29-25: Back on the road again...

  Brewer fans around the state were wondering what they were going to get out of their team when they departed from Mitchell Airport on Sunday night.  After all, Milwaukee has the best home record in all of baseball. 

 One has to cringe when they see it's Chris Narveson's turn to pitch.  I mean, yes...the man was solid in his first month of play.  However, it's been pretty damn rough as of late having only one 1 of his last 5 decisions.  Now I realize that he's our #5 starter, but that type of mentality is so 2009-2010 Milwaukee mentality.  If they expect to make it to October, Milwaukee needs to win by all means possible.

 Narveson lasted all but 4 innings before being yanked after giving up a 3 run homer to the ever surging Jay Bruce.  It was a horrible pitch that he left hanging right over the middle of the plate and Bruce exploited it.  Chris was even quoted as saying it was a stupid pitch.  Now I realize that it was 1 mistake...but come on.  You can't give up that one mistake to the hottest player in the National League at the present time (btw...that won't last).  Mitre came in to relieve Narv-Dog and he did perfectly fine, except for his infield did him no favors in the Little League / Bush League defensive throwing error that made the Brewers look like a bunch of kooks.  Lucroy threw high while trying to throw out Fred Lewis; the very-same Lewis who's hit drove in a run that would have only put the Reds on top 6-3.  Instead, they Reds tagged on another run due to the error.   Tim Dillard was excellent in the last two innings and he certainly did his part by not allowing a run and striking out 4.  He's looking good.

Prince Fielder went 3 for 4 with a double while Carlos Gomez hit his 4th dinger of the year (2 of which were in Cincy). 

Tonight, it will come down to Zack Greinke to win one back for the Crew.  It certainly seems attainable because the Reds are using a recent call-up in Chad Reineke from AAA Louisville (5-2, 2.52 ERA).  This is his first big league call-up since 2009.  Milwaukee does not fare well against first-time starters for Cincy.  It was either Travis Wood or Mike Leake that beat up on the Crew during their first start with the Reds. 

Reineke will be Cincinnati's 7th DIFFERENT starting pitcher in this 10 game-span.

So tonight's game is pretty big.  It's not a must-win; rather it's a game that will show Milwaukee if Zack Greinke can deliver and live up to the blockbuster trade that sent him north to Milwaukee this past off-season. 

*As I thought all along....Carlos Gomez & Nyjer Morgan are going to platoon in CF.

*ESPN's David Schoenfield believes the Brewers will win the NL Central.  Despite having a horrible bench and a "thin" bullpen, Milwaukee's pitching should outlast St Louis' starting 5. 

 

29-24: Milwaukee take the series with San Fran

  Milwaukee continued it's home dominance over the weekend by taking 2 out of 3 games with San Fransisco. 

28-24

27-24

Weekend Series w/ San Fran

  Milwaukee will have to be ready for the world champs this weekend when they welcome the San Francisco Baseball Giants to town.  Despite the fact that SF slack in the offensive categories and they are now going to be with out their Catcher (Buster Posey-out for the season), Milwaukee will have to rely on some sun support to win. 

Tim Lincecum will face Milwaukee's top hurler in Shaun Marcum on Friday night to kick the series off.  The former is coming of a 3-hit shutout against the Athletics last week.  In doing so, the dirty hippie look-a-like lowered his era to 2.06.  Meanwhile, Marcum is coming off winning NL Player of the Week (shared with Arizonas' Hudson) which lowered his 2.37 on the season.  Since his first start in a Milwaukee uniform (lost 4-2), Marcum has gone 6-0 with an impressive 2.10 ERA in 9 starts.

Saturday
Jonathon Sanchez 3-3, 3.47 ERA
Randy Wolf 4-4, 3.70 ERA

Sunday
Matt Cain 3-3, 3.53 ERA
Yonvani Gallardo 6-2, 4.35 ERA


*Nyjer Morgan will be activated tomorrow before the game, thus resulting in (most likely) Mike Rivera being optioned down to Nashville. 

*More on Ryan Braun's douchie energy drink

*Cardinal fans are starting to consider Milwaukee as their biggest threat

*Very cool promotion being put on by Froedtert Hospital and Miller Park today.  The first 500 to get their prostrate checked will get a free ticket.

27-23: Milwaukee sweeps DC

  Milwaukee continued it's home dominance by sweeping the last place Nationals out of Miller Park.  Today, in front of 36,000+ fans the Brewers beat Washington 6-4.  Zack Greinke looked solid the first 3 innings until the 4th when he gave up a 4-run shot to Michael Morse, which tied the game up.  That being said, Zack Greinke fanned 10 batters and really only made one mistake which was the HR.  Otherwise, this was by far his best start in a Milwaukee uniform.

Greinke (3-1) tossed 100 pitches, 65 of them were for strikes.
Latroy Hawkins collected his 5th hold of the season and Kameron Loe notched his first save of the season by going 1.1 innings.  Axford was rested today.

Offensively, Milwaukee scored 6 runs behind Zack Greinke's 1st HR as a Brewer and Prince Fielder's 4 RBI, along with Braunie and Weeks throwing in a doubles (as did Prince).  Prince is on a RBI tear this season.

Milwaukee has now swept their last 3 home series (Pitt, Col, Wash)

Troubling?  Well that would be Casey McGehee putting up another collar; as did Craig Counsell.  Hart came back to earth by going o'fer as well.

Oddly enough, Milwaukee claimed Josh Wilson off of waivers from the Dbacks and Josh Fields from the Rockies...both of which are infielders.  It's apparent that Craig Counsell is proving to be a poor choice as the backup infielder.  As a result of this addition, Saito was moved to the 60 day DL, according to TH's tweet.

Todd Coffey got a big ovation when he sprinted to the pitchers mound in the 7th inning.

Nyjer Morgan is being activated Friday for the Giants series at MP.

In other news, Ryan Braun has been throwing his endorsement (and dollars) behind Limelight energy drink.  It's suppose to be a healthier alternative to other energy drinks...which is hard to believe.  It's actually not that bad...but his promotional picture from his website is horrific..  I have a feeling that this is his Oh-face.

Lastly,  I'm not even going to discuss the Bernie Brewer ornament fiasco because it's stupid. 

26-23: Corey Hart Continues Homer Streak

Let me apologize to the thousands of fans that read my blog...well...actually I average 40 page views a day, according to Blogger's stats on my blog.  Regardless, I'm swamped at work and I have yet to hire a team of writers...nor will I ever hire a team of writers.  It's hard to duplicate my crappy work.

Corey Hart continued his homer streak by blasting his 4th of the year.  Milwaukee won and they are still trying to catch the red birds, who also keep on winning.

I will write more later. 

25-23

24-23: Crew sweeps Rox

23-23

22-23

21-23: Narv-Dog's gem is for nothing.

  Chris Narveson threw 7.1 innings of shut-out ball last night at Petco Park.  Sadly, it was all for nothing because the pathetic Brewers (road) offense failed to drive in a run against Aaron Harang.  The same Harang that had a 5.05 era and pretty much sucks.  Yet the Brew Crew went 0-8 with RISP last night, which is pathetic. 
Probably the most concerning thing about this ordeal is that they got shut-out by a Padres team that is horrible on the left-side infield.  They lead the NL in errors, even with Jason Bartlet.  So, what should've been a realistic shot at getting back to .500 on the season turns out to be right where they left off....2 games under. 
Now they have to play the visiting Rockies at home (thankfully), led by Jason Giambi of all people (3 homers last night! Oldest player to do so at age 40).  The ex-steroider also drove in 7 runs.  Hopefully Car-go doesn't erupt this weekend, because he's certainly do. 
Regardless, Brewers fans should be happy that they are entering a 9 game homestand that pits them against the Rockies, Nationals, and the San Fransico Baseball Giants.  Milwaukee should be able to at walk away with 5 wins and move up to 1 game under .500 on the sason by May 29th.

Casey McGehee, yet again, stranded a RISP, as did Yuni, Braun, and Lucroy.

Narveson lowered his era down 3.44 on the season. 

Ryan Braun exited the game with shoulder tightness.  The reports says it's not serious...

21-22: Milwaukee positions itself for a winning road trip

If Milwaukee wins tonight in San Diego, they will have had their first winning road trip of the season.

Last night the Crew took it to the Padres and finally (momentarily) snapped out of the offensive road slump. Yovanni Gallardo (5-2) looked on-point most of the game giving up 2 earned runs on 5 hits and 3 walks over 6 complete and 114 pitches. Meanwhile, John Axford collected his 10th save of the season and worked himself out of a jam that had 2 runners on base.

The biggest news was Mark Kotsay filling in at CF for Carlos Gomez, the same Gomez that doesn't like to drive in runs. Well, the ol' man actually played damn good last night going 3 for 4 and driving in 2 runs. One of them was a towering show to RF that would've been a homer in Miller Park. Instead, it bounced off the top of the wall and Kotsay was left with a double.

Ron Roenicke, please ride Kotsay out for at least tonights game. Anything is better than Gomez at the plate right now. If only you could blend the two players together, because Carlos is one of the best (defensively) CF's in the game right now.

Milwaukee left 5 RISP

Hart contributed a triple and continues to swing the bat well in the 2 spot. Fielder and Braun also threw in doubles of their own.

* Cool story on ex-Brewers All Star Bob Wickman. He is coaching a small Wisconsin high school baseball team after the head coach was fired. That's pretty damn awesome.

* If it's not one thing, it's another when it comes to Brewers prospect Mark Rogers. Now he's been demoted down to Brevard County (A) to work on his problems. This guy was drafted way back in 2004 and he has only made a small contribution at the big league level. Last season he had 2 starts at the end of the season and collected a 1.80 ERA and he struck out 11. So he has promise. But his track record of injuires (2 shoulder injuries) tells me that if he does make it, again, it won't be for very long.

* I watched the Real Sports episode with Bob Uecker this morning. It was awesome. It's hard to imagine that he has been so true and loyal to Milwaukee for over 40 years. Like I always say, it's going to be a sad day in Wisconsin when he steps away from the game. Enjoy him with your kids while you can. I used to think he had a 1 or 2 more seasons in him, but my guess is that he'll do home games like Vin Scully does and skip the road trips. Regardless, the interview was excellent and Uecker was funny as usual. He used the Rawlings joke and the batting average joke of hitting .200. What a guy.

BREAKING NEWS-- Tony_Plush is not Nyjer Morgan

I think we have all been had. I for one looked forward to reading his posts every day. Even more depressing is seeing the real Nyjer Morgan join Twitter and having to read his posts.

20-22: Brewers road woes resurface

Not like it ever disappeared. Even with Milwaukee's win on Monday night, they only tacked on 2 runs. Last night they couldn't even muster a run, yet they had plenty of opportunities to drive in runs. Runners In Scoring Position. They can't drive in runs, they don't have timely hitting, and they love to leave runners stranded.

Casey McGehee stranded 4 runners in scoring position last.

The Brewers seem to love swinging at the first pitch when they have RISP.

Milwaukee has a .258 batting average right now.

Carlos Gomez should be forced to bunt EVERY TIME he's at the plate, unless of course the bases are loaded. He can not hit, he can not make contact, he can not NOT swing at the first pitch. He's a stud in the outfield, no doubt, but a disaster even in the 8th spot.
Do we have to settle with taking the good with the bad? Apparently, because he had a couple of nice plays out in CF. One in the early part of the game when he cut off a line drive by Uribe that could've easily been a double, yet Gomez (who was shading to left field) made up ground quick to Right-Center field to cut of the bouncer.

Milwaukee's bench is horrific at the plate. Go figure when you have players like Boggs, Counsell, Kotsay (probably the best of the bunch) and now Rivera. Yes Boggs has a couple of homers, big whipty do, he's batting a buck-76 right now. Awful. Old man Counsell is hitting .233 while Kotsay is at .255 on the season. Not exactly what you want to see. Don't feel too bad, Joe Inglett is only hitting .222 for Houston; he was a decent bench hitter last season.

20-21: Marcum's on fire / Crew wins 6 of their last 7

Don't look now but the Milwaukee Brewers are on a mini win streak over the past 7 games (which included a 6 game homestand, mind you). Tonight, Milwaukee will go for the 2-game sweep against the Dodgers. Last night Shawn Marcum was on fire. Plain and simple. His stuff isn't overly powerful, his delivery often looks sloppy, but this hurler is quickly rising the ranks as one of Major League Baseball's best pitcher. The RHP is now 5-1 on the season and a 2.54 era through the first quarter of the season; all 5 of those wins have been on the road and he has only allowed 2 runs (total) in that stretch. Through 7 strong innings last night Marcum surrendered only 5 hits, 1 earned run, 1 walk, and 4 k's over 98 pitches. Most impressive was the fact that he retired his first 9 batters in order. That pitch count is pretty damn impressive. He labored in the 4th inning a bit when his pitch count shot up to 25 or so. All in all, Marcum has been the ACE of this team. Weeks (14) and Fielder (32nd) each drove in runs while everyone in the line up but the pitcher's spot and Gomez collected a hit.

You think Ryan Braun's weight training is paying off from the off-season? My goodness, he basically leads the NL in every statistacal category except slugging percentage (2nd to Berkman).

Zack Braddock will start for the Rattlers tonight in another rehab assignment.

Lastly, when will RR put Gomez in the 8th spot of the lineup and flip Hart up to 2nd? Honestly? Don't get me wrong, Gomez has been damn good out in the field and decent at the plate....but it's all for not when he's still in the 2nd spot.

Update--

Mitch Stetter (left hip injury)was placed on the 15 day DL, Sean Green was designated for assignment. Milwaukee has NO LHP options in the pen....not good.
Mike Rivera was summoned to provide power off the bench, not compete for catching spot with Nieves (I find that hard to believe).

19-21: Almost back to .500

Milwaukee did what they should've done, swept the Pirates. Milwaukee should have also swept the Padres, but that's neither here nor there. In return, Milwaukee is 2 games under .500 on a weekend that saw the NL Central's two "best" teams duke it out (Cardinals @ Reds, Card's were swept).

Yesterday's game was spot on until the 5th inning when Greinke hit the brick wall. He was having an excellent game until he had to labor 47 pitches and ultimately get bounced from the game. To put that 5th inning in to prospective; Greinke had thrown 49 pitches up until that point. Zack gave up 5 earned runs on 6 hits on 96 pitches. So this was a step back from the progress that he was making the previous 2 starts. That's going to happen, at least Milwaukee provided him run support which wasn't the case for him in KC. Greinke earned his 2 win of the season.

Ryan Braun (12 HR's) drove in 4 runs and hit a 3-run shot in the 1st inning. From the very start, the Crew's offense was on fire. Lucroy and McGehee also added homers to boost the Crew while Braunie contributed a 3 bagger. Prince went o'fer.

Milwaukee is now 32-3 at home agains the Pirates since 2007. Two of the losses were blown saves by Trevor Hoffman last year (Tom Haudricourt tweet).

Tim Dillard (RHP reliever) was called up by the Crew yesterday. The 27 year-old was a free agent this past off season, yet he still decided to resign with the Brewers. He was competing for the 5th spot in the rotation, which ultimately went to Marco Estrada.

Latroy Hawkins has been contributing quite a bit to the Brewers' bull pen.

18-21

17-21

16-21: Humiliating Loss

It doesn't even pay for me to write about this horrible, embarrassing, and forgetable loss that occurred at Miller Park yesterday. Disgusting. Truly disgusting.

The Crew gave up 23 hits to the team with the worst batting average in the entire league (.219).

Reports are postive from Kintzler's MRI

16-20: Excellent game turns in to crap show

What started off (most of the game) as another brilliant performance by Shawn Marcum and a wake-up for the offense...turned out to be a game of crap. Crap sanwich to be exact.

Not taking anything away from Marcum. He collected his 4th win of the season (4-1) and punched out 8 batters and 0 (ZERO) walks. When was the last time the Brewers went back-t0-back with a no-walk game by the starting pitcher? Someone please answer me this?
At any rate, Marcum went 6 complete innings and only threw 89 pitches (63 were strikes). Granted, he did give up 5 runs, but they came in the 5th when he seemed to be laboring quite a bit near the end.

The bullpen did limit the bleeding a bit when Estrada (H 1) came in and only allowed a hit, as did Stetter while John Axford notched his 7th save of the season, but still gave up 2 hits and a run.

Everyone in the Brewers lineup had a hit while Lucroy & Gomez (again) and even Shawn Marcum all had doubles. Lucroy drove in 3 runs while McGehee added 2.

However...Jonathon Lucroy had another brain fart on the base path when he was apart of a double play that occurred in the 5th. This is when the wheels started to fall of during the game.

Thanfully, Milwaukee was able to hold on. They have now won 2 of their 3 and are going for their first true sweep of the season.

-Latroy Hawkins has provided a "shot in the arm" for the bullpen. As much as I have ripped this acquisition in the past, he's starting to come around. Hopefully he stays healthy.

-Ryan Braun credited Milwaukee's fan base as part of the reason why he signed the extension.

15-20: Greinke delivers

Zack Greinke Fans 9; Leads Crew to Victory

Doug Melvin's highly acclaimed addition of Zack Greinke this past off-season made his debut at Miller Park last night....and he didn't disappoint. Coming off his sub-par performance in Atlanta last Wednesday Zack came firing out of the gate. He fanned 2 in the first inning alone and went on to strike out 9 San Diego batters. Roenicke was trying to limit him to 100 pitches for the game but decided to pull him early once he hit the 89 mark. During the post-game interview Greinke even admitted that he was a little tired; but that he was gradually improving over the past 2 starts. Eventually, come the 4th or 5th game Zack said he should be at the 110-115 mark.

The City of Milwaukee and the state as well as the 27,000 fans that came out to Miller Park on a school night (they were hoping for 30,000) were all treated to the club's true Ace. His velocity was on-point (mid 90's) and his control was perfect, not even walking a loan batter. When was the last time a Brewer starter didn't walk a batter? I'm trying to remember? It's unheard of, especially over the past 2 seasons. When all was said and done, Greinke went 6 complete and threw 59 strikes out of the 89 pitches.

Rickie Weeks went yard for his 7th shot of the season. Carlos Gomez continued to collect hits with his towering shot to LF that ended up being a triple. Prince Fielder, Jonathon Lucroy, and Corey Hart all doubled. Weeks drove in 2 runs while Lucroy added another one.

Probably one the most impressive defensive plays that I have seen in the past 10 years happened last night for the Milwaukee's Yuniesky Betancourt and Rickie Weeks. In the 8th inning SD's Jason Bartlet came to the plate with a runner on 1B. Bartlett hit a liner up the middle and Betancourt quckly ran to snag it while passing Rickie Weeks who was covering 2B....he then flipped in behind his back to Weeks who then caught it barehanded and launched it to Prince Fielder who collected the 2nd out.

I'm Betancourt's biggest hater when it comes to his defense. Let's not get ahead of ourselves here, he was a disaster in KC and the season is only 20% done. However, the guy has been playing some decent defense and he's actually been the pillar in that infield.

- Zack Greinke had 15 swinging strikes last night in his 89 pitches, which turns out to be a 16.8% "swinging strike rate", this according to Bernies Crew. This appears to be excellent, according to the blogger. For me, it's numbers...but this man is clearly smarter than I am, so I will take his word for it.

-Matt Latos has now lost 10 straight games, dating back to last season. The guy is typically horrible in the first couple of innings but then settles down, which he seemed to do last night. Reminds me of Dave Bush.

-I love listening to Jonathon Lucroy on the (Milwaukee) AM 1250 morning show the day after games. He's laid-back and he gives us an inside look in to catching. He's said a couple of times now that catching for Marcum and Greinke is "easy". Meanwhile, I'm sure he gets a sore back when catching for Narveson. Wolf tends to put the ball in to the dirt quit a bit as well.

-Erick Almonte has been cleared to resume physical activity.

-Remember from last week when the Indians sent OF/1B Jordan Brown to the Brewers for some cash? Well, he has moved right in to a starting role in the OF and he's batting .263 with a double and 2 RBI through 5 games. I really like this relatively quiet addition that Melvin made by bringing the 27 year-old player on board. He adds depth to the outfield and he can hopefully be groomed in to a 1B to back up Gamel, when he takes over 1B next season.

14-20: Brewers end horrible road trip

I haven't seen the Milwaukee Brewers play this bad in many, many years. Usually it's just a couple of pieces of the puzzle that are missing here and there. But when most of the offense goes in to a deep funk like this, it's not going to fix itself very easy. Granted, the Padres & Pirates are coming to town for 3 games each...so...with any luck, Milwaukee can chip away-back to .500.

Milwaukee is in a MUST WIN situation this homestand. If they lose both series, there will be no more jibberish about the playoffs.

The Brewers are 20% of they way through with the season. It's time to turn it on.

14-19

13-19

13-19

13-18: Kameron Loe losses it

Something is wrong in the Brewers clubhouse, that's for sure. They are running on 1 cylinder right now, and that cylinder is Shawn Marcum...okay, maybe Rickie Weeks as well. But this team is playing absolutely horrible. It's hard to stomach, watching a game these days. We all know how it's going to end...so why not just DVR is and fast-forward through the boring parts?

For the first time, I'm highly pissed off at Ron Roenicke for yanking Shawn Marcum when he had 98 pitches by the end of the 7th inning. Are you F*CKING KIDDING ME? Marcum was lights out the entire game and he made only one mistake that resulted in the loan run of the game. Instead, Conserviative Ron was channeling his inner Ron Paul-ness and he decides to go with Kameron Loe. Of course, Loe blows it when Martin Prado, the douche bag that lit up the crew with shitty bloopers and bleeders (what is a bleeder, Tom Haudricourt?) decided to blast one over the left field fence. Are you kiddin me? Of course, if this were the Brewers of the past, I'd say "we have a chance to match that". But you can't say that anymore with a straight face. Milwaukee is hitting .176 over the past 6 games and have score a craptastic 20 hits in the Braves series.

So, now what? What's next? Well...Nyjer Morgan is going back to the DL with a broken middle finger that occurred while trying to place a bunt. As soon as he hit the ball, Brian Anderson let-off a disgusted sigh...all of Wisconsin knew that Tony Plush was heading back to the DL. Of course, Tony knew it to when he threw a temper tantrum in the dug out. It's not about you dog, it's about the team. Don't let your negative events have an affect on the team. Suck it up Tony Plush...suck it up.

It's my guess that Boggs will accept being outrighted to Nashville and then get recalled. However, I do believe there is some sort of requirement on the lenght of time one has to spend in the minors before being recalled. Otherwise, they'll call up Mat Gamel, one would think.

Sean Green was sent down yesterday and Seth McClendon was called up.

Well...the good news is that Milwaukee will head to St. Louis to take on the Cardinals, who are in first place after just coming off a huge win over Josh Johnson and the Marlins (6-3). That's the same Josh Johnson that earned Pitcher of the Month in April. Yep.

No fear Milwaukee, I actually think Milwaukee will win this series. Honest to god. They have to, and they know it. There's no such thing is a must-win game in early-ass May...but when you look at last season when they fell deep in to a hole after Trevor Hoffman blew all of those saves....especially with this pitching staff that we have. But can anything ever go right for this F*CKING Team? Honestly? I'm so god damn pissed off right now I can't handle it.

I'm going to have a damn FIRE tonight out in my backyard and probably drink a 12 pack of Lite. Why? Because that's how I cope.

It's not going to get any easier when the Crew face-off against the Cardinals' Lohse, Westbrook, and Garcia. Thankfully, no Carpenter; however that could've been a blessing if we faced Carp because he's suckking nuts too. Collectively, those 3 Cardinal pitchers have 11 wins on the season so far. Not good, when you look at Milwaukee's records.

Milwaukee will also have to find a way to quiet Lance Berkman, who's on a tear with his 3rd team. The 13 year veteran is only hitting 3-27 lifetime against Randy Wolf (3-2, 2.39 era this season). Meanwhile, Jamie Garcia is 3-0 with a 2.48 era. So this will be a pitchers duel tonight, but the Cards could erupt with Holiday, Pujols, and Berkman at the plate.

13-16 / 13-17: Poor defense dooms Crew

It's crazy what a simple error can do to open the flood gates for this team. If it's not Rickie Weeks bobbling plays, it's Prince Fielder having brain farts or Jonathon Lucroy & Will Nieves getting called for interference (also an error).

Milwaukee got their asses kicked yesterday and last evening. In fact, it was so bad that Tim Hudson was able to throw a complete-game 1 hitter last night against the pathetic Brewers offense. I will say pathetic because that's exactly what they're playing like. If they don't hit the long ball, you can forget about this team scoring any runs. Case in point? Rickie Weeks hit a triple in the 8th inning of the first game...he was left stranded. Then....he hit a double in the 2nd game, again, only to be stranded. That's your lead-off hitter getting on base.

To Zack Greinke's defense...his teammates didn't help his cause in the 1st inning when he had to throw 32 pitches. He threw 86 pitches, 57 for strikes and gave up 4 earned runs. This really doesn't concern me that much. Anyone who throws 32 pitches in the gosh damn 1st inning is going to suck after words. He did have 6 k's in those 4 short innings, so that's promising. He'll come around, but it won't be until his 3 or 4th start.

Ryan Braun ended his streak of consecutive games for reaching base safely. He did however earn April's Player of the Month for the NL.

Zack Braddock went to the DL with a sleeping disorder, odd, and Brandon Boggs was outrighted to Nashville to make room for Greinke. Boggs did suit up for the first game before being sent down in between the two games.

The Milwaukee Debut of Zack Greinke / Double Hitter

Zack Greinke will finally make his debut today for the 2nd game of the double header in Atlanta. Finally, after 28 games the wait is over. Now don't expect to see greatness right out of the gate; he will be limited to 95 pitches and I would think that will last him in to the 5th, possibly the 6th. Depending on what happens with Shawn Marcum as well in the first game of the header. Milwaukee will probably allow Marcum to throw in to the 8th inning if at all possible and hopefully that will be that case. That will allow Roenicke to use his bullpen sparingly with the thought of not having another off-day until next Thursday, May 12th. The off day yesterday was well needed and couldn't have happened at a better time. Aside from the 16 consecutive games in August, Milwaukee plays (according to my notes) four- 13 game blocks with no days off. With this off day, it allows them to break up one of those 13 game spans.

13-15: Gallardo doesn't have IT

It's apparent that something is way off in Yovani Gallardo this season. You can tell that Rick Kranitz tried his best to install some confidence and even a new approach in his delivery. Bill and Brian were talking about his wind-up and how it's a lot faster now. The new concept seemed to work, giving up a solo HR until he entered the 6th. That's when all hell broke loose. Honestly, it was like the previous 5 innings of rehabilitation to Yo's mind went down the shitter. It was horrific to watch. When all was said and done, Milwaukee's 2-1 lead fell to 2-5 and they ultimately lost 2-6 when the blood beatin' was done.

This makes 5 crappy starts, consecutively.

Gallardo is now rolling in a 8.89 ERA and 1-2 record. No thanks to Prince Fielder & Cory Hart acting like a bunch of softies, they dropped a routine (arguably) fly foul ball when they were too worried about hitting each other. As a result, the flood gates opened! Yo's pitch count was 89 by 5 & 1/3 inning. He walked 4 and struck out 7.

Ryan Braun reached base safely for the 27th consecutive game. Braun went 1 for 4 and Prince went o'fer.

Casey McGehee has been pretty bad this season, thus far. I mean, he looks slow and lacks any significant power at the plate. In fact, I'm wondering how long it will be until Mat Gamel is given ANOTHER shot at 3B with the way he's been playing. Gamel has, in 89 at-bats, 10 doubles already and he's hitting .310 on the season. Perhaps I'm being premature with this argument, but Casey has been off since running in to Joseph Voto last week while running to 1B (thumb).
Granted, Gamel has always rubbed me the wrong way from the time he reported to Spring Training late when he was penciled in as the starting 3B. That was the year that McGehee broke out, 2009.

Nyjer Morgan is being activated for today's game. HE BETTER BE IN TODAY'S LINE-UP @ CF. Gomez has been horrible in the 2nd spot of the lineup.

Brewers Nation should be eating the words when they look at Yuniesky Betancourt's play to date. In 25 games the (at times) power hitting SS has had only 2 errors and he's been pretty damn good at the plate as well. In fact, he was one of the few that can get some timely hits with RISP. Infielder Coach Garth Iorg (best name EVER) and Robin Yount worked long and hard with Betancourt down in Phoenix to get him ready to start fresh with Milwaukee. KC fans have been eating him alive with their criticism while he played down there. Nice to see him come around.

No shocker here, Mark Rogers is on the 15 day DL with carpal tunnel syndrom that is effecting his feeling/sensation in his fingertips. I have had this and it's not fun. It's probably one of the most painful things I have gone through. In the middle of the night, my finger tips and hands go completely numb and throb in pain. It's horrible. My guess, is that Rogers get's this while pitching and you then lose control of the ball. They are treating it as a virus however, which make it different, but the symptoms (from my reading) are the same. His ERA was 9.45 and he went 0-2 while trying to battle through it. Mark is the Brewers top pitching prospect....goes to show how much trouble Milwaukee is in...

Marco Estrada gets the ball for the Brewers tonight against the Braves. If he pitches well, there has to be an argument over him getting the nod instead of Narveson. Hell, at this point, put Yovani on the DL and let him fester in the dug out until he snaps out of this mess. Give Estrada the 2 spot in the rotation.

Brewers are knocking off $1 on tickets for May wins. Not off to a good start on this promo...

Zack Greinke is coming of the DL and making his first start in a Brewers uniform tomorrow. I'm not getting my hopes up on him right out of the gate. He's going to be limited to 95 pitches and if you noticed others who have come off the DL, pitchers tend to take a couple of games before their mojo is cracking (look at Ubaldo).

Milwaukee acquired Jordan Brown from the Columbus Clippers (Indians) for some cash and a bag of big league chew. The left-handed hitter was hitting .278 for the Clips in 72 at-bats. He's already driven in 13 RBI and has 3 homers. He can play OF and 1B, so this will be a nice back-up option to Mat Gamel when he takes over 1B for Prince next season.

13-14: Offensive Slump; Astros take series

What a horrible series. The Crew went from playing at the top of their game to the worst.

Ryan Braun safely reached base for the 26th straight time; that's about the only good piece of news.

Chris Narveson raises the question: Should Marco Estrada be the #5 starter after Greinke returns.

13-13

13-12