There's a lot of Brewers news to share with you, but before I send you away from Brew Crew Ball, I want to make sure you know about all the great stuff happening here. With the addition of a few new writers, just in the last couple of days we've added the following:
- Jamie has a wrapup of the great weekend;
- battlekow chimes in on the Brewers run distribution thus far;
- John offers complete WPA data and a graph of last night's game;
- battlekow discusses the Cubs rotation with new addition, Rich Hill;
- and I give a sneak preview of my minor league splits work.
- Tom Haudricourt reports on a new grip that helped Chris Capuano to Player of the Week honors. A new changeup grip and a new cutter? It's easy to say that an April like his is a fluke, but when his HR and BB rates are so much improved, and there's reason to believe he's really added to his repertoire, we may have a major new weapon on our hands.
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Tomo Ohka was removed from last night's game with a shoulder injury. "Shoulder injury" and "Brewers pitcher" are two phrases you never want to hear in close proximity, but Tomo claims it's not serious. Should he need to miss one (but only one) start, my guess is that Ben Hendrickson gets the nod for a sort of "bullpen start." If he needs to miss more time, Al points out that Dana Eveland is the obvious choice. That would require a shakeup of the Nashville rotation, as Dana's routine would have to be altered to get him ready for Tomo's slot in the Brewers rotation.
- Since we're talking about Ohka, it's worth pointing out that he was excellent last night before he was pulled. One unearned run (granted, on his own error), two hits and two walks in five innings. That's two great starts in a row--something that looked impossible after the Ohka-coaster that was April.
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Here's a recap of Capuano's mini-confrontation with the Cubs first-base coach last weekend when Cappy forced Ronny Cedeno to slide with a fake tag:
Matthews -- known as "Sarge" -- was unhappy with Capuano's Oscar-worthy performance and voiced his displeasure with the left-hander.
"Sarge's argument was that I was making a guy slide when he didn't have to, and I might cause the guy injury," Capuano said. "That was his argument. I went over to him and I was trying to diffuse the situation. I didn't want any confrontation, but I explained that I wanted him to think I had the ball. He understood after that. You see people 'deke' all the time. It's a part of the game."
- Outside of Brewer world, here's an interesting article about the Pirates third base situation. They let Randa go before he hit his prime, then signed him again long after his prime had passed. You know, when they had a perfectly good in-house option in Freddy Sanchez.
- Tonight at 7:05 CT, Ben Sheets takes on Fernando Nieve. If ever a pitching matchup sounded like a lock, it'd be that one, but you never know with unfamiliar young pitchers. I'm going to succumb to the urge to use a horrible, timeworn cliche: that's why they play the games.
Tags: Fernando Nieve, Pittsburgh Pirates, Chicago Cubs, Milwaukee Brewers, Rich Hill, Freddy Sanchez, Tom Haudricourt, Nashville Sounds, Ronny Cedeno