C.C. STILL ROLLING!

The new ACE in town is still outperforming every pitcher in both leagues since he came to Milwaukee. Sabathia threw another complete game against the Astros and is dominating every batter he faces pretty much. But I'm growing concerned about his high pitch totals, and yes I do realize we're trying to get the most out of this rental that we can. But we NEED him for the playoffs and to perform well then. When he threw too much several years ago in Cleveland he melted down due to too much use during teh season. Well I don't want this season to go the wrong way with the great team we have. I hope Yost starts to realize that the bullpen can hold a 3 or 4 run lead with 2 or 3 innings left. Other notes:

• Ryan Braun's ribs are still keeping him out of games. He is our most important player and the real key to our playoff hopes seeing he is an everyday player. I hope he's a fast healer and doesn't come back 'til he is 100% and past this wierd injury.
• Ben Sheets has been shaky lately but is still key to us making it to October. This is jsut part of the ups and downs of the season but Sheets needs to buckle down in September and hopefully October.
• Corey Hart and JJ Hardy are raking lately and seem to be out of their slumps.
• Salomon Torres is closing games at an impressive rate and seems to be a perfect fit there and should be good through the remainder of the season (hopefully he's back next year!), and Gagne is settling down and excelling as our new set-up man.

GO BREWERS!

NEW CONTRACT FOR BRAUN!!!!

LF Bryan Braun has signed an eight year deal to stay with the Milwaukee Brewers through 2016. It was a historic contract for a player with as little major league service time as Braun has. He is a cornerstone to the Brewers franchise and is a great start to locking up our young stars. Other players we are in talks with reportedly are RF Corey Hart and 1B Prince Fielder, Hart is a clutch and consistent hitter and Fielder is our big bopper and important to our fan base. I anticipate Fielder signing last of the young stars due to his power adn ability to get paid for it. But great news with the Braun signing and it really shows a commitment by ownership and the front office to recognize how important Braun is. THIS MAKES UP FOR LAST NIGHT AGAINST THE DODGERS!!!

OFFENSE HEATING UP!

The Brewers are finally ending their extended offensive slump and leading the charge is reigning NL Rookie-of-the-year Ryan Braun who has raised his BA over 40 points and added 4 HR's and 6 RBI in the past week. Taking three of four from STL was huge and a win over the Dodgers yesterday was critical to keeping the momentum.

Gagne is back as the closer after a "break" that lasted barely 48 hours. He is still not as sharp as we need him to be but he's back in the ninth for better or worse right now.

We are still in 4th place in the NL Central but only 3 games back of Chicago despite our being under .500 for a spurt there. We finish a tough series with LA at home here and then must face the Red Sox at Fenway for Interleague baseball, not a fun place to try to get a win! That begins a 9-game road trip that could very well give us an idea of how good we really are.

The Starting Pitching really needs to pick up the team because the offense is coming around and we don't have Gallardo to give use a quality start more often then not. Suppan is solid and our youngsters in Villanueva and Parra must get themselves in a groove here for use to make a playoff push.

LET THE OFFENSE ROLL BREW CREW!!!!!!

GALLARDO DONE!

This is devastating news for my Brewers who are already struggling the past couple weeks. Yovanni Gallardo is our #2 pitcher and a budding ace at 22 years old. He has a 3.38 career ERA and almost strikes out a batter every inning he pitches, he is amazing when watching him. The Brewers are already thin in pitching and had to recall Dave Bush to replace Gallardo on the roster, Chris Capuano is out for the year and we released Claudio Vargas before the season. Ben Sheets has been injured the past three season so taking Gallardo out for the season is absolutely devastating to the team.

ERIC GAGNE MUST GO!!!!!!!!
This guy has absolutely sucked so far leading the league in blown saves this year, with most being directly his fault. He has lost his command and doesn't have the same heat he had with the Dodgers. We should just try to cut our loss (Thank god we only signed him for one year!) and try Riske out at closer to see if he can.

OFFENSE OUT OF FUEL
Our offense is really sputtering and Cameron hasn't been the spark we thought would get us going, although he hasn't been bad so far the team is still struggling. We relied on the longball last year and this year haven't had the power we did last year which is very peculiar. We have so many good young hitters on our team it is only time that will get us going, THEY'RE TOO GOOD.
Possible Remedies to the offensive woes

1. Move Rickie Weeks out of leadoff and down teh order to try to lessen the pressure on him, He's batting around .200 and is the key to setting up our offense
2. Ryan Braun needs to take more walks, with Prince behind him he will get good pitches and needs to see the ball better.
3. Prince Fielder needs to lay off the power stroke and let his natural abilities take over, with the slumping offense our best player must realize he can't lift up the whole team by swinging for the fences, but rather smart AB's every time, taking what they give him.
4. MOST IMPORTANTLY OUR PITCHERS NEED TO STEP UP! The offense will press when behind and the pitching staff has let us down besides Sheets.

Offensive struggles

The Brewers' offense has been struggling as of late and costing them games, scoring more than 5 runs only once since April 13. The Brewers have lost 3 of their last 4 games and extra innings has been all too common and they lead the league in games going past 9 innings. We have lost only 3 series so far and stand in 3rd place in the NL Central at 14-11.



OFFENSE

Ryan Braun has been heating up as of late batting .333 over the past 7 games after a slow start along with Prince Fielder (.304, 3HR, 7 RBI) who is getting his power stroke back. I personally went to the 4/23 game against the Phillies at Miller Park in which he hit 2 blasts. Bill Hall has been having a powerful year with a .500 slugging percentage and 7 HR's already.



PITCHING

Mitch Stetter has been a beast for our bullpen since being called up from AAA Nashville, and has gotten us out of several jams and not allowing one run yet. Yovanni Gallardo has allowed only 1 earned run in two starts and 14 innings of work which is amazing for our staff. Manny Parra and Carlos Villanueva haven't had the best of success but should turn it around in the upcoming weeks. Eric Gagne has been overworked to an extent with all our close games and is 7 for 11 in save opportunities.



Mike Cameron will be returning to CF this week and hopefully will give a spark to our offense at the #2 spot in the lineup. Ben Sheets will be back too after missing a start last week and has been dominant this year. If our offense plays even to 3/4 of its potential we should really take off soon and catch up in the division race. The next month's schedule is brutal and will be critical to how this season will go for our team. GO BREW CREW!!!

Da Crew's Rollin Along

Another strong week for the Brewers with minor hiccups against the Reds, which was disappointing. We won our series on the road against the Mets taking 2 of 3 in our final series at Shea Stadium in the regular season. The series against the Reds was very disappointing especially with Cordero closing us out. We somehow beat Johhny Cueto to salvage one game and thankfully not get swept.

NEWS
Braun and Fielder are switching positions in the batting order after struggling in their new slots so far this season. Hopefully they can regain their swagger from last season when they tore it up.

Opening success

The Milwaukee Brewers started the season off on a gret note winning their first two series against the Chicago Cubs and San Francisco Giants and going 5-1 in the first week of the season. It was very important to win the Cubs series especially on the road since we struggled away last season which cost us the Division Title. All phases of the game were successful including the defense which has to step us this year for us to make it to the postseason.

OFFENSE
Averaged 6 runs per game with three games over 7 runs. The whole batting order came through with Braun, Hall, and Fielder seeing the ball very well. It is imprtant that the 3-4-5 hitters excel and drive in runs.

PITCHING
Ben Sheets has not allowed a run yet adn Sunday through a complete game shutout. Suppan was solid against the cubs while Dave Bush struggled with a career high 5 walks. Villanueva was good in the home opener with Manny Parra dominatingthe Giants with 7 strikeouts and his first big leauge victory. When Yovanni Gallardo is back form the DL the pitching staff will have a tough decision on who he replaces, but he is one of the ebst young pitchers in the big leagues.
Relief pitching was very good outside of opening day and Gagne's implosion versus Fukudome. David Riske, Salomon Torres, and Guerilmo Mota showing why they were brought in.

DEFENSE
Only 2 errors in the second Giants game so far for the Brew Crew. Pretty impressive with Braun now in LF and Hall back at 3rd base after a year in center. CF is a platoon right now waiting for Mike Cameron (former gold glove CF) to finish his 25 game suspension. Jason Kendall showed why he is a great defensive catcher and is a huge upgrade over Estrada. But its looking like the D has improved which in turn helps the pitching staff and team as a whole.

Awesome opening to the season for the Brewers as we look to have a great season and win the Division and play in October. Keep it up Brew Crew and I'll be at plenty of Games this year.