So.... I haven't posted much lately...

because I've been real down on the Brewers this week and I didn't want to have a series of posts where all I do is bitch.

Sure, there have been some serious highlights in this road trip, but there have been far more lowlights.

In this most recent ten game road swing we were a measley 3 and 7 against teams that, as of Sunday night, are 120-143. Our lead over Chicago is down to 4.5 games and frankly, if we play this way coming out of the All-Star break, that won't take but a week to disappear.

I hate to be one of those fans that bitches about managers and bullpen management, but my anger with the way Ned Yost handles our pitchers reached a new high today. On an almost daily basis I feel that Yost leaves pitchers in the game WAY longer than he should. The prime example of this is Derrick Turnbow, but he is by no means the only one.

In today's game vs. the Nationals, Chris Capuano started to lose his stuff in the 4th inning. He hit a batter and came within inches of hitting the next batter.

In the 5th, Prince hits a 2 RBI double making the score 2-1 Milwaukee.

In the sixth inning, Cappy walked a man and then gave up a two run home run to the next batter. (And btw, the man he walked is hitting .045 on the season) He then walked a man, gave up a single, and walked another, to load the bases. And there are still no outs. But the game is still just a one run affair, with the Nationals up 3-4. AND THIS IS WHEN NED FINALLY MAKES THE CALL TO THE BULLPEN. We had to suffer through two more batters while we waited for Matt Wise to warmup. Another run scores. Wise does no better than Cappy and when the inning is finally and mercifully over, the score is 7-2 and completely out of reach.

Let me remind you that tomorrow starts the All-Star Break. Was Ned saving the bullpen? What possible explanation can there be for having left Cappy in that long? He was in for at least 3 too many batters because the bullpen was not warmed up. When your pitcher has shown signs of struggle, walks a man, gives up a home run and walks two more, it's time to pull him. Period. There should have been a man warming after the home run, just in case. The game went from withing striking distance to out of our reach and completely out of control in 5 batters.

As far as I'm concerned, there is no excuse for this.

But enough on that, I'd also like to discuss how this team is incapable of putting runs on the board except for with the long ball. Sure, home runs are great. They're exciting. They make for a good highlight reel. But what happened to this team's ability to play small ball? On Saturday night we left 16 men on base. SIXTEEN! Against the Nationals. On Sunday, July 1, we left 20 men on against the Cubs.

In the three games against the Nationals, we left 33 men on base. In four games against the Pirates we left 50 men on base. In three games against the Cubs we left 45 men on base. That's a total of 128 runs left on base in a ten game road trip. (stats from espn.com's box scores)


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On a slightly happier note, despite being beyond mediocre the past few weeks, we're still getting national attention. Today's New York Times featured an article about the Crew's infield. Pretty flattering stuff here. Nice to see a big city paper checking us out when we're not in town to play one of their own. Read it here.