Thursday's Frosty Mug

Some things to read while taking the elevator. (h/t @craigcalcaterra)

The Brewers put together an epic comeback win last night, falling behind 6-2 in the eighth before scoring five unanswered runs to pick up the win. Nyjer Morgan was the hero, driving home Craig Counsell with a walkoff double (video) even though he thought it was the eighth inning. Jaymes Langrehr of The Brewers Bar transcribed Tony Plush's postgame appearances on FSWisconsin and WTMJ. Jack Moore of Disciples of Uecker has created a Tony Plush desktop background.

While Morgan drove in the final run, Prince Fielder kept the Brewers in the game last night with a pair of two run homers. He has six home runs in his last six games and is hitting .381/.500/.857 over his last 13, but Nicole noticed that he also seems to be watching his home runs a bit more lately. It's something to keep an eye on.

Fielder's pair of home runs were the 208th and 209th of his career, moving him past Gorman Thomas and into sole possession of third place on the Brewer all time list. He now needs three more to tie Geoff Jenkins for second place.

Last night's win improved the Brewers to 22-8 at Miller Park, and they're still the only team that hasn't lost back-to-back home games this season.

Other notes from the field:

• The Brewers found themselves in a 6-2 hole last night because Kameron Loe allowed five runs in the eighth. Ron Roenicke talked to reporters after the game about his decision to leave Loe in.
• Casey McGehee, batting sixth for the first time this season, went 1-for-3 with a walk and snapped an 0-for-27 streak. The BCB Tracking Poll showed 68% of voters approve of his move down in the lineup.
• John Axford picked up the win last night in his first game back following the birth of his son. Tom Haudricourt talked to Axford about his exhilarating week.
• Metsblog has thoughts from Mets starting pitcher Mike Pelfrey about his performance and the home run he allowed to Fielder.
• Here's a transcript of Ron Roenicke's postgame comments.
• Prince Fielder, Ronny Paulino and Ryan Braun are leading FanGraphs' Star of the Game voting.
• Joe Pawlikowski of FanGraphs listed the game at the top of today's edition of The Morning After.
• 26,114 fans paid to see last night's game, pushing the Brewers' season attendance over 1 million.
• The Polish won last night's Sausage Race.
• Randy Wolf hit Jason Bay with a pitch last night, and now leads the NL with eight HBP on the season. As you might imagine, Plunk Everyone has much more.
• With eight HBP Wolf is already tied for the 33rd highest single season total in franchise history. He also led the Brewers with nine last season.
• Last night's downpour exposed some of the leaks in Miller Park's roof.

The Brewers and Mets wrap up the series with a game tonight. Quinn Roberts of MLB.com has the preview.

Yuniesky Betancourt went 0-for-4 last night to drop his OBP to .260. Before the game, though, Cory Provus noted that Yuni's bat has shown some signs of life in June and usually gets better as the season goes along. Even after last night's performance Betancourt is hitting .348/.348/.523 this month.

In the minors:

• The Brewers are using the attention from this week's draft to spin the talent situation in the minor leagues. Doug Melvin told Adam McCalvy the organization has "more than trade chips."
• The affiliates went 1-2 yesterday, but the one win was a big one: Four Wisconsin Timber Rattlers homered in their 14-2 win over Lake County. You can read about that and more in today's Minor League Notes.
• Rattler Radio has video highlights from the game.
• Huntsville pitcher Wily Peralta has been added to the Southern League All Star roster. The Stars now have four players scheduled to play in the game.

The MLB Draft wrapped up yesterday with rounds 31-50. The JS has the full list of players selected. Here are today's highlights:

• Josh Wussow of Inside Wisconsin Sports talked to several Brewer writers who have been following the draft and asked for letter grades of the team's first four picks.
• Bruce Seid told Tom Haudricourt that some of the team's top ten picks have already signed. I haven't seen anything more on this.
• The Brewers drafted UW-Milwaukee pitcher Chad Pierce in the 38th round. Pierce is a Fond du Lac native, and The Bucky Channel has more on him.
• 41st round pick 3B Jalen Harris and 44th rounder CF Steve Adam are Canadians.
• 42nd round pick SS Caleb Whalen is the son of Brewers' area scout Shawn Whalen, and 49th round pick 2B David Elmore is the son of Helena Brewers owner D.G. Elmore.
• College Splits notes that the Brewers drafted 27 hitters and 24 pitchers, and that their split was 27/3/21 for college, junior college and high school players.
• In the FanPosts, SRB has a map showing where these players came from.

Here's an interesting side note from yesterday: Mark Concannon of FS Wisconsin asked several Brewers about the proposed playoff expansion, and found most of them are in favor of it.

Around baseball:

Marlins: Fired hitting coach John Mallee. (h/t Ben Badler)
Rangers: Fired hitting coach Thad Bosley and placed second baseman Ian Kinsler on the paternity list.
Red Sox: Placed reliever Bobby Jenks on the DL with a back injury.
Yankees: Placed reliever Joba Chamberlain on the DL with a flexor strain in his elbow and claimed pitcher Jeff Marquez off waivers from the White Sox.

Bosley, who had been on the job for just three months, was a Brewer in 1981.

In division action last night the Astros did the Brewers a favor by beating the Cardinals, allowing the Crew to inch back within a game and a half of first place. As a loyal reader of Around the NL Central, you probably already knew that.

Today in former Brewers:

• Brett Lawrie was expected to make his major league debut with the Blue Jays any day now, but those plans have been pushed back after additional tests found a broken bone in his hand. He's expected to be out 2-4 weeks.
• Trevor Hoffman stopped by the MLB Fan Cave for an interview this week, and has lots of great stuff about life in and after baseball  (h/t BBTF)
• Hoffman is also the closer on Grant Brisbee of Baseball Nation's All-Late Round Team.

You may have heard that Rickie Weeks' younger brother Jemile made his major league debut this week. Jack Moore of FanGraphs compared the two Weeks and decided they don't have much in common.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to work on my metaphors.

Drink up.