Game 16- Milwaukee v Cinncinnati: Hold Your Breath
I wake up from a nap that went excessively long and dial up brewers.com to catch the game. I see 5-0 after 5. "YEAH!" I see Torres pitcher "WA-WA-WHAT!". Oh no, here it goes, Sheets on the DL. I tune in the broadcast, which for some reason defaults to the Reds broadcast and I hear whoever the wisenheimer is on Reds radio blaming the Brewers for Sheets problems. "The Brewers need to be paying attention to more than pitch count when it comes to Sheets' health." Well what else are the Brewers supposed to do? You put a grown man out there to pitch, you try not to run him in the ground, you expect him to tell you when he's not right and you deal with it. Is Yost supposed to pitch him every 6 days? IDIOT. There were many good indicators that "tightness in the tricep" won't include a trip to the DL, but I can respect anyone who is frustrated that we had to blow up our bullpen to get this win tonight. And what a Spectacular win it was.

Game 15- Milwauke v St. Louis-- Happy Cows
Given Prince's lack of home runs this season, many fans were concerned that his vegetarianism was hindering is power. That's why I think cows everywhere were happy when Prince hit his 1st dinger of the season. In the 10th off Brad Thompson and FOLLOWING a legged out single by Ryan Braun. See Yost, maybe Braun 3, Fielder 4 works. Once again, the crew spent most of the day not hitting, and through sheer gutsy pitching, the bullpen kept them in this game. After Para left after 4, the bullpen kept the Cards off the board, McClung, Mota, Shouse and Gagne got it done. Although Gagne had to put a few guys on to keep me from feeling too good about him. To think, I almost turned this game off. Had I not been in the middle of mopping the kitchen, I may have gone to do something else. Shame on me.

Game 14- Milwaukee v St. Louis-- Maybe it was the Brewers playing over their heads?
When I saw the hot start St. Louis got off to, I took into consideration the teams the Cards were playing and thought, "The Crew will bring them back to earth." Hmm. I'd like to retract that statement.

I used to feel bad for Rick Ankiel. Now I just hate him for grinding out 18 pitches agains Villy last night in the 1st. Seriously, if you're pitcher is going to throw 45 in the first, the hitters have to give him some support. I don't know what the Brewer's strike out totals are, but I feel like I'm watching the '01 team. Can Jenkins come back? I was shocked to see they made a game out of it in the 9th, I guess that's good to see if you want one bright spot from the game. Last year they couldn't score after the 7th, and it seems like they're more able to do that now.

Lot of bloggers making an issue of Turnbow saying he is unhappy with his role. I wish I knew what his role is. Yost is only using him when the Crew is behind. To me that says mop up, but even the Turnbow of last season was better than a mop up man. Fact is, Turnbow has a right to be unhappy. He wasn't criticizing Yost's decision, in fact, he kind of defended it. All he said was, he felt he could still pitch effectively and was going to keep going out there until he proved to Yost he could do it.

I hardly put myself in the "Yost-basher" category, but I do have to question his attitude. He seems to have a little Bobby Valentine in him-- being stubborn and taking it personal when the press questions his decisions. If Jason Kendall is your best hitter right now, move him to the 2 spot. If JJ Hardy isn't hitting well, quit having the pitcher hit behind him. If Braun and Fielder worked well at 3 and 4 in the lineup last season, hit them that way. I'm all for trying unique strategy, but sometimes straight up common sense is your best friend.

Tough loss tonight, but not Bush's fault. The Brewer bats are struggling more than Joey Meyer in a phone booth. This funk of Prince's is compounded by the fact that Braun isn't hitting either. If those guys aren't hitting, the whole lineup seems to fall apart.

The Jeff Weaver signing is interesting. My first reaction was, "If we needed an arm, why did we let Vargas go?" But perhaps Weaver has something more left in him than Vargas, and apparently the contract the Brewers gave him was next to nothing considering it is all incentive laden.

Today is the anniversary of Juan Nieves' no-no. I'll never forget that night. I was doing my homework when my father came up from his workroom and told us the Brewers were throwing a no-hitter. I think when we turned it on, it was around the 7th inning. And to be honest, I didn't no the true deffinition of a no-hitter. To me a hit was any time you made contact with a ball. (Later on after the game, my father, using a chalkboard in the basement explained deffinitions of a base hit, error, no-hitter, perfect game and other baseball details.) But my brother and I watched that game, and when Robin caught the last out, I felt genuine excitement over a teams success. When you think about it, being a fan is a weird thing. You have, basically, no part in their success, yet seeing them succeed gives you great joy. I'll save the dynamics of "fan/team" relationships for later, but at that moment, I felt like I went from a casual Brewer fan, to a rabid, die-hard, sprinkle my ashes over County Stadium fan.

I hate starting posts when I may not be able to complete them, (I'm at work right now, an hour from show time) but, I don't feel like blogging at midnight tonight.

Game 11- Milwaukee v NY (N)
It's hard to write this post with my "Ben Sheets is Awesome" sandwich board on. I didn't get to listen to any of this game, just made occasional score checks from my register at REI customer service. The first check of Brewers.com was "Brewers back in game" which I figured meant, "They put a run on the board after the Mets hung 5 on Sheets." But I was glad to see that they had grabbed the lead and Sheets, while finally getting scored on shut it DOWN! 18 consecutive batters after the 2nd. And in consecutive starts, he has beaten Barry Zito (highest paid pitcher in baseball) and Johan Santana (2nd highest paid pitcher in baseball). There's a lot of talk about Kapler and Kendall, but I'm also very happy to see Weeks working out in the leadoff spot.

Game 12- Milwaukee v NY (N)
This game was so anxiety filled, that I wondered if I can take another competitive season. I'll take a season of games like this over a season like '02 any day. All in all, other than Mota's inability to throw strikes, I have to be happy with the bullpen. Gagne, other than making a "bad pitch" in two previous appearances, has been pretty solid. He throws strikes and he doesn't get rattled when he gets knocked around. I found it strange that after a mediocre rebirth in Texas last season, he was touted as the FINAL PIECE of the Red Sox bullpen. The player that would make Boston's bullpen's ubeatable... then he ended up being a bust as a setup man. In my opinion, the media and Red Sox fans overhyped him. But when the Brewers signed him this offseason, the media seemed to forget how wrong they were in July, and assumed he was done, ready for the trash heap, destined to pump gas in Montreal by June. But I figured he could still be effective enough to get the Brewers through this season until they could find a better long term option for the 9th inning. So far, (and it's early) he seems to be doing that. And as long as he doesn't give up 5 runs in the 9th to the Phillies, he may be an adequate replacement for CoCo.