Some things to read while establishing a baseline.
The Brewers jumped out to a 6-1 lead early last night, but still made things interesting and emerged with a 7-6 victory. Nicole has the recap, if you missed it.
The game featured a unusual late inning moment as an Aramis Ramirez fly ball down the left field line was originally called a foul ball, but was changed to a home run following a review of the replay for the first time in Miller Park history. Larry Granillo reports that, with the review, Ramirez's home run trot lasted three minutes and 43 seconds.
Last night's late-inning drama overshadowed another solid outing for Randy Wolf, who pitched into the seventh inning and only missed out on a quality start when Kameron Loe allowed a three run home run to drive home an inherited runner. The Brewer bullpen has blown saves in each of Randy Wolf's last three starts, four of five and five of eight.
With that said, Wolf did allow one of the longest homers you'll ever see at Miller Park: Edwin Encarnacion's solo shot off Bernie Brewer's slide in left field. The Brewers estimated the distance of the blast at 463 feet, bit Hit Tracker Online only has it at 440. By that measure it's only the fifth longest homer hit in the park this season.
Corey Hart went 1-for-4 last night and made several nice plays at first base. Tom Haudricourt says the Brewers "need to make Corey Hart their 1B right now and quit fooling around."
Other notes from the field:
- Ryan Braun had a hit last night to extend his streak to 13 games overall (the longest by a Brewer this season) and 23 in interleague games, the eighth longest in major league history.
- The Blue Jays haven't won a game in Milwaukee since 1996, when they beat the Brewers at County Stadium. Last night's loss dropped them to 0-4 at Miller Park.
- Nicole has a transcript of Ron Roenicke's postgame comments.
- Francisco Rodriguez pitched a scoreless eighth last night, and Howie Magner wrote a haiku about it.
- The Italian won the sausage race.
- Bill Schroeder announced during the game that he's on Twitter at @BrewersFanCamp.
The Brewers and Blue Jays continue their series tonight, but under some weird circumstances. Shaun Marcum has been scratched from tonight's scheduled start with elbow tightness (FanShot) and the Brewers have acknowledged they're going to call someone up from the minors, but are refusing to say who it's going to be. Here's what Ron Roenicke told Adam McCalvy about it:
"We’ll have somebody here, we’ll make a move [Tuesday]to be able to do that," said manager Ron Roenicke, who indicated he might not make the announcement official until the team takes the field for batting practice.
He’s already informed the Blue Jays that someone is coming up, and gave some details without giving a name.
"I told [manager John Farrell] basically about him, whether he’s right-handed, left-handed," Roenicke said. "Just to give him a heads up."
Tyler Thornburg appears to be the best option to pitch tonight. He's on nine days' rest (he skipped a turn in Huntsville's rotation due to suspension) and is scheduled to pitch in the Southern League All Star Game tonight before being promoted to AAA. The other option is recent minor league free agent signee Claudio Vargas, who is scheduled to start tonight for Nashville.
Meanwhile, the Blue Jays have announced that Jesse Chavez will be coming up from AAA Las Vegas to pitch tonight. Chavez has a 3.84 ERA with over eight strikeouts and under two walks per nine innings in the minors this season, and made one start for the Jays earlier this season. Greg Zeck has the MLB.com preview.
Ryan Braun only had one hit last night, but still scored two runs and is hitting .314/.391/.612 over 63 games this season. He and Zack Greinke are the Brewers represented on Baseball Reflections' All Star team.
In the minors:
- It was a relatively quiet night on the farm last night, but the affiliates that were in action went 0-2. Raul Mondesi Jr. had two hits and drove in a pair of runs in his US professional debut, though, as Helena lost 6-4 to Great Falls. You can read about that and more in today's Minor League Notes.
- Wisconsin pitchers Drew Gagnon and Mark Williams made Seedlings to Stars' Midwest League All Star team.
- Mark McCarter of the Huntsville Times has a story on Stars second baseman Scooter Gennett. (h/t @Mass_Haas)
Back in Milwaukee, it's Green Week at Miller Park and the Chef's Table is celebrating by serving a pork belly BLT. John and Cait reviewed the new entree and gave it four out of five sausages.
Meanwhile, Miller Park was pretty thoroughly disrespected and given a 24 seed in ESPN's bracket to pick baseball's best park. Follow that link to vote and help them beat out Angel Stadium in the first round.
In power rankings:
- Jonah Keri of Grantland has the Brewers 23rd, down one spot. (h/t Bucs Dugout)
- ESPN also has them 23rd, down one spot.
- Phil Rogers of the Chicago Tribune has them 25th, down three spots.
If you'd like more Brewer coverage today but you're sick of reading, I've got a couple of options for you:
- I'll be making my weekly appearance on The Watercooler with Jimmie Kaska on Sports Radio 1400 in Eau Claire at 5:15 today.
- From there, I'll be heading directly over to The Sports Den with Downtown Ollie Burrows on SportsFan 100.5 in Wausau at 5:30.
Finally, congratulations are due out this morning to Fiesta, yesterday's winner in our SB Nation Pick 6 contest. Here's the full leaderboard:
Rank | Player | Points |
---|---|---|
1 | Fiesta | 98.6 |
2 | gobrew23 | 88.3 |
3 | texwestern | 82.0 |
4 | aaronetc | 76.1 |
5 | weisomatic. | 73.5 |
6 | Kiev 'n Rice | 72.9 |
7 | MadtownTim | 72.0 |
8 | PCLOUSE7 | 69.9 |
9 | Jahiegel | 68.7 |
10 | infinityera | 68.2 |
Today's first game starts at 6:05, so there's still plenty of time to make your picks for today.
Around baseball:
Angels: Designated pitcher David Pauley for assignment.
Blue Jays: Signed pitcher Shawn Hill to a minor league deal.
Braves: Released pitcher Livan Hernandez.
Cubs: Placed pitcher Ryan Dempster on the DL with lat tightness.
Tigers: First baseman Brad Eldred has left his minor league team and is reportedly headed to Japan.
You already know about Dempster and much more if you've read this morning's edition of Around the NL Central.
Sometimes crime does not pay. Before yesterday's game Aaron Gleeman noted that eight teams had stolen at least 50 bases in 2012, but only one of them was in the top half of baseball in run scoring.
Today in baseball economics: The White Sox are in first place in the AL Central but still near the bottom of all of baseball in attendance, and they've more or less confirmed that their lack of fan interest may prevent them from adding payroll at the trade deadline.
If you've ever wondered about the concept of "rise" on a fastball, this is a pretty cool example of what it looks like: Carson Cistulli of FanGraphs has a couple of gifs showing how backspin can lead to a pitch not falling like it seems like it should.
In former Brewers: Robert J. Baumann of NotGraphs recently uncovered a collection of Brewer Starting Lineup figurines from 1988 and 1989.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to do one thing better.
Drink up.