 1979

It's go time

The longest road trip of the year is finally over.

It was bad but it could have been worse. Going into it 5-6 would have been an ok outcome, especially after the 12-3 and 4-0 start in Colorado. After the series opener in San Francisco we maybe thought of a winning road trip. Ok, didn't happen.

Division status: 3 way tie.

Coming home to start a 9 game homestand and 18 straight division games. It's time to take control of this division. Six games at home against the bottom feeders Cubs and Astros and 3 with the Cards then returning the favor at Houston and St Louis followed up by a much welcomed visit to Milwaukee by the Pirates.

This is it.

This is when the Brewers need to establish themselves as the team to beat in the NL Central.

Let's go boys!!


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This whole aggressive baserunning thing

Can we knock it off??

Yes when Ron Roenicke was hired he vowed to be aggressive on the basepaths and manufacture runs by taking extra bases.

It isn't working.

Yes, the stolen bases have been good at 61/81, over 75% no problem with that.

The rest of it is garbage. Saturday night's game in San Francisco showed just how bad this team is on the bases. Rickie Weeks thrown out at home. Casey McGehee falls for the fake throw to 2nd and gets picked off at 3rd. MLB.com hilariously describes this as Casey McGehee caught stealing home which would be even worse. Seriously that play never worked when I played little league many moons ago. 11 year olds don't fall for that. Nyjer Morgan tries to take 3rd with Braun at the plate and 2 outs.

Ok, enough.

Enough with the "aggressive" baserunning. Feel free to tell the guys to stay put Ed Sedar. This team has a good enough offense, stop giving up stupid outs running the bases.

Some interesting notes on Jonathan Lucroy

Previously I've dug into the offensive problems of Casey McGehee and Yuni B and most recently Craig Counsell (again, sorry Craig).

I was doing some numbers for a different potential post and got stuck looking at Jonathan Lucroy.

Lucroy isn't a bad hitter by any means in fact over the season he's crushing last year's numbers. .284 7 HR 39 RBI, and he's certainly been better than those other 3 with the exception of Yuni lately (I know right!!), but some things jumped out at me.

Guillermo Mota still pitches in the majors??

How is this guy still pitching??

As if this incident wasn't bad enough let me remind you of this.



Thankfully Kendall was there to hold him back.

goodbye Gomez, hello Brett Carroll

Other than the day he was traded to the Brewers for JJ Hardy, I've never been a huge Carlos Gomez fan (and I've already admitted I was wrong about that). On the other hand I did think he was a valuable member of the Brewers and did not want to see him break his clavicle and likely be out for the year.

The explosion that was Nyjer Morgan in Milwaukee left Gomez standing in the shadows of T-Plush but he was still a big part of this team. The catch he made that likely ended his season saved a run and who knows maybe the game. His speed as a pinch runner helped win a game against the Reds a couple weeks ago.