Dale is at least managing like every game is playoff game. It helps that he has an expanded roster to work with. That last game was just Torres blowing it.

Torres should not have gone a week between outings. You can blame Yost or Svuem for that. Torres has faced 15 guys on 6+ days of rest this year. He has hit two guys and walked another without striking out anybody. The fact that he has only given up one run in those four games is miraculous. He pitched on Wednesday and Thursday after pitching the previous Wednesday and he got hit pretty hard both days.

I’m not a huge fan of having Cameron lead off, but I kind of like having Hardy hit behind Fielder.

All in all, I haven’t seen any glaring problems with Svuem so far.

Better than Yost is a pretty low bar to clear :)

The Brewers are showing more offense, but they’re also leaving a lot of guys on base, and generating a lot of outs on the bases. I’m having trouble watching the games because every time I see Jason Kendall, I go blind with rage. Inevitably, when my vision returns, Kendall has failed. 2 for 12 with a walk and a sacrifice in the Chicago series, and apparently there’s nothing to keep him from starting every game until the end of the season. Picking an arbitrary length of time, Kendall is .241/.322/.317 since the beginning of June. Is there any defense that he provides which allows for this?

Incidentally, I don’t think Rivera is an automatic offense generator. However, why isn’t he even considered? It’s Kendall every day, and fuck everyone else.

I don’t know why it’s a good thing that he pushed Sheets out to pitch, nor do I think Yost probably wouldn’t have. If it really had been bothering Sheets since Aug 26, then Yost already had pushed him out there for a few games. And he only pitched an inning before leaving the other night, so where’s the benefit? One inning of an injured Sheets is better than a start by McClung?

Tony Gwynn hasn’t played since he’s been called up, anyway (His last start was May 18). And it’s not like Hart has been doing anything. Even when he gets on base lately he blows the play (missing the plate on the slide Wednesday night).

Dale is not hopeless when it comes to the bullpen, which is a welcome improvement. The baserunning and personnel decisions (Hart and Kendall) are baffling to me.

Not only that, with the total bullpen turnover and other additions and subtractions, the pennant race experience wasn’t even with the Brewers.