The Brewers 2011 non-vent thread

[TooLiveBrew]

How about some good things to talk about? I know the team isn't exactly making that easy lately, but every team slumps.

 

- Gallardo's 8 inning, one hit mastery over St. Louis.

- Greinke makes his home debut tonight, should be electric at Miller Park

 

 

Anyone else? My hope is this thread can hang around for the whole season, & be somewhere to escape the inevitable frustrations that come with having high expectations for the team.

 

To go along with the Gallardo one-hit performance, this made me smile in McCalvy's game recap:

Yovani Gallardo's fellow starting pitchers weren't about to let manager Ron Roenicke get in the way of Gallardo's bid for a no-hitter on Saturday.

 

Gallardo held the Cardinals hitless through seven innings, but was already at 104 pitches when Roenicke started to make his way to the end of the dugout to see how his pitcher was feeling. Left-hander Randy Wolf saw the skipper coming and joined with righty Shaun Marcum in a makeshift blockade.

 

Were they armed? "Just our forearms," Wolf cracked. "There's no way he could take him out," Marcum said. "But we wanted to make sure [Roenicke] didn't even have a chance to go talk to him."

 

When Roenicke arrived, Wolf did the talking. "He's fine," Wolf said to the manager. "[Roenicke] asked me another question and then he walked away. And like 10 minutes later, he came back and said, 'You were throwing the block at me, weren't you?'"

[JohnBriggs12]

Mike McClendon looks good.

[joepepsi]

Don't want to jinx anything, but Shaun Marcum has been terrific. Most of the casual Brewer fan friends I know still haven't realized what a special pitcher he is.

[TooLiveBrew]

Brandon Kintzler has been fun to watch for me. I like him as a bullpen arm for the foreseeable future.

 

And I totally agree on Marcum, joepepsi. I thought about bumping his trade thread a couple days ago to post something similar. The guy, as Lucroy noted, is a sniper. He's really fun to watch, even without big velocity.

[joepepsi]

TooLiveBrew wrote:

And I totally agree on Marcum, joepepsi. I thought about bumping his trade thread a couple days ago to post something similar. The guy, as Lucroy noted, is a sniper.

Everyone (media and fans) is so obsessed about Greinke, that Marcum is under the radar. Greinke can only hope to pitch as well as Marcum has so far.

 

He's not just Capuano on a good day; he's better than that.

[Schlitz001]

The 2008 Milwaukee Brewers didn't really get consistently over .500 until June 1st.

[endaround]

We won't have to deal with missing the playoffs despite being 14 games above .500 in May

[derflotr]

Carlos Gomez took two walks yesterday.

[Warning Track Power]

When he plays like he did on Saturday, it sure is fun to watch Carlos Gomez play baseball.

 

I'm not saying he is anything close to Jose Reyes but watching him turn that bloop single into a double immediately made me think think of Reyes. That was beautiful.

[FVBrewerFan]

As bad as YB and Weeks may be defensively, they have instantly become a very good DP combination.

 

Early props to Kintzler and McClendon. Maybe RR won't feel the need to pitch Loe every day?

 

Narveson continues to more than earn his keep as a #5 starter.

 

This team is about to go on a 12-3 tear, and that will be fun to watch.

[BrewCrewForever]

Shaun Marcum has come as advertised. Goes deep into games, throws strikes and misses quite a few bats even without a big fastball. Love watching him work.

[danzig6767]

Brandon Kintzler has been fun to watch for me. I like him as a bullpen arm for the foreseeable future.

 

And I totally agree on Marcum, joepepsi. I thought about bumping his trade thread a couple days ago to post something similar. The guy, as Lucroy noted, is a sniper. He's really fun to watch, even without big velocity.

I love watching him pitch because he can often make some of the best hitters in the world look terrible even while not touching higher than 86mph on the gun. He throws so many different pitches at different speeds that Marcum regularly has hitters befuddled.

 

While Marcum is a starter, Doug Jones was a relief pitcher, and they pitched differently, i get the same pleasure watching Marcum that i got when watching Jones mow down hitters with a 78mph fastball and deadly changeup.

[Marc Newfield of Dreams]

Zack Greinke's stuff is electric. And that was his second start of the year.

[rluzinski]

The Brewers have arguably the best rotation since... I don't know when. I think they will be great to watch.

[Oldcity]

That was probably the best double play I've ever seen in person. Wow.

[TooLiveBrew]

Zack Greinke's stuff is electric. And that was his second start of the year.

Yeah, he was dominating tonight. Awesome.

 

Fwiw, the coaching staff was equating this start to being like his final ST start. So *next* start is when they'll just cut him loose. 6 IP, 9 Ks & 0 BBs is just the beginning! http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

[JohnBriggs12]

The 2008 Milwaukee Brewers didn't really get consistently over .500 until June 1st.

Neither did the 1982 Brewers for that matter (hence the managerial change) or the 1978 Brewers who won 93 games that year.

[DuWayne Steurer]

Zack Greinke's stuff is electric. And that was his second start of the year.

For big chunks of the game last night I couldn't help but just about drop my jaw at how absolutely filthy his pitches are. I remember a slider he struck Maybin out looking on that looped in and just nicked the inside corner and Maybin's knees buckled and I was like "there's about 4-5 hitters in baseball who would have been able to pull the trigger on that".

[DuWayne Steurer]

The Brewers have arguably the best rotation since... I don't know when. I think they will be great to watch.

Way too many years of watching guys like Wolf be our #2, and guys like Narveson be our #3. They're perfectly slotted now, and it's kind of a good feeling knowing that.

[Ennder]

I think Lucroy has a shot to be one of the better catchers the Brewers have ever produced. They don't have an amazing list of names in general but I really like what I've seen from him so far.

[Hammer]

Whoa, I don't know when Ennder and I have ever agreed so much on a topic! Kidding aside, I really like to watch Lucroy's approach at the plate. He seems to "get it" when it comes to strike zone discipline (shouldn't all catchers have this trait?) as well as he seems to look the other way with 2 strikes.

[Oxy]

In an odd way, it is satisfying that on a night where the Brewers offense really breaks through they actually need the runs. I know it doesn't work that way, but it's really annoying to win 8-1 one day and then lose 2-1 the next day.

[rluzinski]

Even after having the offense perform historically bad for over a week, a win tomorrow puts the Brewers at 3 games under .500. That's nothing to celebrate but it could be a heck of a lot worse.

[Ennder]

Even after having the offense perform historically bad for over a week, a win tomorrow puts the Brewers at 3 games under .500. That's nothing to celebrate but it could be a heck of a lot worse.

I'd certainly be happier with this result if I believed that the Red Sox, Rays, Royals and Indians were playing to their talent levels. I still think we have major disadvantages in the interleague schedule which means this poor start could easily sink us for the entire year.

[rluzinski]

Even after having the offense perform historically bad for over a week, a win tomorrow puts the Brewers at 3 games under .500. That's nothing to celebrate but it could be a heck of a lot worse.

I'd certainly be happier with this result if I believed that the Red Sox, Rays, Royals and Indians were playing to their talent levels. I still think we have major disadvantages in the interleague schedule which means this poor start could easily sink us for the entire year.

In terms of projected wins, how much harder do you think the Brewers interleague schedule is relative to the Reds or Cards?