15-16: Narv-Dog comes through....again; BREWERS SWEEP!

The unsuspecting bright spot in the rotation, other than Yo, has been Chris Narveson. The kid is calm and collective on that mound. It showed again yesterday when the Crew defeated the DBacks 6-1 in sweeping fashion.

Narveson (3-0) threw 5.2 innings giving up only one earned-run on a lowly 3 hits. He fanned 8 and walked 2. Impressive nonetheless. It's looking like Narv-Dog has his spot in the rotation all but locked up. Which means....Manny Parra and/or Jeff Suppan are going to be restricted to relief work until Randy Wolf comes down with a should injury...or...something like that.

The bullpen looks to be rebounding since arriving in LA (aside from the Hawkins EPIC failure of an outing). Yesterday the pen tossed 3.1 scoreless frames. The only moments of concern were Todd Coffey (hold 7) gave up 2 hits, as did Suppan in the bottom of the 9th. Thankfully, Suppan was able to turn a nice double-play to end the game. Mitch Stetter came back in grand fashion by earning his 3rd hold. Apparently he did some refiguring in his approach while down in the minors. He is now the ONLY true-lefty specialist in the bullpen. Manny Parra is more of a long-relief option.

It is clear that the Milwaukee bats have awoken from a giant slumber party that lasted most of April (aside from playing the Pirates) and a few days in May.

I, along with many other fans...including Bill Shroeder on FSWisconsin were highly pissed off when Greg Zaun had the green-light to swing on 3-0 pitch in the 6th inning with BASES LOADED. This really made me mad. For those that missed it.....Both Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder struck out with the bases loaded. Greg Zaun came up to the plate and worked the count quickly. On a 3-0 pitch Zaun swung for the fence and ended with an in-field flyout. Unbelievable. Of course, Zaunie made it up to me by going yard!

Prince Fielder (4), Casey McGehee (6), and Greg Zaun (2) all homered yesterday.
McGehee had 3 runs-batted-in.
Rickie Weeks added two hits, one being a double.

http://www.hittrackeronline.com/ keeps a list of the longest hit hommers of the season.
Ryan Braun is 3rd with his 467 yard bomb and Rickie Weeks is 6th with a 459 bomber...both occurring over the weekend. Oddly enough, Marlon Byrd is ranked twice, once against the Brewers. Mark Reynolds is also listed twice while the DBacks are listed 3 times as the opponent...I would imagine all happening at their ballpark.

The Crew is 4-8 at home this season and 11-8 on the road...strange. Adam McCalvy points out in his blog that something has to change here....the Braves come to town with Tommy Hansen taking the mound tonight. They are a woeful 5-14 on the road.
Milwaukee returned home with a winning road trip after staring their series loss with the Padres in which they were shut out all 3 losses.

Zach Braddock has now pitched 13.1 scoreless innings over 8 games for (AAA) Nashville.
He has 23 SO's and only 6 walks with his opponents batting .098 against him. That's insane. If he keeps that business up Milwaukee will be forced to call him up much ealier than they originally planned. My guess is that they will also have some decision to make with Capuano who should be available for call-up in July. With LaTroy Hawkins coming back May 24th (off the DL), the Crew will have a plethora of relievers with no openings. My guess is that a trade will be happening. Manny Parra and possibly even Jeff Suppan (and his contract) could be targets for those who are in desperate need of a starting pitcher. Of course, I haven't even mentioned David Riske, who's status is not known to me, could also come back and Chris Capuano is just starting to get his mojo again. The latter is slated to get the call-up to AAA Nashville....so a lot can go wrong before the deadline. The question remains....what does Milwaukee do with the routine relievers they have in the pen now...when the up and coming stars in Nashville (who have a collective ERA of 4.31 or better)? Log jam.