First off, All-Star balloting ends at 11 PM CT tonight, so vote for Ryan Braun (and Jason Kendall!) if you are so inclined.

Wondering what Greg Vaughn is up to? The guy I sat behind in Vaughn's Valley in 1993 who screamed "HIT IT GONE, VAUGHN!" for the. entire. game. is, I'm sure. Check out a short video clip of him helping out with his son Cory's summer league team, the La Crosse Loggers (hat tip to Mass Haas at brewerfan.net). I didn't realize this, but Cory Vaughn plays at San Diego State, coached by Tony Gwynn. Kind of neat.

Mound Talk just put up their new Top 50 Prospects list, and four Brewers made the cut. LaPorta is #2 overall (up from 5), Mat Gamel is #13 (from 16), and Angel Salome and Jeremy Jeffress make their debuts on the list at #46 and #49, respectively.

It seems like everyone's talking about LaPorta and Gamel these days, and with good reason: According to Al, according to another guy, according to Peter Gammons, some other guy says that Huntsville is the best prospect team he's ever seen. Marc Hulet at FanGraphs joins the fun, even ripping off my comment about their defensive abilities.

The same Marc Hulet, this time at Baseball Analysts, is putting together an All-Star team made up of AAA players not considered among their team's top 20 prospects, and our own M. "Ike" DiFelice made the team. In a world where David Riske can earn $4M a year on the open market, how much is DiFelice not walking anyone (literally) out of the bullpen worth? What do you mean, no "in a world"?

In other minor league news, catcher Mike Roberts, the Brewers' 38th-round pick out of VMI in the draft last month, had a hell of a professional debut for Helena, hitting a three-run homer on the first pitch he saw, and adding a two-run double and two runs later (listen to the audio). You can read the interview I did with him here.

Finally, I'm breaking the moratorium on linking to the JS for these gems:

How hot is J.J. Hardy?

and

Have I mentioned lately how hot Hardy is?

I'm sure he'd warm up with you anytime, Tom.

Last night was the best against the best...now it's the worst against the worst.  "Worst" comes in different flavors though.  A.J. Burnett has been ok this year, striking out a batter an inning to go with his 4.90 ERA.  Dave Bush has been considerably less ok.

The Brewers will go for the sweep this afternoon with a healthy David Riske on board.  Game time is 1:05 CT, and here's the BR Game Preview.

Go Brewers!

Last night's game was fun.  I liked this, and I also liked this.

• BR Box Score
• FanGraphs Win Probability Chart

Yesterday was better for the NL--the senior circuit won 6 of 14 interleague matchups.  For the second day in a row, though, the Brewers were the only Central team to win.  That moves us 3 back of the Cards and 6.5 back of the Cubs.

Speaking of the Cubs, you may have heard that Carlos Zambrano left with some kind of injury last night.  Jim Edmonds left too.  No word yet on what's going on with Z, but we do know he's getting an MRI.

David Riske will rejoin the team for the finale today.  He was in Milwaukee yesterday, but having pitched an inning in Nashville on Tuesday, the club decided not to activate him until today.

I haven't seen any hints about who will go to make room, but I looked up the Brewers relief stats for the last 14 days.  DiFelice has thrown the most innings out of the pen, with a 2.70 ERA and a 8/0 K/BB ratio.  Dillard has thrown the fewest (2 innings).  Julian Tavarez has a 13.50 ERA in 4 frames in that stretch.  Not that we need an extra arm, but as I said yesterday, I wouldn't be surprised if Iribarren goes back down and we end up with 13 pitchers.

Russell Branyan is very good against righties.  Bill Hall is very good against lefties.  Neither of them is very good against same-side pitchers.  Please remember this if you are at a game and are tempted to boo when Hall pinch-hits for Branyan with a lefty on the mound and no one warming in the bullpen.

Battlekow fanshotted it, but I figured it deserved a spot in the Cup as well: This summer, you'll be drinking Robinade Old School Lemonade.  So this is why Robin Yount didn't want to be on the coaching staff anymore.

Richie Sexson has been a disaster for the Mariners, but I didn't think it would come to this: The Mariners may just release him.  That would be the most serious condemnation of Bavasi's tenure--I don't have time to track down a link, but I believe that either Will Carroll or Ken Rosenthal reported last July that someone claimed Sexson off of waivers, meaning that the Mariners could have just dumped his contract for nothing.  Speaking of Bavasi, it's worth a few minutes to listen to Dan Szymborski's audio tribute.

Finally, here's the last installment of Geoff Young's interview with Sandy Alderson.

Day game today, so see you back here around 1 CT.

Yesterday, all 30 teams in baseball were in action.  Only three NL teams won a game, and one of those, the Dodgers, beat the Reds.  The Brewers and Rockies were the only NL teams to win an interleague matchup.

• BR Box Score
• FanGraphs Win Probability Chart

With all those home runs last night, the Brewers didn't have to run very fast during the game.  This guy needed to run faster, though.

All you girls--except for Kirbir, who obviously wouldn't know a warm-up partner if one fell out of the sky into her bed--should be sure to watch the game tonight.  Hardy is healthy, and Yost plans to put him back in the lineup.

Speaking of coming back: David Riske dominated in Triple-A last night, and more importantly, he felt good.  He may not need another rehab, in which case the brass will have to figure out who goes.

I suppose there are four choices to get the axe: Mike Mark Mike Mark Mike Mark DiFelice, Tim Dillard, Julian Tavarez, and Hernan Iribarren.  Given how well DiFelice and Dillard have pitched, and that Taverez is a crusty veteran, I wouldn't be surprised to see Ned go for 13 pitchers.  Rambling Al notes that DiFelice has continued his amazing K/BB ways in the big leagues.

Whether you like it or not, I'm going to keep monitoring the available starting pitching.  (Sorry Seth, I'm sipping the kool-aid, but I'm not chugging it yet.)  Freddy Garcia has been throwing for scouts, and he could be back before September.

TheJay, apparently, is freelancing at Baseball Prospectus under the nom de recondite of "Jim Baker."  Baker takes the case of Robinson Cancel (nine years between major league appearances) and finds the players with even longer gaps between spells in the bigs.  Unsurprisingly, World War II shows up quite a bit.

If you thought the article about Kendall needing your All-Star support was a little silly, you should see what Gaslamp Ball has to say about a similar piece concerning Adrian Gonzalez.  Gonzalez has been one of the best players in baseball this year, and has stayed firmly under the radar in San Diego.  But no matter how good, I suspect he's not going to overtake Berkman, Pujols, D-Lee, and Fielder.

Here's part two of Geoff Young's interview with Sandy Alderson.

Two managers were fined by Major League Baseball for "failing to comply with pace of game regulations."  Word on the street (well, ok, word from my cat) is that Ryan Braun is next--if he doesn't start making outs more often, MLB will have to crack down on the extra time he adds to Brewers games.

Another day, another 500 blog entries.  Let's get to it.

• BR Box Score
• FanGraphs Win Probability Chart

Much to my chagrin, Ned put the lineup back in the news yesterday.  Corey Hart led off, Hardy hit second, and Bill Hall played second.  I like it.  As I've noted, I don't care very much about lineup optimization, especially relative to how much it gets discussed, but what I do like is seeing Ned think outside the conventional wisdom box.  I wouldn't have guessed that Hall would see time at second with Weeks out, but I'm glad.

David Riske is feeling better, and could be just days away from a rehab assignment. 

In-Between Hops notes the Brewers road woes, but also points out the three NL teams who have a bigger home/road differential.  One of those is the Cubs, and while you'd think there'd be some Milwaukee-style hand-wringing over it in the Chicago press, Hire Jim Essian looks at the flipside: The Cubs are dominating at Wrigley.

Between the Green Pillars looks at the Brewers' Pythagorean record and doesn't see much reason for hope.

Redlegs Rundown notes that the NL Central is looking pretty good this year.  We were talking about this in a comments thread several days ago, but it's worth seeing again.  So far this year, it's the NL West that deserves a demotion to the Pacific Coast League.  (The Mariners, on the other hand, should be send to extended spring training.)

In former Brewers news: Joe Thatcher is back with the Padres, and Raul Casanova is once again the odd man out with the Mets.

TheJay generates a list of the pitchers who have appeared in the most games without registering a plate appearance.  Our buddy Brian Shouse is on the list, and it is far from the first time I've wanted to see him take his hacks.

Here's an interesting draft project: MLB Trade Rumors polled its readers immediately after each of the first 30 picks in the draft to see how much the community liked the pick.  Pedro Alvarez met with the approval of nearly 90% of readres, while Jason Castro was under 15%.  Brett Lawrie is right in the middle of the pack at 62%. 

Check back later today--I believe we've got another draftee interview on the way, and of course the Brewers look to solve their Houston problem again tonight at 7:05 CT.

Here's a tradition I'd like to see more of.

Win Expectancy Graph
BR Box Score
BDD Recaps

You can either stop holding your breath, or prepare to hold it for 15 more days: the Brewers' deadline to make a decision on Jeff Weaver has been extended to June 15.

Apparently David Riske has no new structural damage, but is taking longer than expected to recover. That's bad news all around. Of course, Salomon Torres is pretty excited about getting to close games.

So last night the Brewers got 3 hits and won. That's a stark contrast from August 24, 2002, when they got 20 hits and lost, tying the tenth highest hit total in a nine inning loss of all time. Recondite Baseball has the full list at that link. Or, you could stay here and watch me struggle with bad segues and awkward linking.

In the fanposts yesterday, Greg8370 mentioned a report that the Brewers might be looking to move their AA team to the Eastern League, and had been mentioned as a candidate to play home games in Norwich, CT. After a brief search this morning, I found the column mentioning it. Sounds like the Defenders are having some real problems with the Giants organization, mainly tied to the fact that the Giants don't like the ballpark dimensions, and also don't like playing 30-degree home games. I think I'd stick with Huntsville. I emailed the reporter, though, to see where he got the rumor from.

UPDATE: I've been in touch with Joe Perez, the writer from the Norwich Bulletin. You can see our conversation here .

So yesterday afternoon I had a moment to kill, and I got an email from the Brewers. They really wanted me to vote (25 times) to get some Brewers in the starting lineup of the All-Star Game. They've also posted a story about how close Braun is to only being 4 spots back of the leaders. So I sat down with the stats, picked out the best candidate at each position...and didn't vote for a single Brewer. Here's the ballot I clicked and reclicked and submitted 25 times:

AL:
C: Joe Mauer
1B: Kevin Youkilis
2B: Ian Kinsler
3B: Joe Crede
SS: Michael Young
OF: Milton Bradley
OF: Josh Hamilton
OF: Magglio Ordonez
DH: David Ortiz

NL:
C: Brian McCann
1B: Lance Berkman
2B: Dan Uggla
3B: Chipper Jones
SS: Hanley Ramirez
OF: Nate McLouth
OF: Pat Burrell
OF: Adam Dunn

On injuries:

Pirates P Zach Duke will get an extra day before his next start to allow a blister to heal.
Carlos Guillen is battling some hemorrhoids his manager seems a little too eager to talk about.
Marlins P Scott Olsen still isn't getting velocity back after an exceptionally long outing against the Brewers weeks ago.
Troy Percival collapsed falling off the mound last night and has a tight hamstring. Grant Balfour may be called up in his place.
A's OF Ryan Sweeney had to be taken to the hospital for X-rays after fouling a ball off his foot.
Frank Thomas may be headed to the DL after an MRI on his strained right quad revealed major inflammation.
Blue Jays C Gregg Zaun has been placed on the DL with inflammation in his elbow.

Does the price include my computer and rent for mom's basement? The Juiced Sports Blog ranks the 100 most valuable sports blogs.

It didn't crack the top 100, but I think this post is pretty valuable: The Padres recently acquired Cha Seung Baek, and Paul DePodesta discusses the move.

Oh, and a hydrochloric acid spill is a pretty good reason to suspend a game.

Drink up.

Here's the game stuff, let's get past it so I can get to breaking news:

Win Expectancy Graph
BR Box Score
BDD Recaps

Now, this morning's big news: According to the JS blog, the Brewers are about to announce they've signed Ryan Braun to the longest and largest contract in team history. It's mostly speculation at this point, but a news conference is scheduled for 10 am to make it official.

It turns out David Riske hyperextended his elbow in last night's game. He's day-to-day.

Greener on the Other Side has crunched the numbers and thinks Prince Fielder and Rickie Weeks' stats will improve in the coming weeks.

On injuries:

Red Sox P Clay Buchholz is headed to the DL with a broken nail. Seriously.
Pirates C Ryan Doumit has been placed on the DL with a broken thumb.
Mets P Scott Schoeneweis spent the overnight hours Wednesday in the hospital with what turned out to be the flu.
Cubs PH/OF Daryle Ward may have a herniated disc in his back.

The baseball community as a whole is still trying to figure out exactly what happened to Andruw Jones, but Sons of Steve Garvey has uncovered a restraining order that may have something to do with it.

Yadier Molina will not be suspended for his tirade and his decision to strip out of his catcher's gear and leave it littered all over the field over the weekend. That's an interesting precedent for MLB to set.

Oh, and The Ultimate Warrior has a Twitter account.

That's all for today. Drink up.