Jim Powell’s Brewers Blog

Cards Stave Off Execution

2008-08-28T03:20:00Z

The Brewers could have pretty much destroyed the Cardinals' hopes of making the post-season by taking the last eight meetings of the season between the two clubs, but St. Louis was able to rally late to salvage the final one on Wednesday night 4-3. With all the bad feeling between the two teams in the last year, I know it still feels really good for the Brewers to be packing up after spanking Tony LaRussa's club five times in the last six contests this season at Busch Stadium. The Cards indicated in advance of this series that they were really banking on playing well and humbling the Brewers, a team which the Cardinals seem to have decided is too big for their britches. They don't like Milwaukee's swagger and they don't like the Brewers penchant for untucking their jerseys after they are victorious. That only makes the untucking more fun, I think. It occurred to me after Adam Wainwright drilled Ryan Braun in those troublesome ribs with his best fastball in the 5th inning that the Brewers might play the rest of the game with their jerseys hanging out while they finished stepping on the Cardinals' necks, but alas neither happened. Too bad. It would have helped to have Eric Gagne in the pen but he had to leave St. Louis before the game to be with his wife for a pending birth and David Riske did not get the job done this time.

Teams used to love having Milwaukee come in for a series. They would talk about how "dangerous", "competitive", and "tough" the Brewers were, take three out of four, and then pat the Brewers on their heads on the way out of town wishing them good luck the rest of the way. Funny how that attitude changes when Milwaukee comes in and rolls over them in their own ballpark now. The Brewers beat the Cardinals in ten of fifteen meetings in 2008 and nobody wants to talk nice now. A sign of the times...a very good sign at that.

Ben Sheets beat the nemesis Cardinals in game one and we discussed it today. Check it out HERE.

If you missed the 5th Inning Chat this week, view the archived discussion, including the latest on Yovanni Gallardo's comeback, right HERE.

I was a guest on Brewers 360, on the flagship 620 WTMJ this morning talking the Brewers, take a listen, right HERE.

Now the Brewers will rest for their third off-day in scarcely a week Thursday in Pittsburgh before attacking the slumping Pirates this weekend. Most every team in baseball has its pitching running on late-season fumes but the Brewers staff is rested to the point of possible rust. You have to like the Brewers' position right now. I know everyone outside of the clubhouse seems to feel the Cubs' Central Division title is a foregone conclusion, but Chicago still has a lot of meetings with the Brewers and Cardinals down the stretch and Milwaukee isn't conceding anything.

Twenty nine games to go. Having fun yet?

The Best Game You Never Heard Of; Jeff Kent Rips Vin Scully

2008-08-17T23:13:00Z

It was a real shame that so many fans missed Saturday night's contest at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. The game started late (9:10 PM CT), finished real late (extra innings), and was bumped by the insane amount of coverage of a pre-season Packers' game in many markets. The price for all that was paid by baseball fans who didn't experience one of the best games in a long time. I can't make it all up to you here, but if you check out Brewers Rewind for this week you will get a good feel for why that game was so exciting and memorable. The full recap of the game begins slightly before the mid-point of this audio file.

Unfortunately the road trip ended with a loss to the Dodgers today despite the herculean efforts of Ryan "The Brauntasaurus" Braun, but a 3-3 West Coast swing is certainly no disaster for the wild-card-holding Crew. After studying the Dodgers in advance and then watching them play all weekend, I would make them the favorites in the NL West. I like Arizona too, but I think the addition of Manny Ramirez makes LA the best team in that division. Losing two of the three close games to them in their park is not a big deal. The two late comebacks by the Brewers on Saturday and Sunday tell you more about the team than anything else that happened.

I am still aghast at the comments of Dodger second baseman Jeff Kent about Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully, which I discussed at some length on our Sunday broadcast. You can see the column in the LA Times HERE. Kent will have trouble playing the rest of his career with that enormous spiked shoe in his mouth.

Learning From West Coast Swing

2008-08-17T00:43:00Z

Baseball fans throughout Wisconsin are all geeked up over the prospect of their favorite team reaching the playoffs for the first time in over a quarter-century, and understandably so. Though the fans are focused on that singular goal, the focus of the 25-man roster is on a higher rung on the success ladder: The World Series. Do not take this discussion to mean I think the Brewers are a lock for the post-season at this point...they aren't. Should they get there however, what Milwaukee would face might be similar to what we are seeing on this road trip through San Diego and Los Angeles. In the playoffs, runs are often at a premium because the pitching is better. In a short playoff series, a manager doesn't have to worry about having an exhausted bullpen or how his fifth starter will perform. You use your best arms repeatedly until the series is over and then get ready to do the same thing in the next round. Generally speaking, games are tighter, lower-scoring, and more pressurized.

There isn't any real high-end pressure on this road trip per se, but playing at Petco Park and Dodger Stadium against pitching-oriented clubs could be similar to having a playoff match-up with Philly, New York, or Arizona, and there is a good chance that there could be a reprisal of this Dodger series in October. Philadelphia has a park and a club not dissimilar to that of Milwaukee and a match-up between those two teams could be more of a shoot out, but Brewers-Mets, Brewers-Dodgers, and Brewers-Diamondbacks would most likely feature great pitching and low-scoring games. LA is number one in the NL in ERA, Milwaukee is #3, Arizona is #4, and New York is #6. Philly is #5 by the way, so even that series could have less offense than you would expect.

So what are we seeing in the big pitchers' parks this week with the Brewers? Milwaukee did rack up twelve earned runs in the first two games in Petco Park, but those came against pitchers Cha Seung Baek and Josh Banks. There won't be many Baeks or Banks in October to worry about. Game three saw the Brewers against Jake Peavy, and the results were not good. It wasn't until the seventh inning that the Brewers could score at all, and that was an unearned run. Ultimately Milwaukee dropped that game 3-1 despite Ben Sheets pitching for the Brewers against a horrible San Diego lineup. Last night, it was tough right-handed Chad Billingsley who limited the offense to just seven hits and three runs in a 5-3 loss. The Brewers hits two or three balls that would have been home runs back home which died on or near the warning track in Chavez Ravine. Relying on home runs in a pitcher's park can be problematic.

Milwaukee has shown better patience at the plate lately but coaxed only two walks last night after getting four against Peavy&Co. Also, in the last two games, the team has not successfully stolen any bases or laid down any sacrifice bunts. If hits, especially home runs, are hard to come by against a top pitcher or in a tough ballpark, you need to be able to generate offense in other ways. If they can't do a better job of executing small ball tasks like walks and bunts in October, they'll find themselves in trouble. It is a small sample to study two August games closely, but a two-game losing streak in October often proves to be fatal. We'll see if the club rebounds from back-to-back losses on this trip to finish well tonight and tomorrow. It will be more than just the end results which I will be monitoring. The way the team plays the game this weekend will give us more hints about what kind of a playoff team they might be ultimately.

Meanwhile, there is much work to be done to make this discussion more than just academic. The Cubs look awfully hard to catch, and the Cardinals are nipping at the heels of the Wild Card-holders. Fortunately for the Brewers, there won't be many pitchers' parks in the Brewers regular-season future after they jump on the Midwest Airlines charter tomorrow afternoon. No matter what happens in the last two games in SoCal, I like Milwaukee's chances of qualifying for the playoffs. But that is only step one of what everyone is hoping is a much longer journey; a journey which will not lead all the way to the promised land if the Brewers can't find ways to win in places like this against teams like the Dodgers.

Ryan Braun update and Branyan to the DL

2008-08-13T16:16:00Z

Last night, here in San Diego, the Brewers won their 7th straight game. Listen to the play-by-play of the highlights, right here.

Prior to the game, I talked to Ryan Braun about his back injury and when he thinks he might return.

And late word just came in, Russell Branyan has been placed on the DL and Laynce Nix has been called up.

Thank You Skip Caray

2008-08-04T23:20:00Z

Growing up as a boy in Atlanta, one of my first "heroes" was Braves' and Hawks' play by play man, Skip Caray. It was with great sadness that I learned of his passing shortly after we left Turner Field yesterday. If there was no Skip Caray, I may well have ended up in some other profession. As a kid living in the shadows of Piedmont Park not too far from Atlanta's spectacular downtown, I thought of Skip, Pete Van Wieren, and Ernie Johnson as members of my own family. Whether I was playing ball outside or hiding under the covers at night with my transistor radio, if the Braves were on, I was hanging out with those guys. Caray was at his best while on the mike for the NBA's Hawks, with perfect pacing, emotion, sarcasm, and humor. I can still hear him painting the picture..."And Hubie Brown storms at referee Jack Madden!" The Hawks and Braves were both terrible, and I couldn't have cared less.

I loved the idea of having as much fun as Skip Caray. What could be a better way to make a living? Sitting courtside or in the baseball press box, seeing every game for free? Plus Skip always wove in stories of his enjoyment of life away from the airwaves. Even as a 12-year-old, I could tell Caray loved the nightlife that came along with a sportscasting lifestyle. As it turned out, he may have enjoyed the good times a little too much, but from the sound of it, there were few people in the world who were having more fun than Skip Caray.

I was just talking with Braves' broadcaster Joe Simpson about Skip yesterday in the Turner Field press box. Joe told me he just talked to him the night before, and Skip was very sick and wouldn't be there for the game...in fact, Skip missed the whole weekend series. I can't say I ever got to know Skip very well. To be honest, to this day, I remain somewhat in awe of all those Braves' broadcasters to whom I listened for so much of my life. I did introduce myself to Skip when the Brewers switched to the National League and began to meet the Braves regularly, but I was scared to death when I did it. I never interviewed any of those guys until this season, when I held my breath and asked Van Wieren to talk some baseball with me on a pregame show (you can find the conversation archived HERE). I don't wander into their booth to catch up with them like I do most other teams just because I am intimidated by the larger-than-life broadcasters from my youth. Even at 43 years old, the sight of Skip Caray or Pete Van Wieren makes me feel like a little kid again.

The last time I talked with Skip was in June when the Brewers were in Atlanta for a series. Skip, Chip, and I rode the elevator down after the game together and Skip recommended a good restaurant near our Buckhead hotel. I know it meant a lot to him to get to work with his son in recent years.

As a fellow student at the University of Georgia in the mid-80's, Chip Caray has been a friend of mine for a long time. I caught up with Chip this weekend and we exchanged the usual updates about each others' families. I feel really bad for him and the rest of the Caray tribe. My thoughts and prayers are with them.

As one of the leading baseball voices of our time, Reds' voice Marty Brennaman was kind enough to join me on the pregame show this evening to share his thoughts about his longtime NL colleague. You can listen to that HERE.

I did thank Skip for his great work for Braves' and Hawks' fans when I first met him, and I'm glad I did. Without him, I could be selling insurance or doing accounting or who knows what. The fun-loving Caray helped inspire me to the fun-filled life's work of baseball broadcasting. I will never forget him.