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!!!