Milwaukee Brewers

@BestFansStLouis is on his or her game this month

My favorite thing in the current world (baseball twitter edition) is to check the @BestFansStLouis twitter account after every St. Louis Cardinals playoff loss. Doing so you will learn some things about a number of Cardinals fans. 

1. They are the best fans in the world. Also, why they are the best fans in the world. Repeatedly.

2. Some/many/a number of their fans are HORRIBLY racist and/or homophobic. This series against the Giants has brought out the best/worst in them.

3. They hate their own players almost as much as the other team if they a) make an error, b) blow a save, c) miss an important game because of what said fan deems an insignificant injury, or d) make an out at an inopportune time.

4. They REALLY hate Albert Pujols and are overjoyed that the Angels didn’t make the postseason. And they don’t know the difference between “traitor” and “trader”.

@BestFansStLouis has gone above and beyond lately by taking a screenshot of some racist/homophobic tweets and when the culprit experiences tweeter remorse and deletes said tweet, they tweet at them with the picture of their horrible thoughts and wonder if it was deleted by mistake.

I’m glad someone has taken the time to shed this negative light on these assholes. 

Of course I have to say that I understand that it isn’t every Cardinals fan and that every team has their share of “bad” fans. I have to say this because I will probably get a message from some dummy who doesn’t understand that this is implied and I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck.

Stay classy St. Louis

The St. Louis Cardinals’ fans, for some reason, are referred to as “the best fans in baseball”. Just ask them, they will be sure to tell you. In fact, there is a whole twitter feed dedicated to them aptly named @BestFansStLouis

I will hide the twitter posts behind a tab to issue a bit of a warning: if you do not want to read a variety of racial slurs, gay slurs, or rants by exceedingly dumb “fans”, don’t click Read More.

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Game 6 lineups

Brewers:

1. RF Corey Hart
2. CF Nyjer Morgan
3. LF Ryan Braun
4. 1B Prince Fielder
5. 2B Rickie Weeks
6. 3B Jerry Hairston Jr.
7. SS Yuniesky Betancourt
8. C Jonathan Lucroy
9. RHP Shaun Marcum 

Cardinals:

1. SS Rafael Furcal
2. CF Jon Jay
3. 1B Albert Pujols
4. RF Lance Berkman
5. LF Matt Holliday
6. 3B David Freese
7. C Yadier Molina
8. 2B Nick Punto
9. RHP Edwin Jackson

Do or die time for the Crew. Shaun Marcum has struggled of late and is looking to get back on track. I imagine he is going to be on a mighty short leash if he gets into trouble. Chris Narveson and Marco Estrada are both available for longer relief, along with the rest of the bullpen. All the stops will be pulled to try to win this game, so don’t be surprised to see K-Rod coming in for the 7th or Axford pitching more than an inning. With any luck they can put a few runs on the board early and cruise. All indications point to a hard fought game, however. GO CREW!!!

Quick thoughts

Full disclosure, I’m pretty drunk and not terribly happy about the game tonight.

It was my birthday last night (Friday). First, I went to a local watering hole to watch the game with my sister-in-law, her boyfriend, and another friend. Obviously, didn’t go so well. Then I met my buddy out and we got lit. But anywho,

• Zack Greinke pitched OK. He wasn’t missing bats. He wasn’t striking dudes out. BUT, he should have only gave up 2 runs.
• UNFORTUNATELY, even those 2 runs would not have been enough to beat the Brewers tonight. They got plenty of hits, but couldn’t get the big one. That matters!
• The defense sucked a big one tonight. Yuni B made a couple awesome plays. Then he booted a ball that was beyond routine and it allowed a run. Jerry Hairston Jr. has been more than solid at 3B and at the plate. His early error allowed 2 runs to score. There were a couple other errors that didn’t lead to runs that were just as bad.
• This game was very important. I feel that if the Brewers would have won, the series would have been effectively over. The loss hurts big, but doesn’t knock the Crew out of the playoffs. Sunday they go back to Miller Park for a chance to win 2 straight and advance to the world series.
• Shaun Marcum pitches on Sunday. I am ok with that. He has struggled of late, but lets stick with what got us here. 
• I came to a realization tonight. It would hurt big to lose a series to the Cards, don’t get me wrong, but I refuse to be disappointed with the way the Brewers played this season. Now the Crew are in a must win, and I hope they do it.

I ran out of gas, no idea what else there is. Send me a message if there is something that needs to be discussed or analyzed. 

Also, no game on Saturday so OCCUPY MILWAUKEE!!!! 11am, Carl F. Zeidler Union Square. March to JP Morgan Chase Bank. Let’s do this Milwaukee!!! 

Lineups for NLCS Game 5

Brewers

1. RF Corey Hart
2. 3B Jerry Hairston Jr.
3. LF Ryan Braun
4. 1B Prince Fielder
5. 2B Rickie Weeks
6. SS Yuniesky Betancourt
7. CF Carlos Gomez
8. C Jonathan Lucroy
9. P Zack Greinke

Cardinals

1. SS Rafael Furcal
2. CF Jon Jay
3. 1B Albert Pujols
4. RF Lance Berkman
5. LF Matt Holliday
6. 3B David Freese
7. C Yadier Molina
8. 2B Nick Punto
9. P Jaime Garcia

Normal lefty lineup for the Crew tonight. For those that don’t know, Brewers bench coach Jerry Nerron writes out the Brewer lineup card in calligraphy. Red is for lefties, Blue is for switch-hitters, Black is for righties. He even writes Takashi Saito’s name in Japanese. 

No time for pictures again

I’ve put off this paper way too long as it is. That and I need to make a half page of notes for my macroeconomics midterm tomorrow. AND, I’m sitting here trying to start my paper and watch the end of the Brewers game when this HUGE spider comes out of nowhere and is crawling on my textbook. I have three cats, why aren’t they killing these f’n spiders? Anyway, nice win today.

• Randy Wolf pitched spectacularly. He gave up a couple solo shots, but he went 7 innings and was at his best in the last few. 
• There was just enough offense to get the job done tonight. Ryan Braun, Jerry Hairston Jr., and Nyjer Morgan all had 2 hits for the Crew. Yuniesky Betancourt had a big RBI and 1 hit. He is batting .438 for the NLCS (the same average as Ryan Braun).
• The defense was pretty good, save for a Rickie Weeks error. Wolf was able to work out of that jam, however.
• Not only did Wolf pitch very well, get his first ever postseason win, and hit a double, he went SEVEN innings. So not only did he help the Brewers even the series, he also helped the bullpen rest up a bit for game 5 tomorrow night. The Cards weren’t so lucky, Kyle Lohse only managed to go 4.1 innings tonight, coupled with Chris Carpenter’s relatively short outing yesterday (5 IP), that means the Cards’ bullpen may be a bit more worn down than the Crew’s. It is the playoffs, so there is no such thing as tired. Or everyone is tired, who knows. They also are carrying one more reliever than the Brewers are, so that helps them.
• The win tonight was very important, mainly because a loss would have put them on the brink of elimination. This guarantees that the series will come back to Miller Park and essentially gives homefield advantage back to the Brewers, for what that is worth.
• Zack Greinke will pitch tomorrow against Jamie Garcia, neither of which has pitched terribly good in the playoffs. Zack did win game one and Garcia took the loss.

I don’t like the Cardinals. I dislike a handful of their players and I especially hate Tony LaRussa. That being said, this is a great series so far and has been for the entire season. After 22 head to head games, it is still even at 11 games a piece. One of these teams is two games away from the freakin’ World Series. These two teams may not have been the best two over the course of the season (Milwaukee had the 3rd best record in the MLB, the Cardinals the 8th), but you couldn’t ask for a much better series. Oddly enough, I haven’t really had too many negative interactions with Cards fans, even during that series with the beanballs and the complaints about the ribbon board at Miller Park there were only a few semi-nasty messages. (It was a tracked tag issue, a Cards fan didn’t think I should tag #Cardinals if I was going to say something negative about them, I vehemently disagreed) I don’t know where this is going, just giving some respect to the Cards and their fans, I guess. I haven’t seen too many really stupid posts from either the Brewer fans or the Cardinal fans, so that is saying something. (Things weren’t so civil during the D-Backs series) GO CREW!!!

Kotsay in again, this time for Hart

Brewers

1. CF Nyjer Morgan
2. RF Mark Kotsay
3. LF Ryan Braun
4. 1B Prince Fielder
5. 2B Rickie Weeks
6. 3B Jerry Hairston Jr.
7. SS Yuniesky Betancourt
8. C George Kottaras
9. P Randy Wolf

Cardinals

1. SS Rafael Furcal
2. RF Allen Craig
3. 1B Albert Pujols
4. 3B David Freese
5. LF Matt Holliday
6. C Yadier Molina
7. 2B Ryan Theriot
8. CF Jon Jay
9. P Kyle Lohse

When asked about Mark Kotsay playing CF last night Ron Roenicke had some interesting answers. Usually Roenicke seems to be a straight-shooting, no-bs kind of guy, however, this time he was an excuse making machine. He gave various reasons and rationalizations as to why Carlos Gomez “wasn’t even an option” (his words) last night in CF. Now Kotsay is playing RF for Hart, a move that I don’t hate nearly as much. One reason for having Kotsay start in CF instead of RF was a weak excuse about not having a guy to effectively fill the 2 hole in the order when Nyjer Morgan isn’t in and Gomez is playing for him. Really? So Jerry Hairston Jr.’s 4-8 in the second spot during the playoffs doesn’t mean anything? Other than Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder, Hairston and (surprisingly enough) Yuniesky Betancourt have been the most consistent hitters on the team. You want your most consistent hitters batting in front of Braun, who has been inferno hot, and Prince, who still has as much power as anyone in the league.

Couple quick thoughts on tonight’s game

I’ll try to get some pictures and a full breakdown tomorrow. 

• F’n first inning.
• It seems like the Brewers are down 10 games to 1 for some reason. Reality is, a 2-1 deficit isn’t the end of the world, but it makes every game that much more important. Tomorrow’s game is as close to being a must win as it can get without actually being an elimination game. 
• Nice to see our bullpen get some scoreless innings under their belt.
• The Brewers showed a bit of life after the disastrous 1st inning by not going in the tank and actually making a quick comeback. After the first two and half innings I thought the final score was going to be near double digits for both teams. Both bullpens pitched very well.
• The decision to play Mark Kotsay in CF may have cost the Brewers the game. He couldn’t get to Jon Jay’s flyball in the 1st that led to a double and the first run. Carlos Gomez would have gotten to that ball easily and assuming Nyjer Morgan takes the right route to the ball he would have gotten it too. If he catches that ball it there is 1 out and no runs in with Pujols coming up. Then, who the hell knows what he was doing off of second base in the bottom of the inning on Prince’s flyball into left-center. Jon Jay (maybe Kotsay owed him money) made a pretty routine running catch and easily doubled him off ending the inning and the threat. It didn’t help that he face-planted on his attempt to dive back to the bag. He did hit a solo HR for the Brewer’s third run, so he partially made up for his two mistakes.
• I know it makes no sense to think this way and a lot of time has passed since the trade was made, BUT how awesome would it be to have Nelson Cruz playing right field for the Brewers right now? I don’t hate Corey Hart, but the more he plays the less thrilled I am with him. He is streaky, he has lost almost all of his speed somehow (he used to be the fastest Brewer!), and his skills in the outfield are average at best (with a below average arm for RF). He has the kind of bat that can carry a team for stretches, but he also completely disappears for stretches. Nelson Cruz is tearing it up right now and he had a pretty solid last few seasons. The one bad thing about Cruz is that he seems to be hurt an awful lot.
• Finally, the Brewers need to play a complete game tomorrow. No inning meltdowns, no stupid mistakes, and the need to string a few hits together now and then. HUGE game tomorrow.

Brewers finally make a change to the lineup, not sure if it was the right one

Brewers

1. RF Corey Hart
2. CF Mark Kotsay
3. LF Ryan Braun
4. 1B Prince Fielder
5. 2B Rickie Weeks
6. 3B Jerry Hairston Jr.
7. SS Yuniesky Betancourt
8. C Jonathan Lucroy
9. P Yovani Gallardo

Cardinals

1. SS Rafael Furcal
2. CF Jon Jay
3. 1B Albert Pujols
4. LF Matt Holliday
5. RF Lance Berkman
6. C Yadier Molina
7. 3B David Freese
8. 2B Nick Punto
9. P Chris Carpenter

Mark Kotsay is getting the start in CF for the Brewers tonight, not Nyjer Morgan OR Carlos Gomez. I have nothing against Kotsay, after a rough start this season he ended up hitting pretty good and he cut down on his outfield mistakes, but I don’t like him in CF. I would rather have Carlos Gomez out there (there was a statement I never thought I would have made in April or May) for his D and even his speed and offense. Another thing, why not have Jerry Hairston Jr. hit in the 2 spot ahead of Braun? Other than Braun and Fielder, Hairston has been the best hitter of the postseason. Get some guys on base for the big hitters. Hairston is 4-8 hitting out of the 2 hole during the playoffs. A small sample size but considering he has played every game and is hitting .375 in the playoffs it is something that should be considered.

Brewers drop game 2 of the NLCS, series now even at a game a piece

Ryan Braun stayed hot with 2 more hits.

GOOD:

• Not much, Ryan Braun, Prince Fielder, and Yuniesky Betancourt(!?!) stayed hot, each collecting 2 hits. Prince Fielder hit another HR as well. Rickie Weeks had a 2-run shot that pretty much wrapped up the offense.
• LaTroy Hawkins didn’t give up any runs. Chris Narveson only gave up 1. That is what passed for good in this game.

BAD:

• Another terrible outing by Shaun Marcum. For those of you keeping score at home, Marcum has given up 19 runs in his last 3 starts and 31 runs in his last 6. Could it be that he is wearing down? Possible. All I know is that I am not nearly as confident with him on the mound as I was earlier in the season. The Brewers coaching staff needs to figure something out, I don’t know if we can afford another piss poor outing.
• Kameron Loe was at his Kameron Loe-iest. Since acquiring K-Rod, we have been treated to a string of excellent performances by Loe. Not so much today. He stepped into the game while it was still in reach and left 7 batters later with it out of reach.
• Corey Hart and Nyjer Morgan are a combined 9-49 (.184) in the playoffs. I understand that Morgan was integral in Game 5 of the NLDS, setting the table for the first run and knocking in the winner, but with the way Brauny and Prince (to a lesser extent) have been hitting they need production out of those top two guys. Jerry Hairston Jr. is 4-8 out of the 2 hole when Carlos Gomez plays CF. 
• As bad as the pitching was, sometimes you have to tip your cap to the opposing hitters. Albert Pujols had a monster game and the lineup as a whole just hit the ball well. I’d rather get slaughtered in one game than lose 4 games by one run.

No one said this was going to be easy. Travel day tomorrow, then an outstanding matchup on Wednesday of Yovani Gallardo and Chris Carpenter. Carpenter was the hero of Game 5 for St. Louis going the distance and shutting out the Phillies. He didn’t fare as well in his first postseason start, lasting only 3 inning on short rest and giving up 4 (the Cards won that game anyway). Gallardo has been the more consistent of the two, but less conspicuous. Yovani has given up 2 runs in two starts spanning 14 innings. The Brewers have won both of his starts as well. Should be a good one.

Jonathan Lucroy throws out Edwin Jackson on a sac bunt.

I see that the Cards fans on Tumblr have woken up a bit. After seeing very few posts by Cards fans on my tracked tags yesterday, I saw a TON of them today. To be fair, I saw a great deal less Brewer fan posts tonight, so the door swings both ways. 

NLCS Game 2 lineups

Game 2 of the NLCS jumps off from Miller Park at 7:05 local time.

Brewers:

1. RF Corey Hart
2. CF Nyjer Morgan
3. LF Ryan Braun
4. 1B Prince Fielder
5. 2B Rickie Weeks
6. 3B Jerry Hairston Jr.
7. SS Yuniesky Betancourt
8. C Jonathan Lucroy
9. RHP Shaun Marcum

Cardinals:

1. SS Rafael Furcal
2. CF Jon Jay
3. 1B Albert Pujols
4. LF Matt Holliday
5. RF Lance Berkman
6. C Yadier Molina
7. 3B David Freese
8. 2B Nick Punto
9. RHP Edwin Jackson

Matt Holliday and Lance Berkman change spots in the order and Nick Punto is at second rather than Ryan Theriot, other than that, same as yesterday.

Witnessing a Human Breakdown in Five Minutes

oldtimefamilybaseball:

Not often does one have the displeasure (or pleasure, if your leanings are sociopathic) of witnessing a human being crack. Yesterday afternoon, with the Cardinals leading 5-2 due in large part to David Freese’s three-run home run, me and a friend, who hails from St. Louis, got in the car to start the trek back to Santa Monica.

When the ride began, he was chipper and agreeable. But as we drove and the bottom of the fifth began, his mood turned black. When Corey Hart lead off with a single, it didn’t faze him. When Scott Hairston doubled, putting runners at second and third, he mentioned that it was no problem. “Jaime Garcia has gotten out of worse.”

But Ryan Braun then doubled into the right field corner, scoring two runs. After a few slaps to my glove compartment, he composed himself, realizing that not only did the Cardinals still have the lead, but Ryan Braun is an excellent hitter who will run into his fair share of breaks. 

On the very next pitch though, when Prince Fielder blasted the fastest home run that was hit this season, coming in at 119 mph, and giving the Brewers a one-run lead, he just sat there. 

“Too stunned to speak?” I asked. 

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Prince Fielder just blasted a two-run shot. Your team is losing.” 

He paused. “Wait, what? Hold on. I thought they were just replaying the crowd’s reaction to the Braun doubl—you mean, that is, I…well. F&^#!” 

When the Cardinals replaced Jaime Garcia and the radio went to commercial, we drove in silence.

“You know, it’s a seven game series. It’s only game one.” 

His eye twitched. “I know.” 

And then the game returned. Rickie Weeks hit a groundball for a sure out, but then wound up on second base thanks to Octavio Dotel’s throwing error. I looked over. He was rocking back and forth.

“Don’t worry. Yuniesky Betancourt is up next. Everything will be all right.” 

But then Yuniesky did the unexpected. After swinging and missing at a first pitch strike, Yuniesky drew a ball and fouled off four consecutive pitches. This wasn’t the Yuniesky Betancourt I knew. When Dotel left a 78 mph cutter at the top of the zone, Betancourt hammered it over the left-centerfield wall, putting the Brewers up 8-5. 

There was no saving my friend now. He was not muttering something to himself, maybe it was “don’t leave pitches up” or maybe they weren’t even words at all. He was like Jack Nicholson at the end of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and no amount of ripped out bathroom fixtures was going to bring him back. 

The scoring was largely over by that point save for a pair of traded runs in the seventh inning, but it was too late. The Brewers went on to win and at least one man’s brains was returned to a pile of mush. Kansas City Royals fans are well accustomed to the mental anguish that Yuniesky Betancourt provides, though usually for different reasons. Hopefully when the newly revised DSM V is released it will recognize Betancourtism as a disease that requires a healthy dose of beer and fatty meats to overcome it. 

The Cardinals will have their chance to tie up the series tonight when Edwin Jackson takes on Shaun Marcum at 8:05 ET. 

(Photo by Scott Boehm/Getty Images)