Monday's Frosty Mug

Some things to read while taking yourself out.

The Brewers picked up another win yesterday to improve to 13-6 at home but nearly fell victim to the curse of "one bad inning." Zack Greinke had faced the minimum through four frames but needed 47 pitches to complete the fifth as five Pirate runs crossed the plate, trimming a 6-0 Brewer lead to 6-5. Ron Roenicke said the Brewers considered the possibility that Greinke might have been tipping his pitches during his rough inning. 

It was a pretty good homestand for a lot of Brewers but Jonathan Lucroy probably had the best week, hitting .500/.526/1.000 with five extra base hits in five games. Nick Petakas of The Brewers Bar is starting the campaign to get Lucroy to the All Star Game.

Other notes from the field:

• Ryan Braun and Casey McGehee's first inning home runs yesterday were the fourth time two Brewers have homered in an inning this season. When Jonathan Lucroy tacked one on later, it was the seventh time they've had three long balls in a game in 2011.
• You Can't Predict Baseball notes that the Pirates went 5-for-8 with runners in scoring position yesterday while the Brewers went 2-for-11.
• Here's a transcript of Ron Roenicke's postgame comments.
• Ryan Braun, Jonathan Lucroy and Marco Estrada are leading FanGraphs' Star of the Game voting.
• 37,059 paid to see yesterday's game, a day after 42,422 showed up for Saturday's contest. It was the Brewers' third sellout of the season.
• Greinke has some distant relatives in Wisconsin, and they were in attendance yesterday.
• Brandon Boggs hit his second Brewer home run on Saturday and rounded the bases in 17.11 seconds, the fastest trot of the day.
• The italian sausage won Sunday's sausage race, and the hot dog won on Saturday. I think the hot dog also won on Friday, but I'm not sure.
• Friday night's game featured a minor bench-clearing incident after Rickie Weeks and Ronny Cedeno collided on a rundown between second and third base. No punches were thrown, but Todd Rosiak notes that it was Ron Roenicke's first such incident as manager.
• Pirates reliever Jose Ascanio pitched a scoreless inning on Friday in his first major league game since undergoing shoulder surgery in 2009.
• All six Great Lakes teams won on Friday for just the 13th time since 2000.

Meanwhile, here's a note on what didn't happen yesterday: Brewer batters were not hit by a pitch for the 15th consecutive game, and Plunk Everyone notes that it's their longest streak since 1996.

Tim Dillard also didn't make his 2011 debut. He was called up on Saturday when Brandon Kintzler's sore triceps finally forced him to go on the DL (FanShot).Adam McCalvy says Dillard is the most likable human being he's ever met. Apparently he also had no idea the promotion was coming.

I mentioned this in Friday's game thread, but I'll bring it up again: After a weekend of watching and hearing Clint Hurdle, I'm happy he's not managing the Brewers and even more excited to have him at the helm of a division opponent. Here's what he told Rob Biertempfel of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review about statistics:

"Playing it by the book covers your backside," Hurdle said. "But I decided early on I didn’t want to look back and say, ‘That stat sheet got me.’ The scouting report is important, but I do think that sometimes we get too analytical."

...

"Something new always pops up," Hurdle said. "The challenge I have, looking at all those obscure numbers, is those numbers were all crunched with no human emotion involved."

Looking forward, the Brewers are in Los Angeles this morning getting ready to open a quick two game series against the Dodgers tonight. Joey Nowak of MLB.com has the preview.

Zach Braddock could rejoin the team in LA today, but at this point the decision has not been announced. A whirlwind West Coast trip might not be the best thing for a guy with a sleep disorder.

Zack Greinke's April and May have opened a fair number of eyes to the pitfalls of potentially dangerous offseason activities. Hangwith'em Rach has a look at the Brewers most likely to be injured by their hobbies.

Speaking of Greinke, he's on the road with the team this week but will fly home early to get a good night's sleep before Friday's start against the Rockies. Since the final game of the trip is a 9 pm Thursday start in San Diego, the rest of the team might not get back to Milwaukee until after sunrise Friday morning.

By the way, allowing San Diego to schedule getaway-day night games is absolutely asinine. This "four day, two city" trip would be bad enough without having to deal with four straight 9 pm starts.

Elsewhere in stupid things:

• First base ump Brian O'Nora demonstrated a lack of professionalism by staring down Rickie Weeks after calling him out on a check swing yesterday. I screenshotted it, in case you missed it.
• Because Fox has decided to start televising night games instead of afternoon games on Saturdays and no other games can be televised during their window, Saturday's Brewers-Rockies game will not be on TV.
• Hangwith'em Rach documented her issues attempting to explain blackout policies to the people at DirecTV who are supposed to understand them.

Yovani Gallardo will pitch the first game of the Padres series on Wednesday. Over the weekend he won our Brewer of the Week voting for the second time this season.

Even with last week's impressive home showing, the Brewers are still one of baseball's least productive offenses in May. Baseball In-Depth notes that the Brewers were fifth in OPS in April and 25th in May, making them one of seven teams to drop ten spots or more.

In the minors:

• The affiliates went 1-4 yesterday, with Nashville picking up the only win. You can read about that and more in today's Minor League Notes.
• Wisconsin's loss snapped a seven game winning streak, which was their longest since 2003.
• In a draft note, Jim Callis of Baseball America says the Brewers are "hot & heavy" for lefthanded Georgia high school outfielder Larry Greene.
• Adam McCalvy reports that the Brewers have released pitcher Alex Periard and outfielder Demetrius McKelvie. Neither had played in the organization in 2011.

If you'd like more Brewer content this morning but you're sick of reading, Todd Rosiak of the JS has a video blog discussing Sunday's win and this week's road trip.

If you missed it over the weekend, you really should go back and read sicklebeat's Brief Story of Redemption. I won't spoil the ending, but I gained a fair amount of respect for Doug Melvin reading it.

Around baseball:

Braves: Placed pitcher Brandon Beachy on the DL with an oblique injury.
Dodgers: Placed reliever Blake Hawksworth on the DL with a groin strain.
Mariners: Claimed pitcher Jeff Gray off waivers from the White Sox.
Nationals: Designated pitcher Brian Broderick for assignment.
Padres: Pitcher Randy Flores has opted out of his minor league contract and is now a free agent.
Pirates: Released pitcher Scott Olsen.
Rangers: Placed outfielder Julio Borbon on the DL with a hamstring injury.
Tigers: Placed outfielder Magglio Ordonez on the DL with an ankle injury.
Twins: Placed reliever Jose Mijares on the DL with an elbow injury and designated catcher Steve Holm for assignment.

This weekend's sweep brought the Brewers back to third place and within four games of the now division leading Reds, who swept the Cardinals over the weekend. You know that and much more if you've read this morning's edition of Around the NL Central.

Today in former Brewers:

• Lorenzo Cain hit for the cycle with a grand slam for AAA Omaha on Saturday.
• Carlos Lee picked up his 2000th hit on Saturday. Brian McTaggart noted that 275 of those hits came as a Brewer.
• Todd Coffey's weekend wasn't as good. He was hit above his elbow by a line drive on Sunday. X-rays came back negative.
• Doug Davis pitched five innings and allowed three runs (one earned) on four hits, walking one and striking out six in his Cubs debut on Saturday. They went on to lose the game 3-0.
• John Sickels of Minor League Ball notes that Brett Lawrie and Jake Odorizzi would have been eligible for the 2011 draft if they'd gone to college instead of signing with the Brewers.
• Keith Law is betting Lawrie will be called up to the majors before June.
• J-Doug of Beyond the Box Score has a look at retired uniform numbers around the NL Central.
• Rollie Fingers and Nashville pitching coach Rich Gale are matching up in the first round of NotGraphs' Baseball Card Tourney.
• The B-Ref Blog has a list of players who have made at least 502 plate appearances in a season with a BABIP over .400, and Jose Hernandez's 2003 season is on it. That's better known as the season where he struck out 188 times.
• Greg Vaughn, Jim Edmonds and Ben Oglivie made B-Ref's list of players who hit 40 home runs in a season after age 30 despite never doing it before.

We're halfway through May and offense still hasn't picked up in 2011. Cybermetrics notes that the NL is hitting just .248/.320./.379 in the month.

One of the best things about my daily search for Mug content is the random stuff I learn but otherwise never would have known. Gaslamp Ball, for example, has a post today on PETA's "Boycott PETCO" brick outside PETCO Park. I also would not have known that the Rays have baseball's first eunuch mascot.

Over the winter I mentioned the Indians "Snow Days" promotion, where they turned their park into a giant winter playground, and wondered why more teams don't do something similar. Here's why: The team ended up having to re-sod the entire outfield, and now it doesn't drain as well. The Indians were rained out at home twice this weekend.

Today in baseball economics: The Mets are just now starting to make payments on over $30 million owed to Bobby Bonilla because of deferred salary from 1999. It would've cost them $5.9 million to pay him off then, but they deferred it at 8% annual interest instead.

Thankfully the Brewers aren't on this list: Jason Brannon of SBNation.com has visual evidence of the 20 ugliest caps licensed by Major League Baseball.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to return Jon Miller's pants.

Drink up.