Brewers 9, Pirates 2

Player of the Game: Jeff Cirillo, Ben Sheets

Record: 1-0

What a great way to start the season. Unfortunately, I did not see the first 7 innings, but I can still give a pretty good review. Sheets proved that he’s ready to go this year, and the Crew finally beat the Pirates for the first time since they joined the NL. Most fans are a bit skeptical of the offense, as am I, but today they took it to Ollie Perez, one of the top pitchers in the NL and an absolute Brewer killer.

The Pirates are a really bad team, and the Crew will have to beat them a dozen or so times this year to finish at .500. Sheets, Phelps, and Wise pitched well, but they should against this team. I don’t have to get into too much detail about the Pirates here. Let me just point out that they had Tike Redman batting third. That’s right, the guy who posted a wicked .310 OBP and .374 SLUG last season is considered the team’s best hitter based on ordinary lineup construction. Wow! I sure am glad we have Overbay and Lee now.

Speaking of Overbay and Lee, it wasn’t the ordinary suspects to carry the offense today. Lee and Overbay had good games, but it was a new phenomenon that we Brewer fans experienced today: a bottom 4 lineup spots not making 13 outs in a game. Instead, Cirillo, Hardy, Moeller, and Sheets/Magruder went 4/15 with a homer and walk. Let’s not get too excited. That’s not that great of a line. Of course, it was Cirillo doing most of the work, but it was nice to get a hit out of Hardy and Moeller. Brady Clark had an excellent game, getting on base three times and stealing two bases. Spivey is a bit rusty, but he should be fine. The Crew will get good production from 3-5, as well. I am going to constantly point to the last four spots in the order this season, as it will be the key to the team winning. The Brewers have 3 terrible hitting pitchers and the league’s worst pinch hitters. Therefore, the nine-spot is a complete waste that will create four outs every game. Last year, the catching spot was a guaranteed waste of four outs, too. This season can’t help but be an improvement. The same is true at SS. J.J. Hardy and Chad Moeller didn’t crush the ball today, but the two hits they had really came in handy. As long as the bottom of the lineup gives some production, the top and middle of the lineup will get more AB’s and the team could easily score a full run more per game. This would obviously make a huge difference. Do I think it’s going to happen? No, but today was nice to watch. [Just heard Rick Shitcliff say about Craig Counsel, “when he’s playing for a team like the Brewers, who will lose two of every three games….unlike a good team like the D’Backs.” I am speechless. Let’s see how well that good team does this year. And, how bad were they last year?] I’ll have funny, ridiculous, infuriating quotes like this from the absolute morons on ESPN often. The Brewers get no respect, while terribly run organizations get tons…my column will be the place to go to hear all of them and to hear the wiseass comments back at these losers.

So, Jeff Cirillo decided to play out of his mind. This is good insofar as it would be awesome to see him come back strong. However, I am not completely happy about it. Let’s try to remember how bad he has been for the past few seasons. How often is a historical precedent like that completely off? Though I’m happy that he is taking playing time away from Helms and Hall, I am none too happy about him taking playing time away from Branyan. I understand not playing Branyan against lefties, but I’m getting a sneaking suspicion that we won’t see much of Branyan this season. You’ve got to figure that Yost is going to get Helms and Hall their at-bats. How is he going to do this if he gets the false impression that Cirillo is the team’s best third baseman? So, what’s my solution against lefties? Bench Jenkins every other game against lefties and give Branyan some OF time. He can play an adequate OF. Branyan has historically been good against lefties, while Jenkins has not. It’s too early in the season for me to get into this. There’ll be plenty of time in the next few weeks for me to call for more Branyan. Just realize that Yost is still obsessed with him striking out a lot.

Apologies for not reviewing too much spring training stuff. I am quite busy for the next month, but I’ll do my best to keep the reviews coming. Remember, though, that I stop reviewing when we lose a series to the Chubs, which could happen by this weekend.