Postgame Miscellany

by Jeff Sackmann on Jun 1, 2007 9:47 PM CDT in Milwaukee Brewers News

Maybe all it takes is a mediocre opponent: the Brewers are looking like the team that got off to such a hot start in April. Some assorted thoughts:

The NL Central sucks something awful. If the Astros beat the Cardinals tonight, the Brewers will be 7.5 games up on four teams tied for second place, all of which will be eight games below .500. As great as that is for us, it's a testament to how low the bar is set.
Turnbow bounced back nicely. Love to see that. I was a bit worried when he went 0-2 on the first batter and let it slide back to 3-2, but he got through the 8th smoothly. Let's hope for lots more of those.
Kevin Mench was the offensive star of this game, but I'm actually more excited that Tony Graffanino is looking a bit more like a major league hitter. Especially if Weeks is going to be out for a while, Graffy is way more important to this team than Mench. He looked good in the field, too.
Another great game from Corey Hart. It's a little odd that it took an injury to Weeks to get Corey more consistent playing time, but I'll take it. If he keeps getting multiple hits every time he starts, it'll be awful hard to keep him out of the lineup.
And finally, we saw everything we expected out of Ryan Braun. Four PAs, four times on, including a MONSTER home run to dead center. His double might have been out of the park on a different day, too. To top it all off, he committed an error in the ninth leading to the Marlins 5th run. To my eye, he actually looks halfway decent in the field, but it'll be something to watch closely.

Tweet Comment 10 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

Magic # is now

103

We have a 7 game lead on the rest of the division, and as Jeff pointed out, our division is horrible. Now I complained about the lack of respect we will get nationally, but you know what, I care less and less as we rack up the W's.

Braun was absolutely fantastic tonight. The weird part was that Gargamel and Munch had great games as well. Hart is really settling into the leadoff spot, getting on base twice, which is all you can ask from that slot.

Braun's error is something we are just going to put up with. He drove in 2, scored 3, yet gave up 1 with his error. Last I checked 5 > 1, so I'm fine with this.

Anyway, great to see us back to the way we should be playing. Maybe we'll beat a good when we get the next chance (Minnesota is coming up again soon).

That's not the Chirizo, It's Enrico Polazzo!

by hyattff2003 on Jun 1, 2007 10:38 PM CDT reply actions

I noted it after his first home run but

I think it bears repeating. Ryan Braun now has 2/3 of the team's home runs from 3B starters. Either way it's always nice to get in the car after work and hear the Brewers won.

So long as Ryan Braun makes sure Gary Sheffield stays the holder of the last season fielding percentage below .900 of a regular third baseman I'll be happy with his glove.

by TheJay on Jun 2, 2007 2:11 AM CDT reply actions

What a day of baseball

The Brewers finally pull out back to back wins for the first time in 2 weeks. Braun shows off for the home fans even though ESPN has trouble finding a picture of him:
http://scores.espn.go.com/mlb/scoreboard

The Indians score 5 in the ninth to continue their torture of the lovely city of Detroit.
The Yanks and Sox throw at each other and Grandpa Joe does his best Bobby Cox impression.
Peavy and Oswalt both started and neither of their teams won (that won't happen on the same night too many times).
And of course our good friends to the south had a public slap fight, the likes of which hasn't been seen since the halls of middle school. Too bad we couldn't have seen Zambrano beat the crap out of Barret in the clubhouse. Hopefully there was a clubhouse attendant with a cell phone video camera that captured the footage. I will be monitoring You Tube and Deadspin with my fingers crossed.
I gotta say, Friday was a good day.

by molitorfan on Jun 2, 2007 8:33 AM CDT reply actions

No video of the Cubs clubhouse fight yet

but I did find this random link:

http://dugout.progressiveboink.com/archive/jon11.htm

by molitorfan on Jun 2, 2007 9:18 AM CDT reply actions

random question

It's kind of unusual for a starter to have a decision in all of his starts (like Suppan does) this deep into the season, isn't it?

by Zeyes on Jun 2, 2007 9:32 AM CDT reply actions

yes it is

but he has average stuff and pitches a lot of innings so it kind of makes sense.

by molitorfan on Jun 2, 2007 10:57 AM CDT up reply actions

Yep

He's got a long way to catch 1991 Kirk McCaskill, though. He got 29 decisions (10-19) in 30 starts with only one complete game - the only no-decision came on July 15 (8 IP of shutout ball, even!). His ERA was 4.26 and the Angels won 81 games that year, so he must have been pretty unlucky.

by TheJay on Jun 2, 2007 11:18 AM CDT up reply actions

Thats good stuff

where do you find such interesting factoids as such?

That's not the Chirizo, It's Enrico Polazzo!

by hyattff2003 on Jun 2, 2007 12:52 PM CDT up reply actions

A little bird tells me ;-)

Haha, but seriously, I have an excel file of a lahman db with basic stats for each player in every season since 1871 and it's just a matter of playing around with it and finding out who satisfies the criteria I set. In this case I looked for pitchers who made no relief appearances in a season and then looked for the minimum difference between decisions and games started in an appreciable number of starts. Ryan Rupe managed to go 5-10 in 15 starts in 2002 but I thought McCaskill's 29 decisions in 30 games was more interesting. Gaylord Perry's 18-17 record in 37 starts in 1975 is pretty good too, but he had 25 complete games in there.

by TheJay on Jun 2, 2007 1:53 PM CDT up reply actions

D'oh!

I even have the Lahman DB laying around (thanks to OOTP, though I'm not a historical player) but I never thought to use it for lookups as this.

It's always the obvious things that escape you. :) Thanks for the interesting finds, BTW!

by Zeyes on Jun 2, 2007 3:02 PM CDT up reply actions

Comments For This Post Are Closed

FanPosts

Community blog posts and discussion.

Recent FanPosts

+ New FanPost All FanPosts >

NL Central Standings

	W	L	PCT	GB	STRK
St. Louis Viva El Birdos	22	15	.594	0	Won 2
Cincinnati Red Reporter	19	17	.527	2.5	Won 1
Pittsburgh Bucs Dugout	17	20	.459	5	Lost 2
Milwaukee Brew Crew Ball	16	21	.432	6	Lost 1
Houston The Crawfish Boxes	16	21	.432	6	Won 1
Chicago Bleed Cubbie Blue	15	22	.405	7	Lost 2