Last night's game was a loss to Jorge de la Rosa and the Rockies, and TheJay drops this interesting note from Elias: there were 11 total hits in last night's game, and only 1 was a single. The last time there was only 1 single in a game was April 3, 2008, between Cincinatti and Arizona.
Today the draft begins again at 10:30. Battlekow recapped yesterday's interesting selections in a Fanpost here, and we'll be following along today as well. Jeff also has made the splits for the first five round of college draft picks available at College Splits. The relevant Brewers:
Beyond the Boxscore has a recap of every team's fans' reaction to the draft and a short quote about one of the picks. It's a good way to get a general feel for the entirety of the early round picks in the draft.
The Post-Crescent contacted Bruce Seid and found out that Eric Arnett will likely not pitch with the T-Rats this season, because the Brewers want to watch his workload-- he threw 108 innings in the college season with a couple of very high pitch counts. He'll probably throw some for the Helena Brewers.
And there's more from BTB on the predictive power and general trends of the disabled list and types of injuries. Here's another story from the same author at Driveline Mechanics, examining the issues of Brad Lidge.
Only two teams remain in the quest to only use five starters in an entire season: the Brewers and the Giants. Charlie Morton started for the Pirates last evening, he was the sixth starter they've used this year.
MLB continues to annoy its customers, this time by making archived games unavailable until 90 minutes after the conclusion of a live game. I don't see the point or the benefit, really.
Here's your daily hit f/x link. I promise I will get a Brewers hit f/x post up very, very soon. This particular post looks at hot zones in the strike zone based on batted ball velocity and trajectory.
Oh my goodness this would have been hilarious and epic. It involves a person named "Ryan Braun" and a TV show called "The Bachelor".
I didn't get to watch much of last night's game, but Adam McCalvy says that Bill Hall has altered his stance a bit, and the Brewers are encouraging drastic changes. It's quite telling that the last video highlight generated by MLB.com for that article was the walkoff hit on May 25th. Then:
Milwaukee needs to win Thursday to avoid a series sweep, and manager Ken Macha might be tempted to start Hall at third base for a second straight game since he's 5-for-9 lifetime against Colorado starter Aaron Cook.
This sort of thing really needs to stop. I know it's not Macha saying it, but, really? There's also a JSOnline story explaining that Hall will get more chances, especially against right-handed pitching. I can't believe Macha is questioning Gamel's production; they even suggest that Gamel could be sent down with McGehee taking time against righthanded pitching. This would be... stupid. The best option is a Hall/Gamel platoon, and McGehee is needed to play some second base. I don't need a random sample of about 5 games to tell me this, or anything else. I hope the Brewers front office is playing dumb here.
Macha called Gamel an "unknown" as the everyday starter.
Bill Hall is "known" as an everyday starter. He hasn't hit righthanded pitching well ever, and hasn't hit them above replacement level for almost 3 years. And it makes me angry when rookies are downgraded because they are "unknown" or "unproven". Gamel should settle in at about .270/.340/.400 if he gets playing time.
There's been debate for a long time about what to do about the draft and slotting. Colin Wyers looks at some options, including making NCAA the main farm system and abolishing the draft and/or minor leagues. I remember Bill Veeck suggesting that colleges would eventually stay in session year-round, which would make college baseball a summer sport and more popular. He advocated creating a pool of money to support college baseball from the savings of cutting out minor league affiliates.
Today's Joe Posnaski link is also today's Raul Ibanez v. Blogger story update. There's also a Lookout Landing stance on the issue, with this money quote:
In the end, all we're really left with is the realization that steroid speculation is to baseball players as basement speculation is to bloggers.
In the only power ranking I find linkable, the Brewers held in the middle of the pack in the Beyond the Boxscore Power Rankings.
Today's game is an afternoon affair, a 1:05 central start in Milwaukee. The gamethread will post at noon.
Finally, your complaints about today's title can be directed here.