Wednesday's Frosty Mug: Into The Night

Some things to read while leading the chase.

Day 30 of spring training 2013 will feature the year's first sleep cycle-busting weekday late game, as the Brewers and Diamondbacks play at Salt River Fields in Scottsdale at 9:10 Central time tonight. The game will be televised on FS Wisconsin and is scheduled to feature Yovani Gallardo taking on Randall Delgado.

The Brewers will be looking to bounce back from an ugly loss yesterday as they got ambushed by the Rangers 12-3 in Surprise(!). Noah has the recap, if you missed it.

Yesterday's game was over early as Mark Rogers' spring struggles continued. He allowed six runs on six hits and four walks over just an inning and a third before being lifted, and less than half of his 42 pitches went for strikes. He'll likely still get a few more opportunities this spring, but it's entirely possible he's already pitched his way off the roster.

Before you worry too much about yesterday's results, though, I think it's important to remember this: @Mass_Haas took a look through yesterday's box score and counted appearances from just two Brewers (Logan Schafer and Tom Gorzelanny) who are guaranteed to be on the Opening Day roster.

Other notes from camp:

• Rickie Weeks was a late scratch from yesterday's lineup, but Adam McCalvy says it's only because he wanted to play in the night game tonight instead.
• Minor league coach Al LeBoeuf was back in Brewer camp for the first time this spring after having a cancerous growth removed from his hip last fall.
• Lance Roenicke got into yesterday's game and had a late single.
• Todd Rosiak talked to John Axford about the brawl that marred the end of this weekend's Canada/Mexico game.
• Nick Bucci's disappointing spring continued yesterday as he was optioned to minor league camp. He was removed from Canada's WBC roster with what was believed to be a minor arm issue and has yet to pitch in a game this spring.
• He's not injured, but Hunter Morris is also having a rough spring and Todd Rosiak talked to him about working through it.
• Adam McCalvy has a profile of reliever Donovan Hand, who is having a good spring but remains a long shot to make the roster.
• Bob Young of the Arizona Republic has the latest retelling of Bobby Crosby's comeback story.
• ASU student Jason Galvin of the JS talked to Jim Henderson and Rickie Weeks about pregame routines and superstitions.
• Tom Pipines of Fox 6 has an interview with Scooter Gennett, if you can get past the rough intro. (h/t @Mass_Haas)
• ASU student Alexia Porto of the JS has photos of ASU students covering spring training for the JS.

Meanwhile in Miami, Ryan Braun had two hits and a walk and scored a pair of runs in Team USA's 7-1 win over Puerto Rico in the World Baseball Classic. If they can win one of their next two games they'll advance to the finals. Martin Maldonado and Puerto Rico, meanwhile, now need to win twice to advance.

Jonathan Lucroy didn't appear in last night's game, but he was the subject of The Brewer Nation's latest edition of "Brewers By the (Jersey) Numbers."

Marco Estrada is one of the more unpredictable key players on the 2013 Brewers, but he also has one of the team's highest upsides. Nick Fleder of The Hardball Times has a look at Estrada's breakout 2012 season and his value going forward.

In the minors:

• John Sickels of Minor League Ball has four Brewers on his list of baseball's top 150 prospects: Wily Peralta, Clint Coulter, Victor Roache and Tyler Thornburg.
• Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com updated his conglomerate top 100 list to include Baseball Prospectus and FanGraphs' recent releases and has Wily Peralta at 75, while Tyler Thornburg is at 99.4.
• Disciplies of Uecker has part one (#21-30) of their list of the top 30 prospects in the Brewer organization.

Around baseball:

Tigers: Released outfielder Brennan Boesch.

Today in former Brewers:

• Tony Graffanino stopped by Brewer camp yesterday to offer encouragement to Mat Gamel following his second ACL surgery.
• True Blue LA has a profile of Chris Capuano, who still projects to be a likely odd man out in the Dodgers' rotation.
• Jake Odorizzi was optioned to AAA by the Rays yesterday, ending his hopes of making their rotation.

Today in baseball economics: The Mariners turned a profit of $5.9 million last season and have made money every year since 2008 despite going 288-360 over the last four years with an average payroll of about $92 million.

This morning's edition of Today In Brewer History marks 2002 Brewer Jorge Fabregas' 43rd birthday. Chris Jaffe of The Hardball Times notes that it's also been 8000 days since Robin Yount's 500th double. At that point he was only the 26th major leaguer ever to reach that milestone.

Finally, every now and then we all need a reminder of just where we are and what it is that we're all so excited about. Apparently this was also the case in 1916, as documented by this Old Time Family Baseball post.

Now, if you'll excuse me, we're out of air freshener.

Drink up.