Its almost November

Its been a while since my last blog, no reason, just been busy. So its almost November and Sports are at the all time high. Baseball is wrapping up the World Series with NYY and PHI, i'm not that interested really, I'm not a fan of the Yankees and Phi won last year, but its still baseball. The Badger football program has had another down year, there projecting us to be in the outback bowl again this year, wahhooo. At least were not finishing last in the division. The Packers play their biggest game of the season in 2 days and I can't wait any longer for the game to be here. If your not from this Planet then you must know that the Traitor #4 is coming to town once again. I am really hoping that the packers stick it to the vikings and defend our turf. I'm honestly had it with this whole Brett Favre situation, everybody has a take on it and that's great but I don't want to hear about it anymore. The Media has exploded with this and it almost has made me watch the news for just the news!! The packers moved on and so should everybody else, no one talks about Aaron Rodgers and how good he is, and I strongly think that people should talk about him. I think he is better than Favre. You're reading correctly, I said that Rodgers is better than Favre. OK, next topic.

The Bucks have been in the news and rumors lately as well, Michael Redd is healthy and is in the last year of his contract and there are speculations that he will be traded. That's not the only rumor that is out there, Herb Kohl has said that the Bradley Center is good for 8 more years and pro ceded to mention that he would not fund a new arena by himself he would need investors. That brings up the questions, are the Milwaukee Bucks going to be the Bucks much longer? We saw first hand last year the Seattle supersonics move to Oklahoma City and the bucks could be headed to Seattle next. More to come on that as the situation pans out.

Badger Basketball is right around the corner and Bo Ryan's team is hungry this year after being bumped out of the tourney by Xavier. Seniors Jason Bohannon and Trevon Hughes look to lead this young team against the Always tough Big 10 conference with last year's runner up MSU and powerhouse Purdue. This young inexperienced team will have to overcome a lot to make a big splash in the big 10. Its going to be a rough year for the badgers I'm afraid.

Not to much new with the Crew, off season is here and thoughts of spring training are already in my head. The questions have already been asked and people want some answers. Who are the Brewers going to add next year to put them back on top?? Pitching? Is Prince going to be traded? We will wait and see.

Until next time, Happy Halloween and stay healthy!

51 games in

Here we are the start of June and the Brewers are in first place?? I guess I didn’t expect this out of the crew this early. Playing great and winning series is the type of baseball that I expect out of my team, whether that happens is another story. I was a little harsh in my previous entry at the beginning of the season, but I do like to be proven wrong from time to time. A couple things I wanted to touch on now that were just over 50 games played, starting pitching, offence/defense, and new additions to the ball club.

Pitching can make our break a franchise. An offence can help you win games by producing runs, but pitching wins you games by stopping the opposing team from scoring runs. To be honest, our pitching has been great. We have the second lowest ERA in the majors right now and were getting great starts and going deep in ballgames. Our bullpen has been on fire with Todd Coffey and the Hoff shutting people out in the later innings. Each one of the five (Guarrado, Suppan, Looper, Parra, Bush) have had rough outing during the season, but what pitching is going to be perfect all the time. I’m rather pleased with the performance of our pitching staff. I’m hoping that it does not start to fade and people start talking about trading Prince Fielder for pitching help again. I know I was one of those naysayers but I have changed my mind on that ship.

Our offence took a major hit a couple weeks back when Ricky Weeks injured his wrist and is done for the year. Major hole was created at second base. Ken Macha has done a nice job of rotating Counsel, McGhee to fill that spot. I am starting to really enjoy watching Casey Mcghee hit the ball, he’s got a nice future if he can hold his own at 2nd. Future is uncertain on how this situation will resolve itself. Weeks was staring to have the kind of year he was talked about having for 4 years now. His bat was on fire and his fielding was improving, thanks to Willie Randolph working with him. Hopefully with weeks gone, Randolph will focus his attention on up and comer Matt Gamel. Although his bat speaks for itself, his fielding speaks louder. I hope to see good things from the Gamel this year and maybe find his way onto the field more as the year goes on, he is our future 3rd baseman for now. Defensively were doing fine, an error here and there won’t kill a ball club.

Newest additions to the crew as of last May are, obviously Matt Gamel, pinch hitters Jody Gerut and Frank Calamanotto have been brought on to fill in that pinch hitter role that was craig counsel. Brad Nelson was given the option to AAA and am uncertain what happened after that. And as of today, reliever Jorge Julio was released by the team, they brought up reliever Mike Burns from AAA. We shall see how this pans out.

Until next time, Go Brewers!!!

Brewers, brewers, brewers....Season is finally here!

So I know you can’t judge a book by its cover, and that’s how I am looking at the start of this Brewers season. Off to a rocky 4-8 start, the crew seems to be showing the flaws that we all picked apart in the off season. Starting pitching, bullpen, and offence are the issues that come to mind. Now I know as well as anyone that it is way too soon to be making the ultimate decision on where the crew is going to be in the standings at the end of the year, but surprisingly I’m kind of happy about the way things are going right now.

The starting pitching is exactly what I thought it would be, average. Suppan, Gallardo, Parra, Looper and Bush are how they line up, not in that order. They all have shown signs of greatness but no consistency. The only exception so far is Gallardo. The game he pitched against the Mets on 04/18 was the best I’ve seen him pitch in a while, but lets not get so excited, one game means he can pitch, when he starts putting together 3 or 4 good outing in a row is when I will know he is comfortable. The other 4 are easily replaceable. Suppan needs to be let go and the Brewers can eat his contract. I don’t think he was worth the money that he is getting. Parra is still young and needs work. Bush, again signs of greatness, but he gives up the big runs early and then settles down, how about the other way around son. Looper is another case of the Suppan’s. We picked him up because he has start under his belt. He still can pitch and will put up decent numbers, but not a guy you can count on. If I had to grade them right now, C-

The bullpen is my other troubled area of the team. We have a great group of guys who work hard and want to improve and help there team win. Villenueva was a guy last year who you could count on in the 6th, 7th and 8th innings if needed, this year he has been given a new role until Hoffman gets back from the DL, closer. Well, the brewers haven’t had many opportunities to get saves because it seems like there down every game, but the times that Villenueva has been in the game, he has not pitched well. My guess is that he has a little added pressure because of the title he has been given or expected to be given, his problem right now is all mental. He’s thinking about it too much in stead of going out there and just pitching. Once he realizes that, I believe he will be back to that guy that the crew can count on. Seth McClung is the other guy who I believe has a huge upside, that’s not a pun on Seth, he really is a huge guy. He is literally a presence on the mound, he’s big and tall and very inconsistent. When he got the opportunity to start last year he had some games where he was lights out. Since coming out of the bullpen this year, there are no lights flashing or even on right now. He’s been nothing short of terrible. His walks are defiantly troubling, I don’t know if he can’t find it or what, but right now when he’s in the game, I worry. On the up side to the bullpen, newcomer to the Brewers but not a newbie by any means is Todd Coffeey. This guy has been stellar. The past couple games that he has entered, the man has just been awesome. Last night he went 2 1/3 innings and recorded a save. Closer maybe??? Who knows, we shall see when Hoffmann gets back.

The Brewers offence is easily describable in one word, streaky. In baseball you’re considered a good hitter if you get a hit 30% of the time. The highest batting average ever was Roger Hornsby, who had a .403 average over the span of 4 years back in the 20’s, but the point is, ball players are not machines, everyone expects them to hit a home run or a base hit every time at the plate. Granted your going to have a 4-4 game once in a great while, but lets be for real. I guess the thing that bothers me for the most part, and this is why I love being a fan because I’m not the one standing at the plate, but I would give just about anything to be able to have that much talent to be able to be a ball player, but what bothers me is the strikeouts. The crew was just about as bad as you could get last year in this category, but I guess when you’re a home run hitting team, your going to have strikeouts everyday. Back to the topic, the Brewers have as good as a team as anybody, they just are very streaky. One week there hitting the seams off the ball and the next their hitting themselves on the way back to the dugout for striking out. I would really like to see them formed into more of a base hit small ball club. I really think that’s what wins ball games. Sure everybody likes the home runs, but to be honest, you live or you die by the long ball. So, while the offence finds itself, the crew needs to do a better job as a team to find other ways to score runs to compensate for the pitching this year. I think Dale Suavme is going to need to work hard this year. That’s why they kept him around.

As I mentioned earlier, I’m rather pleased on where we are 2 weeks into the season. I’ve said it before, I would much rather them struggle out of the gate and find themselves down the stretch and have momentum to make a run, than to start fast and fade late. I’m looking forward to a great season. Until next time…..

-Brewers fan for life