J.J. Hardy is no longer a Brewer!  Check out Tom Hardicourt’s blog.

To those of you who thought we should’ve got starting pitching for him I will simply say this:  Did you watch the same guy I did last year?  He couldn’t hit a curve ball to save his life!  How many GM’s out there do you think are going to give up starting pitching for a guy that was sent down to the minors and replaced by a prospect?  We’re lucky we got someone with some potential.  Whether or not Gomez lives up to it remains to be seen.

As a starting MLB pitcher, you’ve got to figure that if you go 7 innings, strike out 12, walk 2, and give up just 1 run, you’ve put your team in position to win the game.  Especially when the guys who came in to pitch in the 8th and 9th innings from your bullpen didn’t allow any hits or walk anybody.  That’s got to go in your win column right?

Most of the time, yes.  But, not today.  The Brewers dropped the final game of their 3 game series with the Mets by a score of 1-0.  The offense failed the young pitcher today.  The Crew got 7 hits and the Mets were nice enough to commit an error on top of that.  But, the team went 0-7 in batting with runners in scoring position.  Kind of hard to win games when you do that.

Perhaps hanging on is a bit of an exaggeration.  However, despite MIP award candidate Ricky Weeks going down with a season ending injury, they are still in first place of the NL Central.  They had to come from behind twice against the Indians and pull one out in 11 innings to get the sweep this last series.  But, they did it.  And they’ve done it with unlikely heroes.  Casey McGehee, Mitch Stetter, Mark De Felice?  Hell, even J.J. Hardy, Bill Hall, and Corey Hart have got out of their slumps a bit lately.

Perhaps this is what’s different with this team.  Everyone understands the importance of each game, and people are stepping up when the opportunity presents itself.  The results are 8 games over .500 after 66 games.  If they keep up that pace you’re looking at 91 wins this season.  If they only manage .500 ball the rest of the way, you’re looking at 85 wins.  The way the Central is going, that might be enough.  I don’t know how LaRusa has the Cards winning, but I don’t think they’re as good as they’re record.  The Cubs are…well…being the Cubs.  They look great on paper, but not so much on the field.  The Reds are still a year or two away and the Astros and Pirates are farther out than that.  So, 85 might do it.  I’d much rather have the 91 since at worst that should be a wild-card.

It sure is nice having a team I care about actually winning some games!

The Milwaukee Brewers are currently the hottest team in baseball.  That would be quite a surprise if I made that statement in August or September, but is it really much of a shock in May?  There’s a different manager in town, Rickie Weeks is actually hitting the ball with relatively low amounts of errors, and a starting rotation that looked mediocre at best is pitching very well.  But, is it really a different year?  This is a team that has historically done well before the All Star break only to collapse as the dog days of summer wear on.  So, should we be surprised that the Brewers are 16-5 over the last 21 games and haven’t lost a series since the April 17 – 19 Mets series?

The cynic in me says no, but I do think this is a different team.  They’ve been in a pennant race before.  They’ve made it to the playoffs.  Now they know what it takes.  But, most importantly, they’ve been winning games differently each time out.  Different players have been the hero. 

They aren’t relying on Ben Sheet’s pitching (remember he started for the NL in the All Star game last year for a reason) or Fielder and Braun hitting jacks over the fence.  Some days its great pitching.  Some days like last night, it’s Rickie Weeks swinging the bat, or Craig Counsell, or Mike Cameron getting on base rather than striking out.  And some days Gallardo shuts down the opponent and rips his own HR to win the game by himself.

Granted Fielder and Braun are still there and Braun’s got a sick OBP and slugging percentage — he gets on base roughly every other trip to the plate, and when he does hit the ball more than half the time he’s got extra bases involved — to go along with a very nice .333 batting average.  But the HR’s have been nicely spread around.  Fielder’s got 7.  Braun’s got 8.  Weeks has 9.  Cameron has 7 and even Hardy who was in a prolonged slump to start the year has 5 and his average has gone up to .221 after slugging .591 over the last week (at one point this season his average was .125).

So, while it seems like more of the same, the season has all the makings of being different.  We’ll check back in July and August and see if its any different or not.

I must have some kind of new powerful mojo that I was unaware of.

First, I call out the Brewers hitters for not doing their jobs.  Since that posting the Brewers have been 5-1 and outscored opponents by a margin of 15.  Next, I concede that the Ted Thompson probably won’t listen to me and take Raji and it wouldn’t surprise me that he takes someone else or trades down.  And what does he do?  He not only takes Raji, but trades up to take Matthews. 

Hmm, I must remember this.  These powers need to only be used for the power of good.  Or at least, improving sports in SE Wisconsin.  Now let’s see…what can we do about the Bucks…

Even with Ryan Braun showing signs of breaking out of his batting slump by going 5-5 with 2 HR’s the Brewers still got thumped by the Phillies last night.  The Brewers now have the second worst record in MLB.  You can’t blame this dismal start of a season on the lack of Sheets and Sabathia.  The Brewers batting has been down right awful.

When you look at the Brewers who have more than 10 at bats so far this year (otherwise Gallardo and Suppan are 2 of your 3 best hitters),  you’ll see not 1, not 2, but 3 regular starters that are batting less than .200.  Fielder, Hardy and Kendall are batting a mere .163, .125, and .118 respectively.  Ben Sheets hits almost that good for crying out loud.  These are all guys who have been All Stars, not some shlubs they dredged up out of AA.  Those bats better start coming alive or some folks might find themselves on the trading block as the Brewers start slashing salary and looking toward next year.

Folks around here have lamented about how bad the Brewers pitching will be without Sheets and Sabathia this year.  Granted, those guys were/are pretty good.  However, if you all remember back to the start of last year, people had dreams of the playoffs and Sabathia wasn’t even in the picture.  Why? 

Well, the Brewers had another pitcher on staff that wasn’t too bad either.  Some 22 year old kid named Yovanni Gallardo.  Unfortunately, he only appeared in a measley 27 innings spread across 4 games last year.  He managed to amass a 1.88 ERA in that time but received no decisions either way and had a 0-0 record.  All because he blew out his knee in a bizarre play at 1st base at Wrigley Stadium early in the season.  He raced back through rehab (being a young kid will help with that), to pitch in a final series against the Cubs so Sabathia didn’t have to trot out there every stinking night. 

So, how’s he doing this year?  He got his first start last night and here’s the stats:

• 6 2/3 innings pitched
• 2.7 ERA
• 6 Strike outs
• Batted .500 with a 3 run-2 out jack in the 5th inning off Randy Johnson (you’ve heard of him, right?  5 time Cy Young award winner?  Thought so.)

Tonight Manny Parra takes the mound in hopes the Brewers can win the series.  Parra started out 9-2 last year before hitting the rookie wall.  Hopefully, this season he can start like that again and keep it going throughout the season.  If so, the Brewers will have found 2 new aces for there staff right under their own roof.

I realize they lost Sheets and Sabathia, but other than that, it’s the same team.  Except they should have a real manager for the entire season.  Yovanni Gallardo is healthy, Parra has a whole season under his belt (and he was pretty good before hitting that rookie wall), and Suppan has looked like he fixed things that caused the wheels to come off last September.  Don’t forget about Dave Bush and Looper — both guys who can eat up innings and win about half of their games.

While that may inspire a lot of folks out there, that pitching staff stacks up with a lot of other teams in the league.  Throw in Hoffman in the closer role, Villanueva and McClung and pitching doesn’t look too bad.  Throw in the fact that the rest of the team has some better backups than last year and they’ve gone through a pennant race and realized that every game does matter.  Lastly, you throw in the way they’ve played this spring and there’s reason for optimism.

What the Brewers need is for Braun to stay healthy, Hart to avoid such a prolonged hitting slump as the end of last year, and avoid some injuries to the starting pitching.  The Cubs probably have the most talent — lots of money to spend can do that for you — but they also have a ton of egos and durablity questions.  The Brewers are next on the talent scale in the Central.  If the Brewers can stay close to the Cubs in the first half of the season, chances are good the Cubs will fade in the second half.  And if they don’t, the Brewers should be able to stay close with the Mets and Phillies for the Wild Card again.

The Crew should be in another race again in September.  Playing relevant games in August and September should be exciting for the fans.  This fan wants to see them playing relevant ball in October.

Either that, or he’s just plain lucky.  Yes, signing Gagne to the $10 million last year was a mistake.  But, it was a one year deal and then it was off the books.  So, yesterday, he gets Gagne back at a much reduced price of a minor league deal.  In the stretch run of the season the guy posted a .72 WHIP.  Granted, he wasn’t the closer and his salary exceeded his position, but that’s nothing to sneeze at. 

This deal is cheap for the Brewers and it could work out for them.  Plus, if he doesn’t make the 40 man roster, he becomes a free agent again.  The Brewers added competition to the bullpen in spring training at a minimum.  Who knows, they may have just cobbled together a decent pitching staff without spending the big bucks. 

Crafty or lucky?  Who cares as long as the Brewers get better.

I have finally returned from Dante’s inner most ring of hell with this project I’ve been working on, so let’s get to the blogging!  And we’ll jump right in with the Brewers.

Doug Melvin is in talks with Trevor Hoffman to be the Brewers closer.  I like this better than the Gagne deal last year.  Why?  Trevor Hoffman is a HoF closer and he amassed all those saves without the use of roids.  Plus, he’s been very durable over the years.  The only other option the Brewers have on staff is Seth McClung.  And, since they haven’t added any starting pitching, they’ll need him in that roll.  I suppose Carlos Villanueva has the stuff to be a closer, but he’s far too valuable as that long reliever.  Especially if they don’t bring in someone who can eat up a lot of innings once every 5 games.

So, offer Hoffman a 1 year deal worth 5 – 7 million and move on to the starting pitching which is probably most important.  Maybe its time to call Ben Sheets and see if he’d like a 1 or 2 year deal to come back.  The free agent market is drying up and they could use him.  At least until they know if Parra can go a whole season and if Gallardo is back from his injury.  Plus, it gives them time to bring up Jeffress slowly to see if he’s better as a starter or a closer.  Who knows, in the next year or 2, maybe Sheets becomes your closer.