Brewers 0, Cubs 4

Player of the Game: Russ Branyan

Record: 3-1

One hit. That’s all we got is one god damn hit? There honestly isn’t much to say about this game. Sheets wasn’t very sharp with his command, and it bit him in the ass. Russ Branyan had the Brewers only hit and made a couple of nice plays at third. Kudos to Yost for starting Branyan again. If he hadn’t, the Crew would likely have been no-hit. If I’m going to rip Yost apart for every dumb thing he does, I have to give him credit for making good decisions. Besides Branyan, no one did anything at the plate. Hardy drew a walk and has shown pretty good patience so far. He made me happy with that. Moeller drew a walk as the Brewers third baserunner of the game. I’ll give him credit for refusing to swing the bat knowing that he can’t hit a mid-90’s fastball. I wish Jenkins would take that same approach. I can’t begin to tell you how frustrated I am with him swinging at everything with complete disregard for his inability to lay off the high fastball, which he cannot hit. He does a good job getting to three ball counts because no pitcher in his right mind would throw the ball anywhere around the plate on the 0-2, 1-2, and 2-2 counts Jenkins gets in every at bat. Then, on 3-2, Jenkins thinks the pitcher will come after him, but inevitably the pitcher won’t. And, Jenkins swings at ball four an hits a flare to the shortstop or strikes out. Counting yesterday, I think he has swung at 5 ball fours.

Sheets just didn’t have his A-game today. He couldn’t locate the curve through the first five innings, then had trouble with his fastball in his last two innings. Turnbow pitched a good eighth inning, thus extending the bullpen’s scoreless streak to all season, four games and 12.2 innings. Let’s just be happy about that and the fact that the Crew can still win the series with a win tomorrow. Unfortunately, Vampire Santos goes tomorrow. Here’s a little review of some special stats from The Vampire in 2004: 51.1 IN, 11 HR, 7.19 ERA in day games, 26 IN, 5 HR, 7.27 ERA in August, 22.1 IN, 7 HR, 8.46 ERA in September. Let’s hope the day game and end of last season stats don’t carry over into this year. Instead, let’s hope Vamp’s 2.08 ERA against the Cubs last year carries over to this season. Remember that Vamp didn’t exactly have a very good spring either: 22 IN, 8.59 ERA, and 4 HR. On the flip side, Greg Maddux, in 30 innings against the Crew last year, posted a 1.80 ERA. For his career, he has an ERA of 1.45 against the Crew. So, yeah, this isn’t looking too good tomorrow.