21-28: Corey Hart Comes Up Big

I was unable to watch/listen most of the game on Saturday. I was able to see John Axford earn his 2nd save of his career. Corey Hart had a grand-slam (first of his career) and a 2-run homer.

20-28: Yovanni out-duels Johan

Yovanni pitched his first shut-out of his career last night in a stunning pitchers duel that resulted Johan being yanked in the 9th inning. Jerry Manuel, the Mets skipper, decided to pull his ace after throwing 8 scoreless frames and limiting the Crew to only 3 hits. For some oddball reason, Manuel thought some pitcher that sounds like Yoshi would fair better. Boy was he wrong.
Corey Hart hit a towering shot to Right-Center field to win the game.

Ken Macha & Rick Peterson finally grew a set of balls and allowed Yo to throw over 110 pitches (120). He struck out 7, gave up 8 hits, and walked one. No doubt, this was his best outing of his career (he's only 24).

The middle of the line-up tallied a hit each.

Corey Hart's HR made me forget about his stupid female portrait (tatoo) on his right arm. I realize this may have some sort of significance to him. But man is that a bad tat.

*Chris Capuano was called up from AAA last night. He hasn't pi
tched in a big league game sine 2007. My guess is that they'll use him in the bull pen. We all knew a decision had to be made soon. Milwaukee had to either call him-up or let him walk to another team.

*Edmounds returns Monday

*Ken Macha had an A's team that was 18-32 before they turned it around and finished with 88 wins. Still....with this pitching staff, it's a long shot that will turn it around. I will believe it when they get to .500 anyways.

19-28: Lindstrom wins game for Crew!

The Crew won a series at home! Hooray!

This, what I say, is true. Matt Lindstrom walked-in the winning run when Rickie Weeks was walked (full count) in the bottom of the 10th inning.

Sadly enough, the Brewers big 2 (Prince & Braun) were unable to deliver in the clutch. Both had a chance to win the game with RISP, but failed miserably. Fielder hit a moon shot to RF, only to have Hunter Pence pull it in on the warning track. Unbelievable. The magic has been missing for these two and their storied game-winning heroics.

*Rickie Weeks is starting to heat-up again. He went 2 for 3 and drove in a run.
*Carlos Gomez delivered in the clutch big time today! He drove in the tying run in the 9th. He had 2 hits (for 5) and 2 RBI.
*Casey McGehee had the best performance of the day by going 3 for 5, while driving in a run.
*Braun & Fielder both went o'fer....unreal.

Dave Bush made-right with Milwaukee's fans by tossing 5 solid innings. Granted, it's pathetic that he can only last that long on 102 pitches. I think I saw he had 32 pitches in the 1st inning. How does that happen? Anyways, Bushy did look good in 4 of the 5 innings; he gave up his customary couple of runs in the 1st inning and then stopped the bleeding after that.

Well, let's take a look at Mr. Bush and figure this out. Granted, I'm no expert in identifying problematic pattern....

So far in 2010 Bush has a 10.80 ERA in 9 games! 12 runs, 10 earned and 0 HR's. So, you will see from my findings below that he's at least keeping the damn ball in the park....but his ERA is insanely high.

Dave Bush, in 2009, gave up 17 Runs (all earned) total in the first inning and a 7.29 ERA
but was horrible in the 4th, 5th, and 7th innings (ERA around 9.00 in those innings alone). He also gave up 5 HR's in his 1st innings.

His 2008 campaign's 1st inning performance was as follows....
In 29 games he gave up 26 Runs (24 earned) with a 7.45 ERA. The third innings was his best with a 2.17 ERA in 29 Games. The 14 games where he lasted 7 innings, his ERA was excellent (1.50 ERA). Bush also gave up 8 HR's total in his 1st inning appearances. That's horrible.

2007 resulted in Bush having 31 appearances with a 8.13 ERA and 28 Runs (all 28 earned). He also gave up 4 HR's and 14 doubles.

It's a no-brainer that Bush is relaxed and at his best in innings 3-5.

What does this mean? Well, Dave Bush is horrible in the 1st inning. Anyone can see that.

18-28:Oswalt destroys Crews' batters

What a boring, dreadful game last night. This is what we are going to have to live with this summer. Milwaukee's bats go silent once they meet a solid pitcher like Roy.

Nothing like watching Prince Fielder get out due to a lightly hit pop-up....especially after Ryan Braun starts off with a smashing double. Unbelievable. Prince is nothing like the clutch hitter he once was. NOTHING like it.

Chris Narveson was tossed aside like a rag doll by the pathetic offense that is the Astros. He gave up 4 earned runs, 8 hits, and had only 2 K's. His ERA is now 5.53 on the year.

To make matters worse, Greg Zaun is out for the year (so it appears). This makes me sick. The guy finally gets to be the starting pitcher of a team....and the back-up catcher has a season ending injury. As for now, Melvin is content with George and Lucroy rotating starts, with Jorge getting the majority of the starts. Doesn't look like he'll be hitting the market looking for a replacement anytime soon. I say just go with what you got. This is a lost season.

News bit

Milwaukee has some decisions to make on Kameron Loe and Chris Capuano. It would be a win-win situation if they just cut ties with Jeff Suppan and Claudio Vargas, as the story mentions. But Suppan could still be called upon this season if Doug Davis doesn't bounce back soon.

The Crew is bringing back Jeff Bennett. You may remember him from his prior stint in Milwaukee as the reliever who wore a straight billed-hat and looked like someone who would love to wear Tap-Out apparel to a night club.

Nothing too big here. He was released the Rays a couple of weeks ago.

18-27: Randy Wolf finally delivers

Randy Wolf looked excellent last night, albeit against a horrible offense in the Houston Astros. Hell, Jeff Suppan could probably shine against this horrific offense. Regardless, Wolf looked extra sharp last night going 7 complete innings , giving up 4 hits while evening his record to 4-4. In fact he even looked a little wound-up; there were a number of times where he and rookie-catcher Jonathon Lucroy had to meet at the mound in order to go over the game plan. Lucroy was making his first career-start, so one can only imagine the nerves he had catching for a veteran in Wolf. There were a couple of times where there was disconnect between the two and Lucroy would screw-up the location of a breaking ball or slider. A couple of them cost Wolf some strikes. It should be noted that Randy Wolf tossed 103 pitches (that's 3 over a 100!).

-Carlos Villenueva recorded a scoreless frame as well.
-Todd Coffey did look decent up until the 2nd out of the 9th inning, giving up 1 earned run on two hits and costing the Crew a shut-out.

Offensively, the Brewers looked sharp. Rickie Weeks snapped out of his 6-51 drought by going yard for his 6th of the season. He had two hits on the evening.

Ryan Braun hit, what appeared to be, his longest HR in Miller Park. It was a 2-run blast.

-Ken Macha used the word poppycock yesterday.....he just earned some points back from me...

-Doug Davis had a set-back and probably will have to stay on the DL longer than the 15 days.

17-27: Crew salvages series

Not much to be said here. The Crew won.

Prince & Corey Hart went yard
Kattaras is looking spiffy while he fills in for Zaun.
Rickie Weeks sucks

Rickie Weeks is now 6 for 55 and he's batting .236 in the lead-off. It's time to rotate him out of there and put Carlos Gomez at the top with his .289 batting average. Although Weeks has a slightly better OBP.