Baseball In Wisconsin
Milwaukee. Home of the Brewers, Bucks, fine cheeses, and Schlitz.
Wisconsin is a beautiful state and worth a pass-through on any road trip. I haven’t had the pleasure of visiting Milwaukee, but I’ve driven through the country side and stopped to have a couple of drinks in Madison.
I don’t know a damn thing about the Milwaukee Brewers. I fully admit in researching anything I am about to tell you. The Brewers, led by big basher Prince Fielder, are a solid team. At 39-33, they sit in third place in the NL Central, 6 games back of the Chicago Cubs. They have good starting pitching with guys like Ben Sheets and Jeff Suppan. And they play real good at home.
The good news is that Eric Gagne is fresh off the DL and ready to blow games, and their closer in his stead, Salomon Torres, has been good but overused.
Tonight’s matchup features Jeff Suppan (4-4, 3.68) vs. Radhames Liz (1-0, 4.32).
Forgot to mention that this road trip also means watching our pitchers make asses of themselves trying to hit, or in D-Cab’s case, simply standing there. He’s 0-9 with 9 strikeouts at the plate.
Perhaps more interestingly will be watching DT manage his ass off trying to find a win with no DH. Let’s hope Salazar continues to hit because they’ll need him.
So whose impressed with Suppan? I know I am. Also, Adam Jones looks 5000% percent better at the plate. That was a Boss AB, AJ. Well done.
4-0, keep it comin’!
Their bullpen is shitty. That I know.
Does anyone else think that of any other major league baseball city, that Milwaukee culturally/spirit-wise have the most in common with Baltimore?
Ohhhhh man, we’ve got ourselves something of a game tonight, don’t we?
Counter-point: I think that once Liz hits a groove (which he could not do because of the long inning – that’s my theory) he’ll be fine. But he’s gotta get a couple guys out first. The second SHOULD be much easier for him.
Oooph. That was an awesome way to end that. Very encouraging out of Liz to keep his wherewithal enough to pick the guy off and then strike out the other guy on a great breaking ball. Danny – I hope you were watching, because Liz is just like you except, you know, not a fucking headcase (apparently).
WOW
Breaking into the epically crappy Brew Crew Bullpen in the 2nd inning?!
Thank you God.
How about 8 batters in each of the two innings?
Let me ask you something. If you were a Brew Crew fan (and you are, admit it), what do you think of signing Kapler for this year? He’s been hot lately, but he’s basically a decent to mediocre 4th outfielder for an NL team, and he literally was a Red Sox cheerleader last year, when during October (after the A season was over) he wrote for the Boston Globe. In fact, after the Series ended, he wrote something like:
“How does this team not win again next year?! These guys are a dynasty in the making…They will grow together. I can close my eyes and see this team crowned the team of the decade.”
Obviously, I’m a conflicted guy in these terms, but try not to think about it being the Red Sox, and I think it’s a real question. I totally get the separation of friendship and loyalty during the game, but really, that’s totally unacceptable in my eyes. But I’m biased. What do you all think?
Yeesh, that’s a gooey love there!
Kapler is still all googly-eyed for them, I wouldn’t of gone near him.
Whew.
That’s all I got.
Jésus Christo, Santa Maria! Sherrill is gonna’ take years off my lifespan just with these 9th innings.
A W is a W.
How about the Huff Daddy with 2 HRs, and he almost hit for the cycle again?
I agree that it’s hard to hate on a town like Milwaukee on a spiritual level. There’s definitely something of a kindred thing going on there. Never been there, but I saw the Brew Crew every year when I was growing up at Cactus League games at Compadré stadium in Chandler. This was before the nice Spring parks went up on the West Side of town. That stadium is abandoned now, which is really sad to me. They used to have “big” concert festivals there in the early 90′s. I think the Pixies played there with the Sugar Cubes at the Birthday Bash for the local AM alternative station KUKQ. Even before that at an older stadium, I saw them play when I was a 3 or 4-year-old in 1979 or 1980 in Sun City with my grandpa, who took me to meet Robin Yount. Pretty cool in retrospect.
Anyway, some cool stories about this stuff:
http://cactusleague.com/c_history.php (I had no clue the O’s trained in AZ in ’56. Awesome.)
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/37093
Well, if the Brewers are good, sitting at 39-34… what does that make the Orioles at 38-34? Are we finally good too?
Well, Greg, we got a little fat off the Pirates and Astros there, but yes, I think it’s a mistake for any team to see coming in and think “This is an easy 3″…and you know at least somebody did earlier.
Anyone else been to this site yet? It’s a predictions website like Intrade does for all events, but just for sports. Their most interesting feature IMO is the one for the world series where you literally buy a share in the probability that a team goes to the World Series, and in buying each share you specify a seat when if the team does go to the world series IS YOURS, to sell or attend the game you specify.
Os are sleepers, of course, at $20 a share and the best part is of course…NY Yankees selling for $533/share!
Yankee fans losing money = HEAVEN
Big, huge game today for the DC Cab. Seeing as tomorrow is Sunday, we need the win tonight. Boston and New York have already lost, as I type this Tampa is losing, we could gain ground for a second straight day (including moving into third place, everybody!) Failing that, we desperately need the Cabrera to do two things: go like 7 innings at least tonight, and get better already. I imagine we’ve got Albers and Johnson and maybe Bradford/Walker tonight, but Sarfate and Cormier and Sherrill need the night off. Badly.
I CALLED THAT SHIT IN MY HEAD!
SALAZAR BABY!!!
BYnum DFA’ed…it’s about fucking time, guys. Thanks. Seriously, watching Bynum-Cabrera bat in order last night was absolutely one of the more painful things I’ve seen this year. It was an automatic 6 pitches two outs. Terrible.
So now we’ve got Cintron as the starting shortstop, which is what everyone said was going to happen months ago. Why’d we waste this much time getting here? I also wonder how many games Bynum cost us…almost -5 VORP says 5 runs or so that a talentless scrub could put up that Bynum couldn’t. So we might’ve grabbed an extra win somewhere (perhaps last night), considering Cintron’s at around 0 VORP.
An extra pitcher is up, I assume everyone except Walker/Bradford and Johnson need the rest right now. We’ve used literally everyone except Johnson in this series (which is mostly Liz’s fault, really, since he never got into that groove). By the way, props to Albers for pitching absolutely wonderfully yesterday, sparing everybody else the work. Albers might be one of the most unsung heros of the first half.
Can we win on a Sunday? Was it Jim Hunter cursing us or Freddie Bynum? This is a huge game from a lot of different perspectives. Olson could use a good road game, we could use the series win going into the toughest series we’re gonna see in a while, and we need badly to get off that Sunday schnied (schneid?)
AooR, it’s apparently “schneid”. Thanks for the new word, very cool!
Obviously Bukvich took Bynum’s roster spot.