Now I know why they call them the Dog Days of Summer. Yesterday: 95 degrees, heat index over 110. Today's forecast: 96, heat index over 110. If it stays like this I might die, but Gorman can't wait to go outside and lay in the driveway. (UPDATE: New pics of Gorman are up.)

Oh yeah, and the Brewers took 2 of 3 on the road.

Friday's Win Expectancy Graph
Friday's BR Box Score

Saturday's Win Expectancy Graph
Saturday's BR Box Score

Sunday's Win Expectancy Graph
Sunday's BR Box Score

Well, the road winning streak is over, stopped at 9 games, but Jim Powell notes that if not for the 9th inning collapse in Arizona a month ago, it would've been a franchise record 12 games coming into yesterday. You can also click that link for his thoughts on Rickie Weeks, Brett Favre and...Roger Federer? Really?

The Junkball Blues takes a look at Prince Fielder, and his climb back from disappointing to stellar in 2008.

Seamheads puts the Brewers at 20-1 odds to win the NL Central. BP Postseason Odds have the Brewers at 13.3%, which is slightly less than 3-in-20, so I guess that's close to fair. Spitting Seeds predicts the three NL division leaders will win their divisions and the Wild Card leader will win the Wild Card. Gutsy.

Phil Rogers ranks the Brewers 9th in his most recent power rankings, but that's actually 8th if you only count MLB teams. The Whisnant rankings at Dugout Central have been revamped and now list the Brewers 10th.

Dayn Perry says the Wild Card is hurting, not helping, baseball in 2008. One could say the same thing about Dayn Perry.

Jon Heyman lists the Brewers among the trade deadline winners. They must have won pretty big, because before the Sabathia trade Heyman hardly noticed their existence.

On injuries:

Mets OF Marlon Anderson has been placed on the DL with a hamstring strain.
A's RP Andrew Brown has been placed on the DL with biceps tendinitis.
Cards OF Chris Duncan will miss the rest of the season following surgery to replace a disc in his neck.
Nomar Garciaparra has been placed on the DL with a strained roster spot.
Ken Griffey, Jr. left Saturday's game with "heat-related cramping."
Royals 2B Mark Grudzielanek left Friday's game after colliding with 1B Russ Gload.
Reds IF/OF Jerry Hairston, Jr. will miss a couple of days at the very least with a sore hamstring.
Orlando Hernandez still needs a special shoe to throw the banana.
Mets SP John Maine won't be able to pitch through a strained rotator cuff after all. He's on the DL.
Phillies RP Rudy Seanez has been placed on the DL with shoulder and back soreness.
Braves RP Rafael Soriano has been placed on the DL for the third time in 2008 with elbow inflammation.

The first trade deadline has come and passed, of course, but trades are still available for those willing to wander through the obscure and byzantine procedures of post-deadline waiver trading. MLB Trade Rumors has a nice roundup of posts explaining the rules.

I'm a little disappointed in myself today. I just realized that Khalil Greene injured himself punching a storage chest and I completely failed to mention that he'd been attacked by THE SPAZZOSAURUS!

Drink up. Drink two, in fact. It's hot out there.

I know you'll all be very disappointed, but today's Trash Day was uneventful, so I don't have an anecdote to lead off the Mug.

Win Expectancy Graph
BR Box Score

So, if you've been watching the games, you probably realize that Rickie Weeks is hitting .273/.467/.636 in the three games since the Durham trade. This one, however, snuck up on me: Bill Hall is hitting .405/.444/.833 with 4 home runs in his last 12 games. Adam Charles of Bugs & Cranks has a theory to explain it: Magic Skoal.

It's going to take more than chewing tobacco to get him back to the big leagues, but the Brewers signed Jay Gibbons to a minor league deal yesterday, ending his 27-game career with the Long Island Ducks.

After I complained in yesterday's Mug about the Whisnant rankings and suggested their ranking system could use a little work, I got an email from Paul Kuo of Whatifsports.com, who wanted to make sure I had seen their most recent power rankings. On the strength of the Sabathia trade the Brewers skyrocketed up the charts to fourth this week, so obviously the WIS rankings are better.

Also, CBSSports.com ranks the Brewers sixth, and second best in the NL.

TheJay is working to quantify Vulture Wins, and discovered that both Salomon Torres and Brian Shouse are among the league leaders. Reall,y, if you just start checking Recondite Baseball every day, you'll be one step ahead of everyone else when the Mug comes out.

On injuries:

White Sox 3B Joe Crede was scratched from last night's lineup with back stiffness.
Cards OF Chris Duncan has been placed on the DL with a bulging disc in his neck.
Reds SP Josh Fogg needed 30 stitches to repair damage done to his upper lip after being hit by a ball in batting practice.

Certainly, yesterday's most puzzling transaction was the Astros' decision to trade for Randy Wolf. The Astros are 12 games back of the Cubs and BP Postseason Odds gives them a .08% chance at making the playoffs, roughly 1 in 1220. R.J. Anderson of Beyond the Box Score is one of thousands who didn't like the move, but Astros beat writer Brian McTaggart defended it.

In other transactions, the Diamondbacks traded a prospect to the Nationals for Jon Rauch, meaning two of the tallest players in MLB history (along with Randy Johnson) are now on the same roster.

Here's a puzzling decision: Skyking162 has ranked the top 25 position players of right now. Well, really he's ranked the top 23 and given 18 more honorable mentions to get to 41. Here are some names on the list so far:

Evan Longoria, who has yet to finish his first big league season.
Brian Roberts
B.J. Upton
Mark Ellis
Rick Ankiel
Scott Rolen
David DeJesus
Aaron Rowand
Adrian Beltre

Yet somehow, Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder are nowhere to be found. With the possible exception of Longoria, there's not a single guy on that list who deserves to be ahead of Braun and Fielder. And Mark Ellis? That's a joke.

Francisco Rodriguez is threatening to become the first closer ever to reach 60 saves in a season. 6-4-2 has the math on what it will take for him to get there.

These seem to tie together nicely: In-Between Hops has a list of the greatest living players in the history of 29 franchises. Joe Posnanski takes a look at players who posted more than three "great" seasons in their careers.

If you're looking for a lesson on somewhat advanced statistics, this debate between Tangotiger and Geoff Baker is pretty instructive on the strengths, weaknesses and correct uses of ERA+.

Oh, and here's a hurricane prediction that's as accurate as any you'll see today.

Drink up.

The Cardinals are 12-7, which has to qualify as one of the bigger surprises in the early going.  I don't think it's going to last, but I also think that many pundits (probably including myself, though I don't think I ever published a pre-season prediction) underestimated this team in the spring.

I don't have any important points to make, but St. Louis is an interesting team, and I thought I'd poke around and see what factoids I could find:

• Of the six pitchers who have started games for the Cards so far this year, five of them--everybody but Lohse--have spent substantial time in the majors as relievers.  Wainwright was always slated to become a starter, but everybody else has been an experiment of some sort or other. 
• On that subject, I don't think you can give Dave Duncan enough credit.  It must be frustrating for a team like the Reds to watch Duncan, year in and year out, take a couple of guys making the minimum and turn them into league-average-or-better 10 game winners.  I certainly wouldn't mind if Jeff Weaver skipped extended spring training and did a few coaching sessions with Duncan before making an appearance for the Brewers.
• So far, the Cards are a very strong on-base team.  Their team OBP is .365, a very close second to the Cubs at .366.  Pujols is no surprise, and we saw the kind of ridiculous start Ryan Ludwick is having, but...Cesar Izturis and Adam Kennedy above .340?  Really, Ankiel and Molina are the only sub-par OBP guys getting playing time.
• During the series in St. Louis, I heard from a few different angles that Jason Isringhausen might be the best closer in the division.  I guess you can make the argument, but at this point, it's more because the competition is in such flux than because of his dominance.  I haven't been sold on Izzy for a couple of  years, and I continue to be skeptical.  Sure, he'll rack up 35 saves (just like Gagne will), but I don't think he'll be the shutdown guy of 3-5 years ago.
• Are the Cards still a stellar defensive team?  I don't know.  Molina and Pujols are great, and Izturis has that reputation, but Glaus instead of Rolen is a huge step down, and Edmonds is gone, too.  Certainly Chris Duncan is not a strong fielder in left, and while Ankiel is still something of an unknown quantity (remember, arms get talked about, but range matters more in the long run) in center, I think it's safe to assume he won't be gold glove-worthy in his first year.  One approximation we can use is Defensive Efficiency, which measures the number of batted balls that turn into outs.  The Cards are currently at .702, which is a little below average.  (The Brewers are at .718, so take that for what it's worth.)
• St. Louis has now played their entire season series with the Giants, and lost four out of seven.  That's not an endorsement of their playoff chances.  True, two of those losses came at the hands of Tim Lincecum, but the other two were thanks to Kevin Correia and Jonathan Sanchez.  I'm not going to pretend that I can tell a team's chances from a few games against one opponent, but...3-4 against San Fran?
• I mentioned yesterday that teams tend to revert to average in extra inning games; the same is true in one-run games.  The Cards have played five one-run games, and won four of them.  Perhaps they'll lose one or two in Milwaukee.