I'm a little behind here (like a child's tushie) but I have a pretty good reason. It's life man. I've been living so much that I don't have a lot of free time to sit here and type. Ok, so I take that back a little bit. I don't have the time to sit here and type about the Brewers. I'm doing plenty of work over at all of my other internet sites but the Brewers aren't doing enough to get more of my time which is sadly limited due to 2 jobs and other commitments. If I only have a limited amount of time, why am I going to waste it bitching about how wasted this Brewers season has been. But apparently I had plenty of time to sit and explain that to you instead of writing about this current team. I don't get myself. I'm an enigma. But here we go anyway. I was up in Minneapolis to visit my friends Mike and Katie and their kids Reese and Mason (who is my Godson) and I brought along Cousin Kevin for the ride. We only went to the Saturday game because of time (we were still driving up there on Friday night) or money (tickets for Saturday's game cost us $27 to sit in the last row of the upper left field bleachers so we chose to watch Sunday's game at the bar). I had better things to do that weekend instead of focus all of my attention to the team and even while I was watching the games I was talking about other things with my friends. So many other good things happened that weekend that it was damn near impossible for me to remember something about the Brewers games instead of everything else. Once again life gets in the way. But that's the way it should be. Life should get in the way of Brewers baseball instead of the other way around. I have no regrets.
The Brewers came home after a 2-4 roadtrip to play against the lone Canadian team the Toronto Blue Jays. The offense finally showed up but once again the pitching (both starters and bullpen) were downright ugly so they had to be bailed out again. This series was notable for two things which oddly occurred on the same day. Tuesday's game was the Uncle Rick game and also the Major League debut of highly touted AA prospect Tyler Thornburg. My Uncle Rick either drives far everyday to work or during the day at work. I still haven't figured out what he does for work but I do know that he fills up at BP to take advantage of their Brewers promotion. With every 8 gallon fill up you get 1 punch on this card. After like 8 punches or something you get 1 free Terrace ticket. My Uncle fills up so often that he is able to get something like 20 free tickets. That's an astounding number. That's like a 160 fill ups of 8 gallons or more since the time when the promo started until mid-June. I'm guessing the promo started in April when the season began. That's enough to take the entire family to the game (well, at least the ones who were able to make it.) I took off of work because that day, June 19, is also Cousin Kevin's birthday. So we raged. And Tyler Thornburg made his much anticipated debut and it didn't go exactly as planned as he gave up 5 earned runs in 5 1/3 innings with all the runs coming off of homeruns. But the Brewers offense stormed back only to see Axford blow another save and send us all home upset. But we still raged. And Curtis was there. But even though the Brewers did win the series they still hover around 5 games under .500 and fail to make a move closer to competing for the division crown or a wildcard. With the trade deadline coming next month you have to wonder if they will start selling off players. Failure to get back to .500 almost makes that decision easy, eh?
Friday June 15 - Sunday June 17. Milwaukee Brewers vs Minnesota Twins at Target Field. Games 64 - 66 of 162. People need to stop saying that the Brewers still have a chance to make the playoffs. But Scott - they just won 2 out of 3 from Minnesota. That's good, right? Sure I guess. But as of today they went 2-4 on the roadtrip and sit 8.5 games behind Cincinnati who is on a 6 game winning streak. And we still sit 6 games under .500. Just sit back and enjoy the ride folks, but don't expect a parade at the end. It's not happening this year. We can barely score runs just like I can barely stay awake today. Damn what a weekend I had. Minnesota is a lot of fun. Probably the best state (aside from the Motherland of Wisconsin) that I've been to. But of course it all has to do with the people you're with. I already checked out today at work. But truth be told I never checked in. You need to be awake for that. I fell asleep at work, thought I was dreaming, then realized it was the truth. Living the nightmare is what I'm doing now, both today by powering through this day and also this really tough Brewers season. I want to dream happy dreams. Brewers 5, Twins 3. Brewers 6, Twins 2. Twins 5, Brewers 4.
Monday June 18. Milwaukee Brewers vs Toronto Blue Jays at Miller Park. Game 67 of 162. When Brett Lawrie played his first game at Miller Park, I always had assumed he would be wearing a Brewers uniform. But he led off the game with a homerun as a member of the Toronto Blue Jays yesterday because back before the 2011 season he was traded for Shaun Marcum. So far it looks like Lawrie is going to be one hell of a player, but the truth is we don't win the NL Central in 2011 without good pitching and Marcum was a huge part of that, no matter the sour taste he left in our mouths with his poor pitching in the playoffs. Holy run-on sentence Batman! Although I'm sure what I did was grammatically correct, the game last night is more important than discussing the validity of the written English language. It wasn't a pretty game and Randy Wolf deserved to win (he hasn't won a game since late April). Ramirez provided the winning run on a homer that I still say is foul, even if the umpires using instant replay said otherwise. I think they just wanted to go home. It was a hot, muggy night and the Brewers took another baby step back to .500. But we aren't there yet. Brewers 7, Blue Jays 6.
Tuesday June 19. Milwaukee Brewers vs Toronto Blue Jays at Miller Park. Game 68 of 162. What a game. There was so much going on. I'll see if I can capture all of it. I showed up to work but didn't have to work so I hung out with Curtis, Brian, Jenny, Susie, Stacy and Tommy and other randoms for Kevin's Birthday/The Uncle Rick game. That implies Kevin was there too of course. And you know who else was there? Tyler Thornburg, the Brewers' best pitcher this year, who made the jump from AA Huntsville to make his major league debut. Perhaps Toronto wasn't the team for him to face, as they crushed 4 homeruns off him as he went 5 1/3 innings giving up 5 runs. Yikes. I hope he gets another shot before being sent down. The Brewers offense came back and scored 9 runs today with a whole lot of plate discipline and a grand slam by Aramis Ramirez. So that was real nice. But the Axford (who shouldn't have even been there in the first place after his son was born earlier in the day) blew the save by giving up 2 homeruns in the 9th inning and we're still 6 games under .500. I don't know why we can't get all things clicking at the same time and you almost never lose a game when you score 9 runs. That's atrocious. I just have that feeling this trend will continue and we'll never reach .500. Blue Jays 10, Brewers 9.
Wednesday June 20. Milwaukee Brewers vs Toronto Blue Jays at Miller Park. Game 69 of 162. The Brewers offense has shown a lot of life over the past week but the bullpen has fallen into complete disarray. Axford is blowing saves left and right and Veras isn't even healthy enough to pitch, yet he isn't on the DL. Manager Ron Roenicke is forced to use Tim Dillard and Juan Perez in close games because he has no other choice. So every day for the time being you just hope the starters go deep and the offense keeps pounding the ball. Thank God for the off day tomorrow which will give everyone a chance to rest. But that's in the future. Today we won the series on the bats of Hart, Gomez, Maldonado and Brauny. Lost in the shuffle is Gallardo who pitched ok, but still couldn't close out the 7th without giving up 3 runs. It could have been worse though. Much worse. Despite that we are still 5 games under .500 and I can't get excited until we get back to that mark. Nice back-to-back series wins, but let's keep the ball rolling down on the South Side of Chicago this weekend. Brewers 8, Blue Jays 3.
Up next is the last interleague series of the year against the Southsiders the Chicago White Sox (which is also the weekend of the Reck Family Christmas party which I can say was a great success because I'm talking to you from the future right now) and a showdown against the NL Central leading Cincinnati Reds. Now is the time to make up some ground in this division before it is too late. It's the last week of June for crying out loud!! It is late! Time to nut up or shut up. Since the most vocal members of the Milwaukee Brewers (Shadows and Tony Plush) have already shut up, now is the time to nut up. These guys have talent. They just all need to rally at the same time and put this thing together. But it might already be too late and we might have already dug ourselves too deep of a hole. That's why I have put real life in front of Brewers life. I have total control (okay not total but you get my point) of my real life while I can't do shit about the Brewers. No sense worrying about something that you can't control. That's no way to live.
- pookon -
www.pookon.com
email: pookondotcom@gmail.com
http://www.facebook.com/MilwaukeeIceman
- pookon -
www.pookon.com
email: pookondotcom@gmail.com
http://www.facebook.com/MilwaukeeIceman
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