Ok, so it isn't exactly a series preview...consider it a rest-of-series preview.  Rob runs the great Dodgers/Angels site 6-4-2, and he was kind enough to take the time to answer some questions about one of his teams for us.  Without further ado:

Q: You've had the opportunity to watch Joe Torre in action for six weeks now--kind of like the previous decade, I'd imagine, only on local TV instead of national.  What are your impressions so far?

A: Torre seems to be under the impression that the press release version of his team is the actual team; it's certainly the only explanation why Juan Pierre and Andruw Jones have both appeared as starters in various lineups.  With Rafael Furcal out, it's simply shocking to have Torre miss what seems obvious to everyone else:  Andre Ethier is the team's second best hitter, and the Dodgers can ill-afford to miss both while plugging in arguably worse defense (and certainly worse offense) in left.

Q: In Juan Pierre and Andruw Jones, the Dodgers have a pair of outfielders who are underperforming the youngsters in every category but age.  How do you see the outfield situation shaking out over the course of the season?  Are there any other prospects who Pierre might end up blocking?

A: My inclination is to place the blame for this squarely on the shoulders of ownership. As Joe Sheehan recently pointed out in a Baseball Prospectus piece picked up by Sports Illustrated, the Dodgers are really three teams in one: the Paul DePodesta Dodgers, the Ned Colletti Dodgers, and the (VP of Scouting) Logan White Dodgers. Unsurprisingly, the Logan White team is the most productive as measured by value-for-salary, but the Colletti players -- which includes the likes of Jason Schmidt, Nomar Garciaparra, Juan Pierre, and Andruw Jones -- contains all the deadweight. "Grady Little's inability to play his best players at the expense of those veterans was the critical factor in the Dodgers finishing eight games out in a competitive NL West", Sheehan opined, and it's absolutely a factor again with Torre running the team.

Unfortunately, it's unclear what the Dodgers will do going forward. Pierre's contract virtually dictates he will end up with playing time (almost certainly too much and at the expense of Ethier, from what we can gather so far). Likewise Jones' glove, and more, his arm represent a significant improvement over the noodle Pierre uses to toss his rainbow throws back to the infield. If there were a clearly superior outfield prospect in the wings, it seems likely that the Dodgers would have blocked that player, too. So, no, I have no idea how this will shake out, other than to say it will be done sub-optimally.

Q: Similar question: with Blake DeWitt playing well, Andy LaRoche stuck in AAA, and Nomar pretending to healthy sometime soon, what will happen at third?  If you were running the team, what would you do about that spot?

A: I would tell Nomar his duties are limited to pinch-hitting and spot starting, or cut him. The best thing he's done for the 2008 Dodgers so far has to spend substantial time on the DL, thus giving Blake DeWitt an extended showcase. I don't think DeWitt is quite as good as he's shown so far, and LaRoche will probably, eventually, develop more power, but either or both of those young players can bring to the table more, now, than Nomar. (In case you can't tell, the big problem with this team is that it doesn't have enough injuries to the right players.)

Q: The Brewers aren't going to see Hideki Kuroda this series, but he hasn't gotten a whole lot of national coverage, so I'm curious what your impressions are so far.  He's certainly gotten results--do you see that holding up as the league sees him for the second or third time?

A: League? Try, lineup. In Sunday's contest against Houston, he uncharacteristically carried a no-hitter into the seventh, but as Vin Scully mentioned in the TV broadcast, Kuroda tends to wilt the third time through the order. (Baseball-Reference doesn't show this data on his splits page, but you can get a feel for it by pitch count; after 75, his line goes ballistic to a slapped-silly .355/.412/.516.) Jon Weisman thought he was actually trying too hard, but it seems to me his stuff flattens out early. Fortunately, the Dodgers only need a third starter, or should; it's likely that with rotational ineffectiveness (Derek Lowe's groundballs haven't been coming as they used to, and Brad Penny's meatball catering service is giving the team fits), the team wiill have to bring up Clayton Kershaw earlier than they might like.

Q: Overall, the LA bullpen has been quite effective, but not in the way I would've expected.  Beimel dominating while Broxton is scuffling?  Fill us in on the pecking order behind Saito, and how you see this group performing over the course of the year.

A: Beimel wears the number 97, which tells you a little something about his psychology; he tends to blend into the background, but you're right that he appears to be dominating in the early season. Emphasis should be on appears, because in point of fact, he's second on the team for allowing inherited baserunners to score (so far, five have, one back of Scott Proctor's six), thus deflating his ERA while adversely affecting both the team and the pitcher(s) ahead of him. Broxton had the worst outing of his career on Sunday, giving up six runs while making only one out, but he'll revert to form; one of his hallmarks early on was his tendency to get in a funk and lose control on his fastball, and it looks like that's what happened.

The real question is what happens once Chan Ho Park turns back into the guy Texas knew and hated. By ERA, he's the third best pitcher on the team (2.16 in 25 IP), but there's no way he sustains that with his low strikeout rate. Scott Proctor is looking mighty like a midseason DFA or a slow regression to mopup duties, something that will be hard to accomplish given Torre's extended experience with him in New York. Most likely to replace him, and perhaps the biggest wild card currently on the 25-man, is Yhency Brazoban. The man with a name designed for Scrabble had a rough but scoreless go in the team's 7-1 Friday loss. He was all but unhittable for a couple months in 2004, but injuries sidetracked him. Even at league average, he could still be a useful part given the likelihood of both injury and ineffectiveness elsewhere in the pitching staff.

Thanks, Rob!

Suck suck, suckety suck sucked.  Sucks suck, sucking suck suck suck.  Suck.

• Win Expectancy Graph
• BR Box Score
• BDD Recaps

The J-S makes the brilliant observation that we're more likely to win in games where our best hitter hits well.  Marty then emerses himself in that logic and rips it to little pieces.

Jim Powell interviewed Corey Hart.  Listen here.

Injuries:

• John Patterson, who is rehabbing with the Rangers, experienced a setback and has no timetable for a return.
• Barry Zito isn't hurt, but he gave up only two runs last night, which indicates that something is amiss.
• Jack Wilson is behind schedule; he won't be back for two more weeks.
• Yet another setback: Mark Mulder is off his latest rehab assignment.  Cardinals fans rejoice.

Roger Clemens isn't going to have anything to do with the Olympic team.  Or, stated more properly, it isn't going to have anything to do with him.  It's a shame, because according to what turns up in my inbox, there are a lot of interesting drugs to be had in China.

Matt Wise may be about to rejoin the Mets, which might mean that New York will be going with 13 pitchers.

It's a short one, but that's all I've got for today.  Enjoy!

I'll be the first to admit that a weekend sweep at the hands of the Astros sucked.  Just about everything that can go has gone wrong, and it's painful to watch.

But we all need to take a step back.  We're a month into the season, we've got an anemic offense, an imploding bullpen, a bunch of five-inning starters, and...we're above .500.

That's right: Nothing is clicking on all cylinders, and we're on pace for about 84 wins.

84 wins, of course, won't do the job this year.  But there is also no way that the Brewers offense will remain in the bottom half (!) of the league in runs, home runs, slugging, and generally non-suckiness.  There is no way that Manny Parra will stay in the rotation if he can't get through the 5th inning.  There is no way the bullpen will be this bad over the course of the season, and making things better, there's no chance we'll continue to play this many extra-inning games.

Making all of this even better, there is no way that the Cardinals are really a 100+ win team (that's their current pace) and especially with no Rich Hill, I find it hard to believe that the Cubs are a 90+ win team (their current pace).

Eventually, I think I'll have to just ignore baseball commentary for the first two months of the year.  For every 10 "trends" that people think they spot, maybe--maybe--one of them is for real.  You can look at this Brewers team and think that Melvin did a horrible job, putting together a better defense at the expense of a disastrous bullpen, no back-rotation starting, and a mediocre offense...

...or you could realize that we're somehow winning games in what could easily be the worst 30-game stretch of the season. 

Every baseball team has bad games, bad weeks, and bad months.  If we were scuffling and going 16-15 in July, we wouldn't be having this conversation.  But since it's early May, it's hard to resist the temptation to look at the rate stats (oh no, Villa's ERA is 5.50!) and multiply the counting stats by five (oh no, Prince is only going to hit 20 home runs!). 

Don't do it.  This is a good team, and it's a pretty decent team even with Yovani Gallardo.  We'll be playing important games in September, and it won't be because Doug radically revamped our slumping roster.  He knows better than that, and we should too.

The title of this post is about the Cubs, but really, the post itself is much more about the Brewers.

Last night, Rich Hill walked the first four guys he faced.  Piniella pulled him from the game, and it was announced that Jon Lieber will replace him in the rotation.  Hill obviously has some issues to work through, and the longer it takes him to recover, the harder it will be for a contending team to put him back in the rotation.

This, of course, happened on the same day as the announcement regarding Gallardo's season-ending injury.  It's pretty clear that the loss of Gallardo for the season is worse than Hill's wildness (Hill cold be back in a month, for one thing), but  the effect may be closer than you think.

Before the season, I noted that the Cubs and Brewers rotations lined up very evenly.  You can argue about who is better in each slot, but there are a lot of similarities if you aren't tied to the "official" position on who was the "#2" or "#3" starter:

• The ace: Sheets / Zambrano
• The young stud: Gallardo / Hill
• The $10MM vet: Suppan / Lilly

Dempster or Marquis would be a decent analogue to Bush, though the biographical similarities break down in the last two spots.  Statistically, though, Dempster/Marquis will probably be about equivalent to Villa/Parra in 2008.

Both young studs are out for a while, and that leads us to:

• Initial reinforcements: Bush / Lieber
• 2008 ZiPS ERAs: 4.64 / 4.85

It'll take a lot more than this simple comparison to evaluate the impact of losing Gallardo, and it doesn't have as much to do with the Cubs as I'm suggesting here.  But if there's a moral to the story, it's this: sh*t happens.  It happens to every team, every year.  It happened to us yesterday, and it happened to our rival as well. 

The real test of any baseball team is what happens next.  That applies both in the psychological sense--can the team pull together and win despite losing a key player?--and the front office sense--is the team built to withstand a major injury?

The Brewers aren't as pitching-deep as they were two months ago, and that's been exposed in a way that most of us didn't anticipate.  But whatever you think of Dave Bush, he is very possibly the best #6 starter in the big leagues.  By that standard, Lieber isn't bad either, but he probably won't be as good.  The Cubs will survive yesterday's blow, and so will we.

Thomas ("Stros Bro"), of SBN sister site The Crawfish Boxes, was kind enough to answer my questions about his team.  We've got a three-game set against the Astros this weekend, and now we'll have a little better idea of what we're watching.

Q: You've gotten to watch Carlos Lee every day for a full season now.  What do you think?  Is he worth $12MM this year?  How about $18.5MM in 2012?

A: Last season, I would have said without much doubt in my mind that he was worth the money and will be worth it over the life of his contract.  Now seeing how he's playing this season, I can't help but wonder whether that is now true.  He seems to be gaining weight and isn't getting better in the outfield.  If he was still hitting like last season I would be okay with it, but he's not even doing that this season.  Right now he's playing as a below average defensive player and an average offensive player.  He's definitely not playing up to what we're paying for him.

Q: Fun fact: The opening day starting five for the Astros were all born within 21 months of each other.  The rotation seems to me to be the achilles heel of this team, especially with Oswalt struggling.  What do you think?

A: Quick answer to this would be... who knows?  Before the season started, most people believed the Astros were solid everywhere but their starting rotation and the starting rotation was Roy Oswalt and then a bunch of question marks.  Well, now that the season has started, Roy Oswalt was terrible for his first 3 starts and 3 of the 4 other Astros starters were at least solid.  I think the Astros rotation is still going to end up being the weak point for the Astros, but they haven't shown it so far this season for the most part.

Q: I'm really curious about J.R. Towles.  Catchers (at least of the non-Joe Mauer variety) usually don't get promoted straight a starting job, much less hold on to it when a vet is sitting on the bench.  What are your impressions of him so far?

A: I can't say that I've been overly impressed with J.R. Towles so far this season.  He has some pop and can definitely bring more to the plate than Brad Ausmus... but Ausmus is one of the worst offensive catchers in baseball, so that's not much of a compliment.  Towles is a solid defensive catcher but still has a few strides to take before he becomes a real major league catcher.  If I had my choice right now, I'd rather the Astros have Quintero up taking most of the catching duties and let Towles have another season down in Triple-A to work on some things.

Q: Brewers fans like grit, and we've got our share, but Kendall, Counsell and Kapler pale in comparison to Ausmus, Matsui, and Erstad.  How do you feel about your team's bench construction?

A: The Astros bench consists of weak-hitting Brad Ausmus, light-hitting Geoff Blum, decent-hitting Mark Loretta, not-hitting Jose Cruz Jr and swings-at-everything Darin Erstad.  I wouldn't rank our bench in the top 20 in baseball.  If I had a choice of who to keep and who to get rid of... only Erstad and Loretta would still be on the team.  The other 3 aren't of much use to me other than defensive replacements.  Blum is good for a clutch hit every now and then, but at the end of the night, he's still just a light-hitting .250 hitter.

Q: Since the Miguel Tejada trade, Miggy has, uh, "matured," and Troy Patton has had shoulder surgery.  It's early, but what's your take on the big swap?

A: With Patton going down this trade comes out as Tejada for Luke Scott.  I really liked Luke Scott when he played for Houston and don't think he ever really got a chance to be a starter; no matter how well he did.  I think the Astros leash on him was too short.  That being said, Tejada is a monster and has been one of the best Astros players this season.  You have to look past all of the steroid talk and the age issue and see the good clubhouse guy and energetic leader who has been one of the only bright spots on the Astros this season.  So I'll have to say that I am happy with the trade overall... although, I think ultimately, the O's will be happy with the trade as well, once Patton becomes healthy.

Thanks Thomas!

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!

Alex Belth, of Bronx Banter, polled lots of bloggers and baseball writers to come up with a list of the best baseball books ever .  I wasn't asked, but that doesn't mean I don't have an opinion.  Here's my top ten.

1. The Unforgettable Season, by GH Fleming.  I'm not just being contradictory for the sake of it, though this book doesn't appear anywhere among the hundreds of votes Belth received.  Fleming's book is an account of the 1908 season, which featured what is probably the greatest pennant race in baseball history.  What makes this book special is that it is composed entirely of snippets from contemporary newspapers.  It may sound a little dorky, but it is the most gripping baseball book I've ever read.
2. The Great American Novel, by Philip Roth. This might not even make my top five list of Roth books, but, sorry to say, there's a lot more literary quality in your average Roth novel than the typical baseball book.  It's well-nigh impossible to sum up the plot in a sentence or two, but it's entertaining and not nearly as pompous as the title might suggest.
3. Koufax, by Jane Leavy.  I have read a *lot* of baseball biographies.  When I was in junior high, it's possible that I had read every baseball biography in print.  No other bio could buy its way on to this list, and I could be convinced to put Leavy's book at the very top.  She weaves Koufax's life story around an astonishingly detailed account of his perfect game.  Like The Unforgettable Season, you won't put this one down.  It's the only biography I can imagine reading for a second time.
4. The Glory of Their Times, by Lawrence Ritter.  If you care about baseball books, odds are you've read this one.  It's a collection of oral histories from guys who played in 1910s and 1920s, , including some pretty big names.  Many have imitated the format, and no other book has come close.
5. Moneyball, by Michael Lewis.  This isn't here because of Bill James or Sabermetrics or anything of the sort.  It's a great story told by an impressive author.  (If you read and like Moneyball, I recommend The Blind Side, Lewis's football book.  Not as good, but still worth the read.)  Setting aside the OBP caricature, Moneyball is an underdog story, with great chapters on the roundabout careers of guys like Chad Bradford and Scott Hatteberg.
6. The Iowa Baseball Confederacy, by WP Kinsella.  Everybody knows about Shoeless Joe / Field of Dreams, but this is the better book.  It takes the dead-players-at-the-farm motif to its logical (well, not always logical) conclusions, and is a lot more nuanced than the feel good story of the Costner movie.
7. A False Spring, by Pat Jordan.  Jordan was a highly touted prospect who pitched in the minor leagues.  This is his first memoir, and it was written back when people generally wrote memoirs about things that were actually interesting.  Best of all, he's a fantastic writer with an impressive perspective on his years in baseball and where he went wrong.
8. The Politics of Glory, by Bill James.  (Alternate title: Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?)  I feel like this makes me a bad stathead, but I never got into the Abstracts.  This book, though, is the perfect one for James to have written.  There's so much wrong with the Hall--who's in, who's not, the voting process that keeps it that way--and James shows us just how bad it is.  It's a cliche to remind you that Bill is so popular largely because he's such a good writer, but...it's true.
9. If I Never Get Back, by Daryl Brock.  Another novel.  This one is about a guy who ends up getting sent back in time (yeah, yeah) and traveling with the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings, the first professional team.  It isn't of the same literary quality as some of the other books that are commonly touted as the best baseball novels, but it is easily as compelling.  As a side note, I met Daryl Brock at a SABR convention a few years ago, and he was one of the nicest guys I've ever had a chance to pass the time with.
10. The Long Season, Jim Brosnan.  Written years before Ball Four, this is the first insider-expose of what baseball players are really like away from the cameras.  I realize I'm going against the grain by leaving Bouton's book off the list altogether, but I think Brosnan's the better writer, and his book is a more remarkable achievement for its time (the early 60s) than Bouton's is for his (a decade later).

That's the top 10.  A few honorable mentions:

• Ball Four.  It's overrated, but still a heck of a read.
• The Pitch That Killed, by Mike Sowell.  A few years ago, this book would've made the list for me.  The title refers to the pitch with which Carl Mays hit Ben Ray Chapman in 1920.  It's a good book, though I started reading it again a few months ago and it didn't seem nearly as vivid as it did the first time through.
• Only the Ball was White, by Robert Peterson.  In high school, I was obsessed with the Negro Leagues; I've probably read everything that was published on the topic up through 1998 or so.  That said, there's no really great read on the topic; much of what's out there is dry and informational.  Others have superseded Peterson's work (this book is from the early 70s), but I think it remains the best single-volume introduction to the topic.

Those are mine.  What are yours?

Blah blah blah, this is a big one, whatever.  I don't care how on-the-bubble Sheets is or that we're getting Cameron back or that we're playing the Cubs.  It's game #26, and after the series, we'll have 134 left.  So let's all chill out about that.

That said, it will certainly be an interesting series.  Here are some things I've noticed, and others I'll be watching for.

• We all knew the Cubs were going to be a good team, but there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of their 16-9 start.  They've had a relatively easy schedule, and while they've played a couple of good teams, they haven't beaten very many good pitchers.  Their two-game sweep in New York came off of John Maine and Nelson Figueroa, and while they beat Aaron Harang (hats off to them), they lost to Edinson Volquez.  We took the series at Wrigley to open the season, and there's very little I've seen since to indicate that the Cubs are clearly the better team.
• Left field for the Cubs is a giant, yawning chasm of suck.  Soriano was awful before his injury, and while DeRosa has been okay in his starts in left field, that leaves Mike Fontenot (OPS: 545) at second base.  The Cubs have the offense at other positions to more than make up for it, but it's unusual to see so many people work together to produce so little at an offensive position.
• Kerry Wood isn't the best reliever in the bullpen, but he'll do.  He's striking out about one batter per inning and generally doing a good impression of a major league closer. Carlos Marmol, on the other hand, is downright dominant. I'm not about to give Piniella credit for strategery, but if the Cubs have Wood pitching like this in the 9th and Marmol putting out fires whenever necessary, they will be in very good shape. Maybe even good enough to escape the negative effects of a soft pen outside of those two guys.
• A big part of the Cubs' 16-9 start has been the offensive production of Geovany Soto and Kosuke Fukudome.  Neither one is a huge surprise, though I don't think most people expected both of them to have 900+ OPSs.  Right now, everybody but the left fielders are hitting better than expected, but Soto and Fukudome are in a whole different category.
• Ryan Dempster currently has an ERA of 2.90 and an FIP of 4.24.  Something's gotta give.  A walk rate over 4 per 9 suggests that the ERA will budge first.  If his HR rate ends up around his career average (or worse, as it was last year), that 4.24 will look mighty appealing to Cubs fans.
• As regular readers know, I am not concerned about the goings-on of small samples, so I could care less about the poor clutch hitting over the weekend, or David Riske's last couple of outings.  The Brewers offense as presently constituted will score lots and lots of runs, no matter how bad they look on any given day. 

If all that wasn't enough to think about, mark your calendars for Thursday afternoon: Carlos Zambrano and Yovani Gallardo.  Nice.

I missed most of last night's game, but when I got home, I liked what I saw.  Another clutch bomb from Prince (against a lefty, no less), some stylish defense from Ryan Braun, and an inning without pain courtesy of Eric Gagne.  The Cubs are in Washington playing the NL East team that actually does suck, so we're still two games back.

The regulars:

• FanGraphs Win Probability chart
• BR Box Score
• BDD Daily Recap
• BP Postseason Odds:  84.7 wins and 22% chance of the division.

Before we get to some articles, I'd like to present to you a photo essay in four clicks that is guaranteed to put a smile on your face:

1. Carlos!
2. Ryan!
3. Prince!
4. Gagne!

The Junkball Blues looks at the efficiency of our starting pitching --that is, how many innings are they getting out of the pitches they throw?  The conclusions aren't surprising, but the degree to which Parra is working for his number of frames might be.

Ben Sheets threw yesterday and said, "It felt good."   I would've given this top billing, but you all know as well as I do how little Sheets updates can mean sometimes.

At The Book Blog, MGL tries to rate pitching coaches.   I had considered doing something very similar to this, so I'm glad he did.  As he acknowledges, it's a very difficult effect to nail down, but as it turns out, Mike Maddux appears to have been a positive influence--though not overwhelmingly so--over the last five years.

Some injuries:

• Scott Baker left his start last night with a groin strain , leaving the Twins wondering if they'll have any starting pitching left by June, and dejectedly realizing that the Rangers have Sidney Ponson this year.
• Kevin Correia got all of one out before leaving with a back injury.   Ouch.
• Kerwin Danley got hit.   Hard.  (Link has video.)

In former Brewers news, it's a big day to be a part of the old Brewers-Braves trade.  Dan Kolb (yes, that Dan Kolb) was released by the Red Sox, and Jose Capellan (yes, that Jose Capellan) was promoted by the Rockies.

Speaking of the Rockies, somebody had to go to make room for Capellan, and that someone was...Jayson Nix .  Doug: Gyt oyn thy phoyne, immydyatly!

The Pirates are bad.  Charlie at Bucs Dugout sums it all up in one brilliant post.

I'm guessing most of you haven't heard of Danny Ray Herrera, but he's a great story.  He was part of the Josh Hamilton trade in the offseason, and he just made a successful debut in Triple-A.   For the whole Herrera tale, from being a too-short-for-the-scouts college pitcher to a surprise success in A ball, click here.  (It's a great article.)

That's it for today...at least for the next two hours, until game time.

The blog has been up and running for approximately 20 minutes since I posted the Q & A with Phillies blogger Tom Goyne, and here we are with a new team in town.  The Brewers start a three-game set tonight with the Marlins, owners of the best record in the NL East.

Craig runs the SBNation blog FishStripes , and was kind enough to take some time to answer my questions.  Here's what he had to say.

Three weeks into the season, we're in a bizarro world where the Marlins are in first place.  How has this happened?  Is there any chance Florida can hang in the race?

First off, it is not bizarro -- it's the way it should be.  Now to answer your question honestly, the Marlins have basically slugged their way into first with the help of a stellar bullpen.  The Fish are second in the NL in home runs (33), second in slugging percentage (.474), tied for third in triples (6), tied for fourth in doubles (48) and tied for sixth in batting average (.266).

Along with a bullpen that has picked up where it left off last year and is second in the NL in bullpen ERA (2.92).

Yes, there is a chance they can hang in the race.  There is reason to believe the offensive can continue slugging at this rate since the young Marlins set the team records for HR, RBI, TB, XBH, SLG in 2006 and preceded to break the team records in those categories in 2007.  The real question of whether they can hang in the race comes down to: can the starting pitching improve?  As the Marlins stand right now they only have two starters who can put up quality starts.  The other three may go five innings if everything is perfect.  If the Marlins can continue to put runs on the board long enough for some of the starters on the DL to return or if the present bottom three starters can actually learn to pitch at the major league level, then it is possible.  Likely?  Who knows, but I wouldn't bet the rent on it.

Andrew Miller, the prize of the offseason deal with the Tigers, has a 7.94 ERA in five starts.  Is he hopelessly overmatched, or do you think he'll turn in a respectable season this year?

Andrew Miller has electric stuff but he has problems with the mastery of his pitches.  His has no consistent control over any pitch he throws and his velocity is all over the place.  One fast ball may be clocked at 97 mph and the very next one could come in at 93 mph.  So far his starts have consisted of finding the one pitch he can get over the plate with any regularity and just throw that one over and over again.

Miller really should have started the season in the minors but with the attrition to starting staff -- it's on-the-job  training in the majors.  I guess whether he can salvage a decent season or not depends on how fast of a learner he is.

The Brewers and Marlins both have ex-Atlantans as skippers, but it doesn't seem like Fredi Gonzalez gets much national press.  What can you tell us about his managing style?  Do you like him so far?

I like Fredi and I think he will turn into a fine manager.  Last season he sat back and observed what was going on with the players and this year he instituted some changes in club policy.  Starting with the Marlins clubhouse--it's more professional this season and no longer resembles a middle school play ground.  Fredi has a great instinct on how use to the bullpen (which, sadly, pitches a lot of innings) to get the most out of them with the less wear to their bodies.

One policy he tried to adopt in spring training was to get the hitters to quit swinging for the fences and make more contact, cutting down on strikeouts and increasing the number of base runners in the process.  That one hasn't taken hold.

As a Brewers fan, I liked Wes Helms, at least until he took the field.  How do you feel about getting him back for a second tour of duty?

I was very surprised when the Marlins "traded" for Wes Helms this year.  I wasn't really sure what he would add to the team and I'm still a little unclear why the Fish need him.   But this part I do know, Helms does provide a veteran presence on the team and that is something the Marlins can always use.  And if all he does is that and gets a pinch-hit and spells the corner infielders once in awhile then I guess he has done his job.  I still unsure of the reason the team needs his services.

Who do you think Larry Beinfest is going to trade for a small army of prospects this offseason?

Oh, you just had to ask that -- you couldn't let us enjoy being in first for a little while.  The word around the campfire is that some trade or trades will happen before the deadline or in the offseason.

Hanley Ramirez, Dan Uggla, Josh Willingham, Mike Jacobs, Jeremy Hermida and Scott Olsen will become arbitration eligible for the first time at the end of the season and the word is that there is no way the Marlins are going to arbitration with all of them.  Who goes and who remains will depend on the expected arbitration price and their value as a trading piece.  Ramirez will obviously be the most expensive and would bring in the most top prospects in a trade but the Marlins may try to keep him.  I have my doubts.  If the Marlins keep Hanley that doesn't leave much money to pay for the others.

In short, I don't know who it will be, but chances are it will be someone(s).  A new stadium for the Marlins is still three years away and the front office said that they weren't going to increase the payroll until it was in place.  And when the Marlins front office says they aren't going to spend money, I believe them.

Thanks Craig!