Thursday's Plastic Cup

KL's on the road this morning, so it's up to me to deliver the sudsy goodness...in news form.

First, our regulars:

• Baseball-Reference box score
  
• FanGraphs WPA chart...which is depressing to look at.
• BP's postseason odds, which are a bit depressing to contemplate.
• BDD's daily recap, which at least lets us focus on other teams that sucked yesterday.

The big news in Brewers land is Derrick Turnbow asked him agent to talk to Melvin about his role.  I wrote about it after the game last night, and there's quite the range of opinion about it so far in the comments.

It's April 17th, so full-season stats are fairly meaningless.  Split stats always have sample-size issues.  So what does the J-S do?  Give us early-season split stats.  Jason Kendall has the best home batting average in the National League.  Let's pick up that option right now!

Speaking of splits, there's a new article at The Hardball Times about batting in front of the pitcher.  You might recognize the author.  I was interested in that in part because it seems like Counsell and JJ Hardy have had very different experiences in that spot.  In addition to the article, which you should read, I was surprised to discover that last year, in 48 at-bats with the pitcher on deck, Hardy hit 404/425/537.

A few injury notes:

• Crazy Al Soriano is on the DL, and it sounds like he'll spend the 15-day minimum.  Eric Patterson is called up in his place, and Matt Murton is now the assistant coach at Illinois Wesleyan.
• Reds prospect Jay Bruce "jammed his shoulder" and left last night's game, but it shouldn't keep him out for long.
• Nomar Garciaparra is back on the Dodgers active roster.  Now Joe Torre can play both Nomar and Juan Pierre over more deserving youngsters!
• The Red Sox put Alex Cora on the DL, which normally wouldn't be newsworthy in these parts, but it almost--almost!--led to the callup of Keith Ginter.  Joe Thurston got the nod instead.

Here's an interesting interview with Tim Marchman.  Don't miss his comments on LaRussa.

Shea Hillenbrand's son was attacked by a lemur.  At first it sounds like a joke, then it sounds like a tragedy, and then, thanks to this Baseball Think Factory thread, it turns back into a joke.

That'll do it for this morning.  Don't go far...game time is 12:15 CT.