8/12/08 Brewers (Suppan) at Padres (Baek): 9:05 PM CDT

[wibadgers23]

Jeff Suppan (7-7, 4.70 ERA, 50 BB/65 SO)
http://www.rightfieldbleachers.com/uploaded_images/Jeff-Suppan3-760858.jpg
Previous Starts:

DATE	OPP	RESULT	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	GB	FB	TBF	#Pit	Dec.	Rel.	ERA
8/6	@CIN	W 6-3	7.0	7	3	3	1	0	3	17	6	28	92	W(7-7)	--	4.70
8/1	@ATL	W 9-0	7.0	5	0	0	0	3	1	14	6	28	100	W(6-7)	--	4.75
7/27	HOU	L 6-11	6.0	11	8	8	2	1	3	11	6	28	91	L(5-7)	--	5.04
7/22	@STL	W 4-3	7.0	8	3	3	1	2	3	9	9	31	93	--	--	4.65
7/6	PIT	W 11-6	3.0	5	6	6	2	2	2	1	5	16	75	--	--	4.71
7/1	@ARI	W 8-6	5.0	9	5	5	1	2	0	10	8	25	76	W(5-6)	--	4.30
6/25	@ATL	L 2-4	6.0	9	4	4	0	1	5	13	6	27	94	L(4-6)	--	4.05
6/20	BAL	L 5-8	1.2	7	6	3	0	2	1	3	2	15	55	L(4-5)	--	3.92
6/14	MIN	L 4-9	7.0	7	2	2	0	1	5	9	6	27	96	--	--	3.68
6/8	@COL	W 3-2	5.1	4	2	1	0	5	3	10	3	24	99	W(4-4)	--	3.78

Versus

Cha Seung Baek (4-6, 5.06 ERA, 23 BB/ 63 SO)
http://media.katu.com/images/ms_cha_seung_baek.jpg
Previous Starts:

DATE	OPP	RESULT	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	GB	FB	TBF	#Pit	Dec.	Rel.	ERA
8/6	@NYM	W 4-2	6.1	8	2	2	0	1	5	10	6	30	99	W(4-5)	--	4.90
7/30	ARI	L 3-7	4.1	8	5	4	0	1	5	5	5	23	87	L(3-5)	--	5.12
7/25	@PIT	W 6-5	5.1	7	4	4	2	1	3	10	7	24	83	W(3-4)	--	4.86
7/20	@STL	L 5-9	6.1	6	2	1	0	1	3	8	9	25	88	--	--	4.66
7/13	ATL	L 3-12	1.1	4	3	3	0	0	0	4	2	8	23	--	--	5.14
7/9	FLA	L 2-5	5.0	6	3	3	2	1	3	3	9	20	81	L(2-4)	--	4.65
7/4	@ARI	W 5-1	6.0	2	0	0	0	1	7	6	5	20	94	W(2-3)	--	4.54
6/28	SEA	L 2-4	5.0	8	4	4	0	1	5	7	3	23	83	L(1-3)	--	5.46
6/21	DET	L 5-7	6.1	8	6	6	1	0	7	8	6	27	94	L(1-2)	--	5.11
6/14	@CLE	W 8-3	7.0	2	3	3	0	3	3	9	7	26	110	--	--	3.93

N.L. Central Standings:

Team	W	L	Pct.	GB	Home	Road	East	Cent.	West	L10	Strk
Chi. Cubs	71	47	.602	-	45-17	26-30	9-6	33-22	23-10	7-3	W 1
Milwaukee (41)	68	51	.571	3½	36-23	32-28	16-12	30-23	15-8	8-2	W 6
St. Louis (37)	66	55	.545	6½	33-28	33-27	16-11	26-26	17-10	5-5	W 1
Houston (33)	59	59	.500	12	30-26	29-33	13-9	26-28	13-11	8-2	W 5
Pittsburgh (28)	54	64	.458	17	32-26	22-38	14-14	24-27	10-14	4-6	W 1
Cincinnati (25)	52	67	.437	19½	31-31	21-36	18-17	16-29	9-15	1-9	L 6

Wild Card Race:

Team	W	L	PCT	GB
Milwaukee	68	51	.571	-
St. Louis	66	55	.545	3
N.Y. Mets	62	56	.525	5½
Florida	62	57	.521	6
L.A. Dodgers	59	59	.500	8½
Houston	59	59	.500	8½
Atlanta	55	63	.466	12½
Pittsburgh	54	64	.458	13½
Colorado	53	67	.442	15½
Cincinnati	52	67	.437	16
San Francisco	50	67	.427	17
San Diego	46	72	.390	21½
Washington	44	75	.370	24

[razzzorsharp]

Baek has looked pretty consistantly medicore in his last handful of starts.

[2008 world champs]

Day game followed by a west coast night game = good for the team.. long wait for guys like me

[hawing]

Can I just request - as a fan in this case, not as an administrator - that any crabbing about the lineups be kept to a minimum, or better yet put in the vent thread?

It's kind of an enthusiasm killer to have the first few pages delve into why player X sucks or manager Y sucks worse for even considering him.

 

Thanks. Go Brewers!

[2008 world champs]

hawing, more power to you. the vent thread just expanded:)

 

I have a good feeling about this game. Soup is warmin up.........

 

see, i can be positive

[pitchleague]

hooray for West Coast games! I get to sit on my porch as the sun sets, grill out, light the tiki torches, and enjoy the whole game from the comfort of my County Stadium seats. Yeah, I could do it most every game, but I'd scorch myself doing so. The West Coast games allow me to enjoy without getting roasted to death from temperatures hotter than Hades.

 

Go Brewers! Woo Hoo!!!!

[rluzinski]

Can I just request - as a fan in this case, not as an administrator - that any crabbing about the lineups be kept to a minimum, or better yet put in the vent thread?

 

Any possible complaints from me about Counsell will be kept far away from the IGT, I promise. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

[owbc]

Thanks for bringing that up, hawing.

 

Although I am certainly guilty of this as well, I am also concerned about the general negativity about the Brewers. Although it is certainly fine to criticize players and coaches, I've noticed that we as fans have set extremely high and often unattainable expectations for some of our players. A baseball team consists of 25 players and all of them have their strengths and weaknesses that they contribute to the team. Furthermore, all players go through their ups and downs over the course of a season. In the course of an individual game, we all go through our ups and downs, but I would like it if we could try and avoid saying things specifically like "here we go again" or "looks like the typical [brewers player] is showing up here" or "there's another mistake by [brewers player]". I'm not saying that it's wrong to say/think those things, because I tell them to my roommate all the time. It just becomes annoying after awhile to have certain players consistently criticized and scapegoated.

 

Maybe every team does need to have its Chad Moeller or "Jose Suckentin" as I used to call Jose Valentin as a 10-year-old, but it's not fair to the bottom players on our team to be constantly criticized for every little mistake while an 0 for 5 by our top players can go generally unnoticed. I was reading some older game threads, and I was surprised to find that even when the Brewers were completely out of the pennant race in August, the attitude of the IGT was generally more positive than it has been recently. Thus, I'm just asking that we try and avoid one-line negative posts and try and make the IGTs feel more like a pennant race and less like an emotional rollercoaster.

 

To keep this on topic, I will say that as a frequent insomniac, I am looking forward to staying up late the next few nights and having live baseball to watch. Go Crew!

[Glennron]

I was reading some older game threads, and I was surprised to find that even when the Brewers were completely out of the pennant race in August, the attitude of the IGT was generally more positive than it has been recently.

 

That could have something to do with the fact they weren't expected to contend for the playoffs, so it's harder to be pissed when something bad happens.

 

Having Sabathia and Sheets both go in back-to-back series against 2 of the 3 worst offenses in all of baseball seems like it should be a crime. It's not often I feel like the Brewers "should" win a road series, but I feel like the Brewers should win this series. Hopefully Suppan continues to pitch pretty well like his last couple starts. I remember during his last start on FSN they showed that his ERA in August since '04 is significantly better than any other month, so that'd be awfully nice if he kept that up.

[dlk9s]

Can I just request - as a fan in this case, not as an administrator - that any crabbing about the lineups be kept to a minimum, or better yet put in the vent thread?

It's kind of an enthusiasm killer to have the first few pages delve into why player X sucks or manager Y sucks worse for even considering him.

 

Thanks. Go Brewers!

I can't believe the Brewers are even able to board a plane to San Diego with Counsell on the team.

 

[sheethead]

Can I just request - as a fan in this case, not as an administrator - that any crabbing about the lineups be kept to a minimum, or better yet put in the vent thread?

It's kind of an enthusiasm killer to have the first few pages delve into why player X sucks or manager Y sucks worse for even considering him.

 

Thanks. Go Brewers!

 

You have to admit though, the "sky is falling" approach seems to work better than the "rah rah beat the Cubs" approach did. I will promise to keep my Randy Quaid like "vile thing" comments off the IGT today, and maybe tomorrow (if the soups on). It should be easy, because by the time 9:30 rolls around, I don't even want to look at a computer screen.

[rluzinski]

I have to say, I really didn't come into this season very optimistic about the Brewer's post season chances. I figured that the Brewers were good for around 88 wins, which gave them an outside shot at the wildcard but not much chance at the division. The division still isn't looking good but the Brewers are looking very good in the wild card area. Long way to go yet but I have no complaints with regard to where they stand right now.

[RobDeer 45]

All I'm going to say is that we are on a good stretch right now and I'm really excited to see what happens this week. Lets have another winning road trip here. I have to agree, west coast games are great, give you something to watch in bed.

[crewcrazy]

I agree that the expectations of success change things quite a bit in the IGTs -- it seems to be getting to the point where winning is more of a relief than anything, and that's not very fun. There's been more than a few times where I've decided to hold off on looking at the IGT and just enjoy watching the 2nd best team in the NL.

 

The Counsell situation is irritating, but since it keeps happening, I don't think it's productive to keep filling the pages with "COUNSELL 6TH AGAIN!!!!" posts. At this point, we're just repeating ourselves...we might as well just grit our teeth and hope for the best. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

 

West Coast games are rough for those of us in the Central time zone, but at least I'll get to watch some Michael Phelps for a little while.

[dlk9s]

I think one thing fans need to realize is that unfavorable outcomes for the Brewers (whether it is the outcome of a single at-bat, pitch, or game as a whole) are just as often the result of success by the other team as they are "failure" by our guys.

[wibadgers23]

These west coast trips always scare me, but we are playing well right now and we have Sabathia and Sheets going the final two games. Should be an interesting series.

[And That]

I think the negativity is understandable to a point... 26 years without getting into the playoffs builds up a lot of nerves to the point that it would seem the team might have to do everything right to even have a shot at the playoffs. This is obviously not the correct viewpoint, but when the team makes a mistake, it's magnified to a much greater degree than it has been in the past. Part of that is because they're making fewer mistakes and part of that is because the mistakes could well affect the team's plans for October.

 

We all want the team to do well, but most of us are used to the team falling off the ledge of a first story building sometime in June. It's much more worrisome to think about the team falling off the ledge of a very tall building in September again.

[hawing]

The Counsell situation is irritating, but since it keeps happening, I don't think it's productive to keep filling the pages with "COUNSELL 6TH AGAIN!!!!" posts. At this point, we're just repeating ourselves...we might as well just grit our teeth and hope for the best. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

(emphasis added)

 

You said 'grit' on purpose, didn't you? http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

 

[MillerParkSouth]

I'd have to say that this road trip and our 10 gamer in the middle of September could be the 2 most critical trips of the year. If we can somehow come away with a 4-2 trip, i think that will go a long way in setting us up to make the playoffs. It always seems like seasons die on the west coast, hopefully that won't be the case this year.

[datrain711]

I love watching the crew late night. especially when I can watch the Cubs lose at 6! Hopefully Suppan holds it together tonight.

[crewcrazy]

The Counsell situation is irritating, but since it keeps happening, I don't think it's productive to keep filling the pages with "COUNSELL 6TH AGAIN!!!!" posts. At this point, we're just repeating ourselves...we might as well just grit our teeth and hope for the best. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

(emphasis added)

 

You said 'grit' on purpose, didn't you? http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

 

Wow, I didn't even notice that. Totally Freudian, I guess. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

 

[jwill535]

This road trip scares me, especially the Dodgers series. With that said at least my anxiety will be down because I will only be able to see a couple innings a game.

[jhart05]

Need Soup to pitch well tonight. With Sabathia and Sheets going in the next two, in that pitchers park, I expect both of them to come out with W's.

 

Anything but a sweep against the terrible Padres would be a losing series in my book.

 

Keep the Brewer machine rolling tonight, boys.

 

GO CREW!!!

 

 

 

And, I'm always positive about the Brewers. Way too positive sometimes, I'll admit it, but I can live with that.

[razzzorsharp]

I would be more than happy with 2/3 on the road and 3-3 on the trip.

[yount19.u]

With the addition of CC, this west coast trip does not make me nearly as nervous as I've been in years past. On top of that, if Soup remembers to where his August Pitching Pants, we should do just fine. Here's to a reduction in sleep this week -- Go Brewers!