Tuesday's Frosty Mug

Some things to read while starting with a big bang.

If you missed yesterday, you missed a lot. On the field, the Brewers had one of their best games of the season as Yovani Gallardo and the Brewer bats combined to dominate the Cubs, 18-1. Miller Park Drunk has the best of Cub fan reactions on Twitter.

It's probably safe to assume Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder will remain in the #3 and 4 spots for the foreseeable future. They switched back to that alignment last night and had five hits each, scoring five runs and driving in seven. Fielder's first RBI was the 500th of his career, making him the 12th Brewer ever to reach that mark.

Unfortunately, every silver lining seems to be attached to a massive cloud. Carlos Gomez left the game with dizziness and was taken to the hospital for a CT scan after being hit in the head by a pitch from Cubs reliever Brian Schlitter. Gomez was hit twice in the game.

With Jim Edmonds already out of the game, the Brewers were left without a center fielder and decided to give Alcides Escobar a shot out there. It only took Escobar two innings to turn in a sparkling defensive play. Escobar went 3-for-5 with a walk, scored twice and drove in two runs in what might have been one of his best games as a major leaguer.

Meanwhile, the Brewer offense overshadowed a dominant performance by Yovani Gallardo, who tied a career high with 12 strikeouts while holding the Cubs to a run on two hits in six innings and threw just 95 pitches.

Other notes from the field:

• You Can't Predict Baseball notes that there have only been nine games all season where a team scored at least 17 runs, and the Brewers have four of them.
• The Brewers are the first team to score at least 17 runs four times in a season since the 1936 Cubs.
• Entering last night's game, the Brewers had scored just eight runs in their previous five games.
• The Brewers batted around in the fourth and fifth innings, becoming just the second team in 2010 to do it in consecutive innings. The last time the Brewers had done it was in 1999, when they sent 21 batters to the plate in the eighth and ninth inning of a game against the Expos.
• The Brewers sent 13 batters to the plate in the game and the only one that didn't reach base at least once was Trevor Hoffman, who batted in the ninth inning for the first time since 2001.
• Casey Coleman allowed six earned runs on eight hits and two walks in 2.1 innings of work last night in his major league debut. He also became MLB's first-ever third generation pitcher.
• Yovani Gallardo was also hit by a pitch last night, becoming the first Brewer pitcher ever to be hit twice in a season. Plunk Everyone has more.
• Casey McGehee, Yovani Gallardo and Prince Fielder are leading FanGraphs' Star of the Game voting.
• Here are the MLB.com video highlights.
  

We now have contract details for Corey Hart's new deal: Hart received a $1 million signing bonus, and will earn $6.5m in 2011, $9m in 2012 and $10m in 2013 (FanShot). Adam McCalvy said the deal came together quickly. Meanwhile, reactions to the deal are also coming in pretty fast:

• Manny Parra and Ryan Braun are among the Brewers happy to see Hart sticking around.
• Keith Law noted that average production from a right fielder is pretty high, and thinks Hart is too volatile and his skill set too limited to live up to the deal. Law has much more on Hart, if you follow one of those links and check out his full feed.
• Dave Cameron says the deal values Hart as a league average player, but says the contract isn't a great fit for the Brewers.
• Matt Klaasen of FanGraphs also doesn't get how this deal fits into the Brewers' long term plans.
• Jack Moore of Disciples of Uecker says the Brewers will come out "even or slightly ahead" in the deal.
• Miller Park Drunk is ok with the move.
• Wisconsin Sports Tap says it makes sense to extend Hart if other teams weren't willing to offer enough to trade for him.
• J.C. Bradbury expects Hart to be worth $33 million over the course of his new deal.
• Jaymes Langrehr of the Brewers Bar says Hart's deal should be celebrated, not criticized.
• Tim Froberg of the Appleton Post-Crescent says the deal is a smart move, and takes the opportunity to make fat jokes about Prince Fielder.
• In-Between Hops noted that the Brewers now have 17 players under team control through the end of the 2012 season.
• Old Hoss Radbourn congratulates Corey Hart on being a pioneer for Neanderthals.

With Hart's deal done, is Rickie Weeks next? Doug Melvin told Adam McCalvy he's had conversation with Weeks about an extension, but talks are slowed by the fact that Weeks is in the middle of selecting a new agent. Weeks' previous agent, Lon Babby, is the new President of Basketball Operations for the Phoenix Suns.

While Weeks and the Brewers may be negotiating, it still sounds like there's nothing happening on the Prince Fielder front. Doug Melvin told Jerry Crasnick "it takes two sides to make a deal."

The non-waiver trade deadline may have passed, but teams still have until the end of August to work out waiver trades. MLB Trade Rumors expects Randy Wolf, Trevor Hoffman, David Riske, Doug Davis, LaTroy Hawkins and Jody Gerut to clear waivers, but expects Dave Bush and Jim Edmonds to get claimed. Jon Heyman says Wolf, Bush and Hoffman could possibly be moved.

Speaking of Wolf, an MRI confirmed that there are no fractures in his left wrist, and he might be able to make his next scheduled start on Saturday (FanShot). Ken Macha raised the possibility that the team could use the off day to shuffle the rotation a bit and push Wolf back to Tuesday.

Even though they didn't make any moves, Jeff Sullivan of SBNation.com gave the Brewers 3 out of 5 obscure Cyrillic letters in his trade deadline review.

In the minors:

• The affiliates went 4-2 yesterday, and Taylor Green hit a walkoff home run in the 13th inning to propel Huntsville to a 5-3 victory over Carolina. You can read about that and more in today's Minor League Notes.
• The Brewers have agreed to terms with catcher Rafael Neda, their tenth round pick in the 2010 draft. With Neda in the fold the Brewers have signed ten of their first 12 selections, with only first round pick Dylan Covey and seventh rounder Joel Pierce remaining unsigned.
• Jim Callis of Baseball America has notes on three Brewer prospects: He says Mat Gamel "has a chance" to be a legit major league first baseman, third base or the outfield could be a "more realistic" position for Brett Lawrie, and Rafael Neda received a $100,000 signing bonus. 
• Maverick Lasker has been eliminated, but Zelous Wheeler moved on to the third round in MiLB.com's Moniker Madness tournament. Follow that link to cast your vote.
• Wisconsin lost to Clinton last night, with former Brewer farmhand Tom Wilhelmsen pitching seven shutout innings and picking up the win. The Appleton Post-Crescent has a profile of Wilhelmsen, who tended bar, backpacked and played in the Golden League in between stints in the minors, and is still only 26.
• Three Timber Rattlers are having a contest to see who can lose the most weight before Del Howell's wedding.

On power rankings:

• Craig Calcaterra has the Brewers holding steady at 21.
• ESPN has the Brewers holding steady at 21.
• MLB FanHouse dropped the Brewers from 12 to 25.
  

It was a pretty busy day around here yesterday, so you might have missed a couple of great posts that got buried in the shuffle. If you haven't read them yet, go back and take a look at TheJay's post on the Brewers' longest scoreless streaks, and Jordan's note on inactivity at the trade deadline.

Around baseball:

Braves: Placed infielder Martin Prado on the DL with a fractured pinky finger.
Cardinals: Signed pitcher Nate Robertson to a minor league deal.
Cubs: Placed pitcher Carlos Silva on the DL with an irregular heartbeat.
Rays: Placed pitcher Andy Sonnanstine on the DL with a hamstring strain.
Red Sox: Placed Mike Cameron on the DL with a torn abdominal muscle.
Tigers: Acquired outfielder Brandon Jones from the Pirates for a PTBNL.

When the Brewers unveiled their new organizational plan for pitching over the weekend, one of the factors they emphasized was height. It turns out that may not be a relevant factor: Jeremy Greenhouse of The Baseball Analysts wasn't able to prove any correlation between pitcher height and velocity.

On this day in 1997, Jeromy Burnitz tied an AL record by hitting a home run in his second consecutive pinch hit appearance. The Brewers lost to the Mariners anyway, 6-5.

On this day in 2001, the Brewers beat the Braves 3-2 on an 11th inning walkoff wild pitch by Jose Cabrera.

Happy birthday today to:

• Brevard County Manatee Peter Fatse, who turns 23.
• 2005-06 Brewer Justin Lehr, who turns 33.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going back to solving mysteries.

Drink up.