So I went to bed early again last night. As it turns out, it's a good thing I did because I had to get up at 4 to take care of a sick puppy. Speaking of sick puppies, Battlekow, even if I had no links today I would've posted anyway to push your post-game fanshot farther down the page. That's just unnecessary.

Win Expectancy Graph
BR Box Score

The Official Site is reporting that Ryan Braun felt better yesterday and expects to play this weekend against the Dodgers. This greatly decreases the chance that Laynce Nix will get a single at-bat during his brief stint as a fourth outfielder.

Nix was brought up when Russell Branyan was placed on the DL with an oblique strain. Apparently 19 plate appearances over the team's last 20 games (including nine total PA's in August) were too much for him to handle.

In-Between Hops has updated the Fielder HR chart and notes that Prince has once again hit his stride.

How dominant would Team USA be if they could still have Ben Sheets pitching for them? In The Official Site's preview for today's game, Sheets remembers his Olympic glory in Sydney.

Jeremy Jeffress experienced slightly less glory yesterday in Huntsville, giving up 2 runs on 2 hits and 3 walks in just 2 1/3 innings in his Southern League debut.

Bugs and Cranks has the Brewers 8th (up one spot) in their most recent power rankings.

Big League Stew further destroyed their own credibility by posting a list of the 25 most improbable big league success stories that includes several guys who have racked up less than a full week of big league action, but mysteriously misses the most obvious Brewer. What part of "last year I managed in the minors, this year I'm hitting .304/.337/.490 for a likely playoff team" isn't an improbable story?

On injuries:

Carlos Guillen has a pinched nerve in his lower back. The team is saying 2-3 days but it could be more.
Derek Jeter missed last night's game to recover from being overrated fouling a ball off his foot Tuesday.
Mike Lowell is on the DL with an injury to his right oblique.
A's CF Ryan Sweeney is on the DL with a sprained right thumb.
Tigers RP Joel Zumaya is back on the DL with a sore shoulder.

Jose de Jesus Ortiz says next week's road trip to Milwaukee and New York is make-or-break for the Astros season. Right now they're the fourth best team in their own division and BP Postseason odds has their shot at the playoffs at .4%, or about one in 250. How much more broken can you get?

Last night, though, they did manage to send 12 men to the plate in the sixth inning of their game with the Giants despite only picking up 3 official at bats. Four walks (1 intentional), three HBP, two sac flies and two singles led to a six-run inning.

Did any of us expect Zach Jackson to be a major league starting pitcher this season? He'll make his AL debut for the Indians tonight, filling the rotation spot vacated when Paul Byrd was sent to Boston.

Oh, and Keith Law is commenting and speculating on the financial issues facing Whole Foods.

Drink up.

From the JS: And everywhere else, for that matter.

Win Expectancy Graph
BR Box Score

I didn't get a chance to watch the game last night, but I could tell Rickie Weeks was struggling because my dad called twice to complain about him. After the game, Ned Yost said Weeks was rushing his throws. The Brew Town Beat took it to the next level and said he sucks at life. One thing is for sure: you know your defense is bad when people are seriously considering Ray Durham as a defensive replacement.

As noted in the Fanshots, Derrick Turnbow has a partial tear of his rotator cuff. Surgery may or may not be needed, but he's done for 2008, at any rate. In the grand scheme, this is likely good news for Turnbow, who can rehab, recover and attempt a fresh start in 2009, but it probably is the end of his time in a Brewer uniform.

ESPN has opened up the voting for the greatest Brewer of all time. I'm guessing the winner is more or less a foregone conclusion, but go check out the list of candidates anyway.

Robin Yount also made The Hardball Times' list of greatest slugging middle infielders of all time.

Today we have good, bad and bizarre power rankings:
THE GOOD: WhatifSports ranks the Brewers #1 by more than 2 full wins.
THE BAD: The Whisnant Rankings dropped the Brewers from 15th to 16th.
THE BIZARRE: Andrea Reiher of Bugs and Cranks ranks the Brewers 6th. At least I think the Alice Cooper quote represented the Brewers.

Batter's Box Interactive takes a look at players on every NL team with a shot at the Hall of Fame, and comes up with 5 Brewers: CC Sabathia, Ben Sheets, Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun...and Eric Gagne. Really? Eric Gagne?

Jonathan Mayo recently posted his notes from the AAA All-Star game, and says that Luis Pena created the biggest buzz with his three-digit fastball...and the home run Pawtucket's Chris Carter hit off of it.

On injuries:

Blue Jays IF Aaron Hill continues to miss time as he slowly recovers from a concussion.
Tim Hudson has been placed on the DL with ligament damage in his elbow.
Chipper Jones' hamstring has landed him back on the DL.
Mets P John Maine will have an MRI today after leaving last night's game with shoulder stiffness.
Jorge Posada will have shoulder surgery after all, and the time spent waiting to decide may mean he's not ready for spring training 2009.
Blue Jays RP Brian Tallet has been placed on the DL with a broken toe.
Michael Young fractured his right ring finger and should miss 5-7 days.

We'll never know how Dennis Sarfate could have fit into this year's Brewer bullpen, but he's sliding into the Orioles rotation on Wednesday.

Thanks to Dixieflatline, who mentioned this one in yesterday's comments: Over at the Hardball Times, John Walsh takes a look at the change-up, why it's not traditionally thrown inside, and how Ted Lilly has gotten away with throwing it inside anyway.

I know Greg Maddux has been around a long time and thrown a lot of pitches, but would you have guessed he's moved into tenth place on the all-time strikeout list? I would not have.

If you or someone in your family would like to win the opportunity to meet Derek Jeter and assess in person the possibility that he'll someday be baseball's least deserving Hall of Famer, weplay.com has a deal for you.

In the wake of last week's ugly minor league brawl in Peoria, the Dayton Dragons released the player whose hard slide started the altercation. The player who tried to throw a ball into the opposing team's dugout, missed and hit a fan faces felony charges. I hadn't heard anything about him being released, but he's not on Peoria's roster as of this morning.

Oh, and by the way, there's a Woot-off going on today, so if you were looking for an opportunity to go impulse buy electronics, here you go.

Drink up.

The rules governing All-Star Game roster construction have changed over the years, but one thing has been constant for quite some time: Every team must have at least one representative on the team.  Naturally, this makes for some undeserving selections now and then.

There are plenty of examples, but in recent years, my favorite has been the 2006 selection of Mark Redman.  (I've been fascinated with Redman for a while now--see this article from March 2007.)  In browsing through some ASG history yesterday, I came across another galling Royals pick--Jose Rosado, who made the team twice in four-and-a-half year career.  Seriously--he was an All-Star twice in the late '90s, and I barely remember the guy.

Of course, the Brewers weren't a good team for quite a long time, and one member of the team needed to be selected every year between the Molitor/Yount era and the Ben Sheets era.  In fact, the Brewers had only one All-Star thirteen years in a row, from 1989 to 2001, including such luminaries as Kevin Seitzer, Ricky Bones, and Fernando Vina.

Looking over this year's All-Star rosters, one can find a few picks of this sort, but they are few and far between.  I don't know what it says about parity--even bad teams ought to have one good player, right?--but it is encouraging that we'll see close to 18 half-innings of good pitching.

Here are a few of the 2008 All-Star selections that might raise eyebrows:

• Cristian Guzman.  He's having a career year, but even his empty .313 batting average leaves him with a 102 OPS+, far behind guys like Jose Reyes and JJ Hardy.  Actually, the Nats aren't that hard up--either John Lannan or Jon Rauch would've made for a credible selection.
• Brian Wilson.  This one baffles me.  At first, I thought, "Yeah, of course the Giants are sending a lame All-Star."  But of course, the Giants are also sending Tim Lincecum.  Wilson has 25 saves with a WHIP over 1.5.  He's racking up the numbers because the Giants offense never scores enough runs to amass anything bigger than a 3-run lead.
• George Sherrill.  He's the Wilson of the AL.  He's got 28 saves, which makes him the easy choice as a token team rep, but he's not even the best (or second-best) choice from the bullpen.  Brian Roberts probably deserved the spot more than Sherrill, too.
• Miguel Tejada.  This, like the Wilson pick, is just weird.  Lance Berkman is a no-questions-asked starter, so there's no need for Tejada on the team, and Miggy's performance certainly hasn't earned him the trip.  Tejada has been out-hit by Guzman (his OPS+ is 95), meaning that he's less deserving than someone who really isn't very deserving.  Jose Reyes should be ticked.  Heck, even Ryan Theriot should be ticked.  At least he's not a lying druggie with no range.
  

Such a list wouldn't be complete without Derek Jeter (740 OPS with crappy defense!) and Jason Varitek (299 OPS!), but the fans and the players (I presume) are to blame for those. 

In other words, the one-player-per-team rule didn't bite too hard this year.  Really, Guzman and Sherrill are the only guys who snuck in under that rule, and either one could've been replaced by a better option (if not a slam-dunk All-Star, in the case of the Nats) without wreaking too much havoc on the roster.

Before yesterday's game, Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke? posted the following:

Apparently they weren't.

Win Expectancy Graph
(BR Box Scores are having technical difficulties this morning)
BDD Recaps

Still more reaction to the firing that wasn't: Apparently Ned had a conversation with reporters yesterday that was somewhere between a "mild tirade/venting session" and "a furious Ned Yost," depending on who you ask. Two-Fisted Slopper also has a reaction that should not be missed.

As noted in the Fanshots, Seth McClung has been moved into the rotation, taking the place of Carlos Villanueva. I'm not arguing the decision, but it's proof that baseball can be a funny game sometimes. The Brewers opened camp with Ben Sheets, Jeff Suppan, Yovani Gallardo, Dave Bush, Carlos Villanueva, Manny Parra, Claudio Vargas, Chris Capuano, Zach Jackson and others on the roster, and have since signed Jeff Weaver. Less than a month ago there were those arguing that McClung shouldn't even be on the roster. Who would've guessed he'd start a game before the All Star Break?

We probably won't know more specifics until later today, but Eric Gagne left last night's game with an inability to throw strikes shoulder stiffness.

Jim Powell's most recent blog covers the "PNC Curse," Gagne, McClung, Dale Sveum, Ryan Braun, salmon and Braveheart.

Beyond the Box Score says the Brewers have played a much tougher schedule than their NL Central rivals, and should not be counted out.

The Brewers remained steady at 17 in the most recent Bugs and Cranks Power Rankings.

On injuries:

Gary Bennett hit his home run off Ben Sheets while suffering from plantar fasciitis, which has since landed him on the DL.
A's reliever Andrew Brown is on the DL following an emergency appendectomy.
Mets OF Ryan Chruch got his second concussion of 2008 last night sliding to break up a double play.
Derek Jeter is day to day after being hit by a pitch and being gorilla press slammed by a Bizarro Ray.
Twins IF Matt Tolbert had surgery to repair a torn ligament in his thumb and will miss 4-5 weeks.

This was the first thing today to make me laugh out loud: Hire Jim Essian is not impressed with Mark DeRosa's blog and has some fun with the comments it generates, like this one, for example:

Earlier this week, Jon Lester, a cancer survivor, pitched a no-hitter. On Friday, Doug Davis will become baseball's newest cancer survivor when he returns to the D-Backs rotation.

Mike Piazza announced his retirement yesterday. UmpBump is encouraging us all to enjoy, one last time, his unfortunate facial hair.

Oh, and here's a story from Paul Depodesta about scouts being top secret by reporting on players from porta potties.

Drink up.