-Yesterday was fun. Reminds me of those days when the Crew would travel out west, the Cubs play in the afternoon, and the Sox in the evening. There's something that's just perfect about watching three baseball games in one day!

-Wrigley Field was so quiet last night, I almost forgot that I lived by a stadium. While the folks in my building were moaning and groaning in agony, I was laughing every time the Dodgers hit a home run, and Wrigley became more and more quiet. Oh, what a beautiful sound -- all I heard after a while was the loud blimp, and the Red Line "L." But no Cubs fans.

-The Brewers loss was difficult yesterday, but the game sure was fun to watch. Cole Hamels is fantastic when on, and his armspeed for his change up just seemed over the top yesterday. I don't know why some Brewers fans were attempting to belittle Hamels in order to criticize the Brew Crew more -- Hamels is apparently just a "nice" pitcher, who has the same number of losses as Jeff Suppan. Hamels is an excellent reason not to take individual W-L seriously as a pitching stat....

Hamels: 14-10, 33 GS, 227.3 IP,  3.09 ERA, 196 K/53 BB

Suppan: 10-10, 31 GS, 177.7 IP, 4.96 ERA, 90 K/67 BB

Perhaps the best argument against individual W-L record in 2008 is one of the top losing pitchers of the year....

Lannan: 9-15, 31 GS, 182 IP, 3.91 ERA, 117 K/72 BB

I'll take Hamels and Lannan, two fine young left-handers, any day of the week over Jeff Suppan, and anyone that wants to argue that Hamels and Lannan are in the same boat as Suppan (or worse) because of record are simply mistkanen.

Seriously, look at Hamels vs. Suppan again and tell me that Hamels is just a "guy," some "nice" pitcher who the Brewers bats turned into Cy Young.

-I think the defensive errors in the game were overrated as factors in the loss. How about the Brewers' plate approaches, including several 1 or 2 pitch outs later in the game? While the errors were bad and cost the team the precious 0-0 tie, and forced YoGa to work more (a lot more), the fact remains that the Brewers had 6 innings to come back, but essentially limited their available outs by recording seven outs of 2-pitches or less between the 4th and 8th inning.

There are 15 outs available between the 4th and the 8th, and the Brewers flat out cut half of them away. Some of the more annoying ones were Gwynn's drag bunt attempt, Braun's one-pitch AB with two on the the 6th (Counsell, Cameron, Kendall, and Hall worked to put 20 pitches on Hamels' arm, and Braun gets himself out with the first pitch, a low change up), Cameron's 2-pitch at bat to lead off the fourth with the top of the order, and Braun's 2-pitch at bat to close off the fourth.

The top of the order had an excellent chance to try and get something going immediately after the difficult third, and failed to do so.

The defensive errors were finished within the span of a half inning, but the offensive approaches stuck around for the entire game, thwarting any serious comeback effort (until the 9th, which was excellent).

-I'm not sure how I feel about Gallardo starting again. I love the kid, he's absolutely fantastic when he's right, but I'm not convinced he's right at the moment -- whether it is due to his stamina, or the fact that he's basically in Spring Training again right now, Gallardo simply did not have it yesterday, as he was missing with his  curveball all day...he spotted 5 of 19 curveballs for strikes.

While I liked to see Gallardo trying out his change up, and working consistently with three pitches, I wasn't terribly impressed with Kendall's game calling of the curveball, which was clearly not Gallardo's pitch of the afternoon. He was missing both high and low with the pitch. Coupled with a fastball that was not jumping with the typical life of the best Gallardo fastball, Gallardo and Kendall were not able to utilize a robust arsenal in their gameplan, in order to retire Phillies....