Category Archives: milwaukee brewers

300 Days of Fielder

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Last night the Brewers saw a pretty cool record take place. No, I'm not talking about becoming only the seventh team in history to give up four straight homeruns in an inning. That'd be stupid. Why would I want to talk about that? HUH? WHY!? MY PARENTS GOT DIVORCED WHEN I WAS A KID DO YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT THAT TOO!? (*takes deep breath, hugs Teddy Ruxpin*)

No, what I am talking about is Prince Fielder starting his 300th consecutive game. He already broke Robin Yount's 274 game streak earlier this season, but you know how baseball is with it's big round numbers and 300 just sounds better than 274. Coming on a week in which we saw the Brewers roll out an outfield of Alcides Escobar, Joe Inglett and Lorenzo Cain because of injuries to Braun and Hart, it becomes even more impressive. I mean, if you put Braun, Fielder and Hart in a lineup and asked someone to pick the healthiest of the three would anyone pick Prince? Anyone? Yet, that's the way it's been for over two years now. In fact, since becoming a Brewer Prince Fielder has never spent anytime on the DL and the least amount of games he's played in a full season is 157. Since 2006 Prince has appeared in 751 of a possible 763 games. Seriously. Prince is the shit, yo. Continue reading »

What’s So Great About the First Inning?

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I want you to come to my party. I really do. We have a great menu, there is going to be beer and there are going to be lots of fun and interesting people for you to talk to. One of these people is my good friend Lar from the incomparable wezen-ball. He is going to the party and he wants you to too. He was even nice enough to write this post for us, convincing you to go. He's really smart. You should listen to him.

I don’t know about you, but I’m one of those baseball fans who just has to be in my seat at first pitch. Even when I’m tailgating, if I have any control of when the group gets into the ballpark, I do everything I can to get everyone moving towards the stadium well before first pitch. If that means cooling the charcoal down at 12:30 and throwing the folding chairs in the trunk at 12:45, it’s what I’m going to do. There’s just a simple joy in being comfortably in your seat by the time the Brewers run onto the field. It beats racing up the ramp or impatiently riding the escalator to your seat any day of the week. I’m sure the fact that I like to keep score for all nine innings - and that I never leave a game early, for fear of missing out on the greatest comeback of all time - plays an important part in all that.

But the Pants Party is coming up in two weeks, and with all the excellent food that is being offered and the promise of fascinating, intelligent company - or, at the least, a group of people who like to drink, eat brats, watch Brewers baseball, and complain about Anthony Witrado - that first inning fetish is going to be tested. What happens if I’m on my third chorizo quesadilla with a side of drunken Polish mac’n’cheese and a cup of Riverwest Stein in my hand while chatting and I realize that the game is about to start? Or, even worse, I hear the fireworks going off signalling the start of the bottom of the first? Do I freak out, throw my brat and beer down on the ground and hightail it across the bridge over to Miller Park? Or do I instead try to practice the Midwestern version of zen baseball and just let it slide?

In order to help me ignore choice 1 and instead focus on choice B, I offer this list of why the first inning sucks and why we should all be okay with missing it. After all, if I’m missing that first inning, there’s no way you’re going to be able to tear yourself away from my fascinating conversation and hightail it over there yourself: Continue reading »

The Milwaukee Brewers didn’t make any deadline trades and re-signed Corey Hart and that’s okay with me

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I have been prepared for the Milwaukee Brewers to trade Prince Fielder and Corey Hart for a solid two months now. Heck, I've already written a goodbye to Corey Hart. While trading our two most valuable assets may have seemed like a great idea on paper (we could get Wade Davis, Matt Cain, Gordon Beckham and Daniel Hudson!) I can't help but to agree with the non-move the front office made. As Disciples of Uecker noted the players teams got in return for their players were terribly unfavorable. It was a buyer's market as evidenced by my favorite summation of a deadline trade by KenTremendous:

So, Yankees get Berkman, Astros pay his salary and get nothing in return. That seems like a good deal for Houston. Well done.

"We want Montero for Berkman." "How about we give you nothing and you give us four million dollars and Berkman." "Even better!"

Teams simply weren't trading their pitching prospects, at least the ones we wanted, and if they weren't going to do that there was no point in trading anyone. Nobody got desperate, so nobody got traded. It's as simple as that. Prince and Corey stay. We like those dudes so we're happy. (We're also happy because we kind of called it.)

Then, in the most surprising news of the year, the Brewers signed Corey Hart to a three year contract extension. It's shocking to see his transition from "mostly pointless" to total elation, but there it is. Honestly, I don't even know what to say. Continue reading »

I believe in the church of Rickie Weeks

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Rickie Weeks is my favorite baseball player. In one of our earliest post I wrote about my fandom for him. When I lived in Alabama I specifically went to see him (and some Prince guy) play in Double-A. He is the first and only of the current Brewers that I've ever bought a jersey for. I've had the "Rickie Weeks sucks"/"No he doesn't and here's why" argument so many times in my life that I can do it while I'm sleeping. And now after all this sitting, waiting, watching, wishing; this season, specifically in the last two months, Rickie Weeks has proven all of my arguments and defenses of him to be worthwhile.  It's been kind of great. I knew he was good, but I never had a clue he could be THIS good.

To be completely honest, I kind of got burned out on the whole "being Rickie Weeks biggest supporter" thing. I'd just been through too much, you know? This team did not live up to the expectations I had for it, whatsoever and the fact that Rickie Weeks personally let me down a few times was the icing on the cake. I took it out on him. Watching him strike out three times in game-on-the-line scenarios in an extra inning loss to the Pirates really did a number on me. Especially considering I bet beers on him having a good game that day.

The turning point for me came on Wednesday, June 9th a night game against the Chicago Cubs at Miller Park. The Brewers were losing to Carlos Zambrano, Randy Wolf was giving up homeruns at a breakneck pace and this was like the 30th game in a row that the Brewers had lost while I was wearing my Rickie Weeks jersey. So I did what any fan who was pissed at his team and in the midst of his eleventh or twelth beer would do, I threw my jersey into the stands. Continue reading »

This Week In Witardo: Only nerds like stats

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Braun trends (geek edition)

A lot of you have been curious as to why Ryan Braun's struggles this season are happening at the rate they are, and to find out things like that takes some time, as you can see here in this Fan Graphs blog that breaks down several factors for Braun's season.

And I'm like "I don't know, I'm just paid to write about him for my job. How the hell am I supposed to know why he struggles?"

This is why this is one of my favorite sites.

No it's not. I actually have it on good authority that these are your favorite sites.

  1. Bros Icing Bros (RIP)
  2. The Dirty (Nik Richie is the shit, yo.)
  3. Myspace

The overall theme is Braun seems to be sacrificing power numbers for putting the ball in play more often. However, he is putting it in play with less authority than in the past and that is a major reason for his dip. It is a very interesting breakdown by David Golebiewski.

David Golebiewski? He sounds like a nerd.

But I'll warn you, if you're not a numbers freak/geek/nerd who loves breakdowns, be careful with this post. There are plenty of charts and stats that read like alphabet soup but provide solid information.

Seriously, if you understand anything in this post you are a huge nerd. Do you like Star Wars? Do you play Dungeons & Dragons? Have you ever fantasized about Six from Battlestar Galactica? If so, you'll love this post because this post is for nerds and geeks like you.

So I guess the question is, should Braun sacrifice striking out less in order to hit for more pop?

While we're here A-dub has another question, should he put his pants on one leg at a time or both at the same time? It seems like it'd be a lot faster if he just put both legs in at the same time, but he always seem to fall down. Can any geeks figure this out for him?