Before we jump in to the links, can we take a moment and revel in the awesomeness of the Brewers yesterday (except for Gagne).  Some quick thoughts about the game:

• Again, except for Gagne, the brand-new bullpen looks great.  Mota especially.  Gotta love the good sign early on.
• It's great to be 1-0 no matter how it happens, but don't forget we beat the #1 division rival at their home park. 
• Fantastic outing from Sheets, and yet another proof of the silliness of the Win statistic.  He struck out more than a batter per inning, including Derrek Lee twice.

If you'd like to revel in the victory in graph form, here you go.

Now, for some links.  Baseball Digest Daily features the second blog entry from Matt Laporta, who seems to be pretty happy about heading to Huntsville.

The J-S has an entire post-game article just about the bullpen, which has the typical array of predictable quotes--you know, we're not worried about Gagne on the basis of one game.  (Which is reasonable.)  What is a bit more interesting is the notes about the hierarchy:

Riske saved the game with a perfect 10th, getting the call over Turnbow because Yost liked "the way he threw strikes all spring." Yost said Turnbow was scheduled to pitch the 11th inning if the game got that far.

"That's what we have to do, get it to the closer," Mota said. "We don't have an eighth-inning guy, so we all have to be ready in the fifth. When the phone rings, it can be any one of us."

A couple of things you already know about if you're reading the FanPosts on the right sidebar:

• TheJay gives us a capsule summary of Gallardo's timetable.  Hurry back!
• Roguejim fills us in on waiver pickup Richie Gardner.  This is probably my favorite part about a hardcore Brewers community like this one: We pick up a career minor league to fill out the Triple-A rotation, and it's big news.

Here's a list of must-read baseball books from phillyBurbs.com.  It's not very long, which is a shame; an even bigger shame is that The Glory of Their Times isn't on it.  Come to think of it, there's nothing by Bob Uecker either!

Scott Speizio is now an Atlanta Brave.  He is one lucky guy.  He keeps screwing up his career, and landing in places (St. Louis, now Atlanta) known for resuscitating veterans.

Gotta love vintage MLB promo ads.  Here's a whole slew of them.

Whoa.  Baseball Crank has yet another NL Central preview, and they like the Brewers for 88 wins.  That's not the big surprise.  Scroll down to their take on the Cubs--predicted W-L: 78-84.  It's based on what seems like a plausible method, and most of the penalty comes because of the team's age.  That is the one thing that pundits (even some of the statistically-oriented ones) ignore too much: bad stuff happens to baseball players after 30.  Sometimes it's gradual, sometimes it gets put off for a year, but sometimes it's vicious.  There are an awful lot of older players on the Cubs, and while I'm sure most of them will hold up ok, it only takes one disaster to Aramis, Lilly, or D-Lee to really damage the playoff chances at Miller Park South.

I'm not sure I entirely get it, or the point of it, but a professor has come up with a way to visually represent managerial tendencies with illustrations of their faces.  I didn't read the whole article, and I'm guessing most of you won't want to either, but make sure to click on the multimedia link to see the pictures.  Ned looks about right!

I think that's enough for one day.  The great thing about a plastic cup is that nobody's counting how many you've had!

That's Ned!