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!

Okay, so it started a last week, but I’ve been a little busy.  The downside is that Gallardo will miss up to 4 weeks after knee surgery.  I can’t wait to see him pitch on a regular basis.  It’s not like he has just a fast ball and a change-up.  He’s got 4 different pitches and he throws all of them well.  With Suppan as the workhorse, Sheets — I’m hoping against hope that he can stay healthy this year — and Gallardo that makes 3 solid starters you can lean on for wins.  With Villanueva, Bush, Vargas, Parra, Jackson, et al. we should be able to find 2 other starters and some long relief which Villanueva did very well last year.  What scares me is the relief.  Shouse is a situational guy, Turnbow can be great with a lead and scarry if the games close and we’ve added Gagne whose best season came when he was chemically enhanced.

Hitting should be fine between Braun, Fielder, Hart, and Hardy.  Weeks had figured it out at the end of the year so I’m hoping that continues.  We’ve replaced Estrada with Kendall so we should still get production from the catcher’s spot — based on Kendall’s pre-2007 numbers.  Cameron and Hall will provide enough strikeouts for everyone, but they can go yard when they make contact.  Plus, throw in Gwynn, gross, and Dillon as pinch hitters and we should do well with the lineup.  That is of course if Ned can keep from changing it everyday.

With Braun in the outfield, Cameron covering center and Hall at the hot corner we should be a better team defensively as well.  You throw that all together and it’s easy to say this team is better than last year’s team.  Their record better be improved come season end as well.  I know the Brewers extended Nedly through ‘09, but if they don’t win more games this year then I’m afraid Ned has to go.  There is a ton of talent on this team and he needs to make the most of it.  The Central is not dramatically improved anywhere that I can see.  So, the Brewers have as good a shot as anyone.  It’s time to end the playoff drought.

It appears it took the Rockies 2 days to sell out their World Series tickets.  Why?  Well it had to be some kind of malicious attack of course.  It couldn’t possibly be that they funneled traffic off of their main servers to ones operated by Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel.  Could it?  Or maybe you didn’t realize the world you were living in and that a bunch of ticket brokers were trying to gobble up the tickets.  But…wait…ticket brokers are always honest, ethical individuals who would never do something so unscrupulous.  Right?

Not only did they choose to lie about the cause of their site troubles, they compounded it by lying about the speed of the tickets being sold.  Did they really think no one was going to do the math?  360 tickets per minute.  Is that a large total?  And is that even an accurate measure?  How many orders were processed per minute will give you a better total of the number of transactions occurring per minute. 

Worse case is that everyone placed an order for 1 ticket — who really does that? – and that leaves you with 6 transactions per second.  That is not a lot for a computer or a relational database running on the computer to handle.  I can think of 20 people off the top of my head that I’ve worked with — myself included — that have written computer systems that handle more transactions than that.

These kinds of things bug the living hell out of me.  Why?  Because computers — and those who keep them running — continue to get the blame for people’s mistakes.  They are viewed as a necessary evil that run by some kind of magic prone to errors which gives people an easy excuse to not understand the issue.  Those of us in the computer industry make plenty of mistakes on our own.  Usually out of some CEO’s artificial time table that rushes something to market too soon to make the quarterly report look good to the shareholders, but I digress.  We don’t need PR people making stuff up that just doesn’t make any sense what-so-ever.  Stand up!  Be a man!  Don’t point the finger at the “mystical oracle and the shamans who failed to keep it appeased.” 

So, the Brewers were unable to close out a road trip with a winning record.  They had the opportunity to finish up 4-2 on their swing through Cincinnati and Pittsburgh.  Two parks in particular that the Brewers have really sucked at.  Instead they lost the rubber match to the Pirates and finished 3-3.  Given the last couple of teams the Brewers play to end the season, that’s not too good.  They really could’ve used feasting on some poorer teams to build up a lead on the Cubs.

Speaking of which, why won’t they just go away?  The Cardinals are working hard at trying to collapse at the end here, why won’t the Cubs follow suit? 

“It’s Lou, he won’t let them quit.”

“It’s Lee and Soriano.  They’re putting the team on their back.”

“They’ve finally come together with some chemistry.”

Actually, it’s the play of their rookies, folks.  I guess that’s alright.  Braun and Gallardo have carried the Brewers at times.  It’s only fitting the Brewers main competition is also relying on guys that aren’t old enough to realize the pressure cooker they’re in.  I just wish they weren’t wearing Cubs uniforms.  I guess I’ll have to put up with Cubs fans until they’re team finally choke. 

[Sigh]

This article is an interesting read.  Whether or not you like Mark Cuban, you’ve got to admit the guy is always interesting.  The thing that I find most interesting from this article is his quote about his ownership of the Mavericks is more about winning than making a profit.  Why is that the most interesting to me?  Because he’s trying to buy the Cubs.

If he buys the Cubs the Brewers are in big trouble.  Cuban can outspend anybody if he wants to.  Attanasio is proving to be an upgrade over the Seligs, but he doesn’t have Cuban’s kind of money.  The guy is all about winning.  I can’t imagine him settling for some of the personnel mistakes the Cubs have made over the years with the money they have spent — and we’re already talking about a sizable chunk of dough.

With the rabid Cubs fans that will follow that team and the profits from the WGN deal and Cuban’s own money there is no reason to think the Cubs couldn’t have the highest paid roster in baseball.  Not that it seems to be helping the Yankees walk away with their division this year, but they’re still in the hunt.  And the money keeps them in the hunt every year.  While us Brewer fans wait for a good season every 1/4 century, Cubs fans could be enjoying competitive teams for years to come.

Well, the kid can hit the ball.  In his first 2 major league outings he’s batting 4-8 with 3 RBI, 1 double and 1 HR.  That’s a .500 batting average and a 1.000 slugging percentage.  That’s handling the pressure.  Yet the Brewers have lost both games.  Why?  One guy could not save the game. 

Last night Vargas gave up 10 hits and 4 earned runs in 5 and a 1/3 innings pitched and Villanueva came in the finish the game and gave up 3more hits and 2 more runs.  Top that off with the Brewers stranding 4 guys in scoring position and Braun getting half of the hits by himself last night.  The night before the story was similar.  The Brew Crew scored more runs, Braun had a double and a sac fly off future hall of famer Greg Maddux (welcome to the Majors kid), but Bush gave up 9 hits and 7 earned runs in 5 innings.  Spurling came in for 2 innings and gave up an insurance run to the Padres.

Its pitching folks.  Its always pitching.  This is baseball.  Its a simple game.  If you don’t have good pitching, you’re just not going to win.  Until the starters can get back to going a solid 7 innings with just 2-3 runs scored, this team will continue to struggle.

No, not THE Savior.  I speak of course of the savior of the Milwaukee Brewers, Ryan Braun.  At least, you’d think he was the savior with how excited Milwaukee Brewers fans have been after the news of his call-up from AAA Nashville.  He must be walking across Lake Michigan to get here.

He’s the flavor of the month with the fans.  Last year everyone was so excited Prince Fielder was finally in the lineup and his bat was going to save the franchise.  At the end of the year, no one could figure out why Tony Gwinn Jr. wasn’t getting more playing time with his speed.  This year’s Ryan Braun’s turn.

Poor kid.  No pressure there.  I must admit, I’m glad he’s a major leaguer.  Heck I named the blog in honor of him being called up to man 3rd base.  His bat is sorely needed at the bottom of the lineup.  If he’s half as good as he was in spring training he’ll be better than what the Brewers had.  But, his addition means the Brewers are starting 2 23-year olds and 2 24-year olds in the infield.  I expect a few mistakes to be made along the way and I’m not sure if the local fans will be tolerant.

 Let’s be honest.  Who will truly determine the Brewers future are guys by the names of Suppan, Sheets, Cappuano, Vargas, Bush, Turnbow and Cordero.  The pitching staff was outstanding early in the season and the Crew jumped out to a big lead in the NL Central.  They’ve been struggling a bit lately (with the exception of Cordero), and so have the Brewers.  Fortunately, the other teams in the central have followed suit and struggled as well.

Well, Ryan Braun, welcome to the big leagues.  Fans are fickle, hence the name fanatic.  But, I think you’ll be fine as long as you remember that’s 6′ tall Prince Fielder at 1st and not Shaq.  No throws into the dugout please.