I read 246 baseball blogs and websites this morning, and all I got was this lousy collection of links.

Win Expectancy Graph
BR Box Score

So apparently, for seven innings last night, the game wasn't big enough for the Cardinals. A home win and moving up in the Wild Card standings. Then Carlos Villanueva wiggled off the hook and got excited. Does anyone really believe that's what "woke up" the Cardinals? Tom H., Jim Powell and Big League Stew seem to think so. Defensive Indifference says the Brewers went 10-5 against the Cards this season because they waited until the final game to wake Pujols up.

Maybe before next season, we can all purchase t-shirts designed specifically for untucking so we can further perpetuate this inconceivable slight to all great things in the history of baseball and mankind. Or the people who complain about such things will get a life.

Moving on. Jon Heyman weighs in on how teams will handle players with options for next season. He predicts the Brewers will exercise their option on Mike Cameron. The fact that he's hitting .431/.491/.824 over his last 14 games has moved that option from a question mark to a lock.

Mat Gamel hit his first AAA home run yesterday, but amazingly enough, it wasn't the game's biggest story: Tony Gwynn Jr. hit a walk-off home run to win it.

The Brewers held steady at 7th in the most recent Bugs and Cranks power rankings.

Finally, Viva Cerveceros wrote a touching coming-of-age tale about friendship, sacrifice...and bobbleheads.

On injuries:

Mets IF Ramon Castro has been placed on the DL with a quad injury.
Josh Hamilton was scratched from Wednesday's lineup with an abscessed tooth that will require a root canal.

Today, once again, we have reason to rejoice in the fact that the Brewers didn't draft a Scott Boras client in the first round. Hyzdu Headquarters has a pretty good summary of the situation involving the Pirates and their first round pick, Pedro Alvarez, and his agent, (who else?) Scott Boras. Alvarez has yet to report to the Pirates, and Boras is claiming his contract was approved too late to be valid. Under baseball's rules, this should mean Alvarez didn't sign and sits out a year...but Boras is trying to wiggle into getting the Pirates to offer more money. Baseball Digest Daily has a message for Pedro Alvarez, but I think the broader message needs to be sent out to every prospective draftee for 2009: If you want to play baseball, find a different agent.

Four former Brewers are on the move, all covered within this link:

• The Braves signed Elmer Dessens.
• The Orioles activated Greg Aquino off the DL yesterday and designated him for assignment.
• The Mets recalled Robinson Cancel and Nelson Figueroa.

Oh, and the Rays won their 80th game last night, in front of a home crowd of 12,678.

Drink up.

I've got a lot of tabs open right now, which means there are a lot of links to get to.  Let's get at it.

• FanGraphs Win Probability graph
• BR Box Score
• BDD Daily Recaps
• BP Postseason Odds: 84 wins, 26% shot at the playoffs.

The big news this morning is that it's official, Turnbow is DFA'd and Dillon is back.  It's disappointing that D-Bow hasn't been able to turn it around, but I do think it's well past time we cut our losses here.  One interesting thought that has been popping up a little bit lately is that Melvin is too slow to cut the cord on his reclamation projects--Podsednik is a similar case that comes to mind.  Branch Rickey was famous for saying it's better to trade a player a year too early than a year too late, and while you get bit occasionally for making that mistake, it's better than being saddled with someone as ineffective as D-Bow is right now.

A few writers at The Hardball Times ganged up to write a massive profile of Ben Sheets, including pitch f/x data, mechanics analysis, and injury commentary.

The Junkball Blues looks at how the Crew has done against closers.  It's interesting work, but he draws the wrong conclusions.  In 13 closer appearances, we've been shut out 7 times and have scored 6 times.  That's astonishingly good, to my eyes.  Would you happy if your team's closer gave up a run or more every other appearance?  That's essentially what we're turning opposition closers into.

Some injury news:

• Troy Tulowitzki will be out for a month, maybe two.
• Phil Hughes has a broken rib , and will probably be out for at least two months.
• Jimmy Rollins won't be back as scheduled, and there's no clear timetable for when he will be.

I'm not going to wade very far into the muck of the Bissinger/Costas/Leitch controversy, but I will point you to this great piece by Joe Posnanski, who straddles the blogger/reporter divide quite gracefully.  And I'll say one more thing.  Bissinger may have been honing his craft for 40 years, but his LaRussa book, Three Nights In August, was truly dreadful.  Possibly the worst baseball book I have ever read.  There is nothing more insulting than a quasi-analytical hagiography about an overrated, self-aggrandizing figure like TLR.

A couple of ex-Brewers notes.  Richie Sexson hit his 300th career home run, and Greg Aquino cleared waivers (big surprise--his ERA is roughly the same as Turnbow's) and is headed to Norfolk.  I don't remember seeing this in an earlier Mug, but Brady Clark is also in AAA--he talked about retiring, but has opted to spend some quality time with Claudio Vargas in New Orleans.

I think the Nationals Enquirer had too much to drink.  Careful kids: drinking and photoshopping don't mix.

Derrick Goold has a nice article about Rick Ankiel and Pat Jordan's writing about him.  When we played the Cards recently, I was thinking about the stories in baseball today that we'd still be talking about 40 or 50 years from now, and Ankiel is definitely one of them.

It's amazing how rarely I agree with Richard Justice.  A couple of days ago, he decided to rip on the Astros FO for choosing Max Sapp, a high school catcher, in the first round of the 2006 draft.  Amazingly, he uses the phrase, "they blew it" to describe the results of a draft pick made two years ago.  True, Sapp is struggling in A ball, but dude, he's two years out of high school.  He's younger than a lot of the guys who will be drafted this year.  And anyway, first-round picks fizzle sometimes.  We're doing just fine without the services of Jeremy Jeffress, who we chose well before the Astros picked Sapp.

Finally, a happy story.  John Wilson is a 53-year-old senior at Penn State Altoona, and a key part of their baseball program.  He's friends with Dusty Baker, too, though I guess I can forgive him for that.

Drink up, but don't drink it too fast.  This cup runneth over!

So, don't get me wrong, I'm excited for a win, but 3:40 for a nine-inning game? There's a lot of stuff I could've done in that time.

Win Expectancy Graph
BR Box Score
BDD Recaps
BP Postseason Odds: 85.2 wins and a 22.9% shot at the Central.

Today's interesting side note from BP Odds: A month into the season, BP has the Rays as the most likely playoff team from the AL East, at 42%. The Yankees and Red Sox are both down in the 30's.

Of course, last night's win was largely sparked by the return of Mike Cameron. The JS Blog has quotes from him afterwards.

After the game, Sheets also reported no pain, so hopefully last night was just a rough first day back and he'll be back to normal for the next one.

I have yet to see or hear a report on the condition of umpire Jerry Crawford, who left last night's game early. Most media outlets are just saying he wasn't feeling well, but Baseball Musings says he was complaining of chest pains.

There's no respectful way to transition from a story about chest pain to a story about Derrick Turnbow. There just isn't.

The Brewers are #12 in the latest Bugs and Cranks Power Rankings.

On Injuries:

Nats closer Chad Cordero is headed to the DL with a strained muscle in his shoulder.
Alex Rodriguez's quad injury finally landed him on the DL.
John Smoltz, currently on the DL, is contemplating making the unprecedented move from starter to closer to starter and back to the bullpen again.

If you go out for a walk today, try not to trip over a former Brewer looking for work: Chad Moeller, recently DFA'd by the Yankees, could join Raul Casanova on the Mets. The Orioles DFA'd Greg Aquino yesterday. And Ray King refused to report to AAA and has been released.

It's an annual ritual of spring: Ken Rosenthal seems to think Adam Dunn and Ken Griffey could be on the move soon. I'd be more likely to believe it if we didn't have this conversation every spring, and if the Reds hadn't just signed Cordero and Dusty Baker to win now. But, just like Bronson Arroyo, trade rumors swim in circles.

That's all I've got for today. As always, feel free to leave a comment if you have something to include in a future Mug. Drink up.