By: Big Rygg

As August comes to a close, the Milwaukee Brewers are sitting pretty in the catbird's seat of the race for the National League's Wild Card. The Brewers are also a season-high 24 games over .500, a mark they only eclipsed by 4 games at season's end last year despite being as high as 14 games over multiple times.

As currently comprised, this teams is firing on all cylinders as it does it's level best to chase down the Chicago Scrubs for the N.L. Central Division crown.

That leads me to my next bit of news, in that the 25 men currently kicking @$$ and taking names aren't the only 25 men that have put on a Brewer uniform this season to take the field.

September 1st in baseball means roster expansions and the Brewers are taking advantage of it in a big way. Not only are some of the men that have helped us reach 80 wins before September 1st coming back, but they are bringing along some of the Brewers' top prospects from it's talent-rich AA Huntsville team.

Coming back for more action this season are pitchers Mitch Stetter, Tim Dillard and Mark DiFelice, infielder Joe Dillon and outfielder Tony Gwynn Jr. On his way up for the first time in 2008 is catcher Vinny Rottino from AAA Nashville. Rottino was a September callup in 2007 as well.

But here is where is gets very interesting. The Brewers have also booked a flight for 1B Brad Nelson, SS Alcides Escobar, C Angel Salome and the recently-promoted-to-Nashville Mat Gamel.

Gamel has been considered to be the best offensive prospect in the club's farm system (though admittedly he's been scuffling a bit lately probably due to both fatigue and the fact that his lineup protection was traded to Cleveland's farm system in the CC Sabathia trade) and Escobar is considered probably the best defensive prospect by a lot of people (though I still believe he needs a fair amount of work) despite his compiling of 20 errors at shortstop this year. Salome is a bit of a surprise to have been invited up in my opinion if for no other reason than they already are calling up Rottino. Believe me, I'm excited to see him and all the other callups in person (I chose five games of my 20-game pack this season in September), but I just didn't expect Salome to be called up regardless of his leading the league in hitting at Huntsville.

Obviously no one should expect starts from these guys, but it'll be interesting ot see what they can do as pinch hitters and possibly defensive replacements, etc.

So, just in case you want to have a nice, concise list:

• Mark DiFelice (RHP)
• Tim Dillard (RHP)
• Alcides Escobar (SS)
• Mat Gamel (3B)
• Tony Gwynn Jr. (OF)
• Brad Nelson (1B)
• Vinny Rottino (C)
• Angel Salome (C)
• Mitch Stetter (LHP)

Any thoughts on who they called up? Any comments on being 24 games over .500? Come on, Brewer Nation, I know you're out there...sound off!

by South Side Rob

This has been really nice especially, when I made my last post, I was furious at this club. 5 weeks to play and 3 weeks over 500!

The talk on jsonline has been about shooting for a split in St. Louis this week. That way, we leave with the same 3-1/2 game lead over the Cardinals in the wild card that we showed up with. I understand that thinking but all I care about is Tuesday's game with Sheets on the mound. He has to avoid the one bad inning and get his team a win on Tuesday. Then, if we lose on Wednesday, we have the split in a worse-case scenario.

The starting pitching has been the best I can ever remember. The offense is doing just enough to win games. Hopefully, the offense can strike first in St. Louis so that Sheets' doesn't have to be near perfect in order for the Brewers to win.

So far, Tuesday night's game (In my opinion) is the biggest game of the year...

By: Big Rygg

Everybody in the world of journalism (both real and imaginary) loves to scoop the other guy. Everyone loves to be the one that breaks the big story or is the first to "confirm" things that haven't technically happened yet. There are countless journalists that have been writing for years and years, honing and refining their craft, and that get paid to write what they write.

I am not one of them.

Don't get me wrong, I've been writing for a while now...I just don't get paid for doing it. (Though to be honest that would be nice one day.)

Regardless, I have beaten all of those that receive compensation for their efforts (and therefore have actual incentive to investigate these types of things) on a "hot" story...bad pun kind of intended.

That lead? I have learned the details of the most closely guarded secret in Major League Baseball and the Church. I have learned the details of Ben Sheets' contract with Satan.

The terms of the deal, to paraphrase, are as follows: One Olympic Gold Medal winning victory for the United States in return for years of unrealized potential upon arrival to the Major Leagues. There are subparts, including Sheets' 12-win regular season maximum and the list of things that are permissible by the contract to keep Sheets at or under 12 wins (like freak injuries to himself or teammates, lack of run support and poor management amongst others), but the basic jist of the contract is that Sheets got to be a national hero for the United States' Olympic baseball team in 2000 but it came with a cost.

In order to get him to agree to the contract, Sheets was offered a few concessions as well. He was allowed to have a few seasons with spectacular individual statistics, but only in certain categories, for example his 2004 season in which he threw a Brewers franchise record 264 strikeouts in 237.0 innings pitched, but still only won 12 games and actually lost more than he won (14 losses that year). He was also granted several stellar individual performances/career-highlights like his 18-strikeout game against Atlanta, the few complete game shutouts he's thrown and starting an All-Star Game.

I honestly cannot believe that nobody else was able to get this information, afterall the signs are right there in front of us.

• Season totals of 11, 11, 11, 12, 10, 6, 12 and (so far) 11 wins
• Losing records in 4 of 7 completed seasons
• Numerous weird injuries that took away many starts
• Come on..."Vestibular Neuritis"? Who gets that??

I could go on for a while with the examples, but anybody that has watched Sheets over his professional career will no doubt be able to recall the signs.

The point here is that Sheets needs to repent for his unholy deal and ask for forgiveness so that hopefully his contract can be deemed uninforceable and thereby nullified.

Time will tell if Sheets realizes his folly, if he understands the error of his choice nearly a decade ago, and does something about it. For his own sake, for the sake of Brewer fans and whatever fans of the team he pitches for in the future, for the sake of his current and future teammates...Ben Sheets, I implore you, start praying.

(In all seriousness, this is a work of satire. No offense is intended to anyone and hopefully this isn't taken the wrong way. I highly doubt Ben Sheets made a deal with the devil or any other spiritual figure. But since nobody else can seem to explain why Sheets can't seem to win more than 12 games in a season either, I figured I'd go this direction, hopefully for humor's sake. Thank you.)

By: Big Rygg

This will be a relatively short post, considering some of the mini-novels I sometimes write, but I was watching the game tonight (that's still going on as I start thanks to the play that inspired this article) and saw something that quite frankly got under my skin.

Now when I'm done with this rant, maybe some of you will think that I should take it easy or that it's really not his fault or simply that hey...it's baseball and these things happen, but here goes anyway.

J.J. Hardy may have cost us this game tonight. You could say that without Hardy the Brewers wouldn't even have had the chance to lose the game in the bottom of the 9th if not for Hardy's two-run home run that gave Milwaukee the lead. Hardy has been scuffling badly at the plate recently, so it was nice to see his bat wake up a bit, but at what cost? He reportedly put in extra work in the batting cage today and even was working on the mechanics of his swing while waiting his turn between cage-sessions. Was that at the expense of his normal fielding time? Was Hardy so focused on being the hero at the plate and then in the field that his glove betrayed him?

NOTE: Hardy just put the Brewers ahead again in the top of the 10th inning by singling home Ray Durham who walked and then stole second.

You can be sure Hardy wants three ground balls in a row hit to him in the bottom of the 10th and normally that is one of the surest outs on the team. I hope we have a flawless 10th and close this thing out.

But really what I wanted to talk about was not just J.J. Hardy and the 9th inning. What really came to mind here was about the aspects of the game as a whole, not just in one player.

Everyone knows that in baseball there are three things that have to work in unison for victory to be attained: Pitching, Offense, Defense (not necessarily in that order).

Obviously you have to score more than the other team to win, so your offense must score at a bare minimum one time. Your pitching is what holds the other team's score down as low as possible, and your defense is there for when the opposing hitters put wood to leather. As complex as this game can be, it can be that simple. Pitch well, defend well, score some and you'll win more often than you lose.

When all three aspects are working together, you see things like the 8-game winning streak that the Brewers just enjoyed. When one or even two of the three aren't working well, you see some losses and even a couple of wins thrown in for fun because sometimes you win games 19-17 (like the Red Sox just did against the Rangers a few days ago). And, when all three fail you, you see four-game series sweeps like the Scrubs hung on the Brewers at the end of the July.

It's just frustrating to see a team with talent in all three areas like the Brewers (and most every major league team) struggle so hard in multiple areas at the same time.

So what is it exactly that makes them click in unison? If I knew that, I'd be managing the team myself right now. Teams that figure out how to have all three working at the same time more often than not are the teams that win 100 or more games in a year.

The Brewers, a couple of days ago, were at 70 wins and 51 losses, meaning that they could actually go a game under .500 the rest of the way and still finish with 90 wins. If they can avoid a Ned Yost Special (which in his tenure has been a second-half collapse), they even have a chance to break the club record for wins in a season.

Talk about firing on all cylinders...could you imagine what the fans out there that truly hate Yost would do if that happened? Yost would get a fat contract extension and they'd probably have to install some air bags under the Hone Bridge (though honestly if they were real fans they'd hopefully get over their disdain for Yost and begin to appreciate what he does bring to the table).

Note: David Riske just struck out Manny Ramirez with two on and two out in the bottom of the 10th to record the save. Nice work, Riske. Hardy, despite your offensive contributions, I believe you owe Salomon Torres and Riske dinner.

Tonight, Hardy's error in the 9th notwithstanding, all aspects of the Brewers worked together tonight. We could have done with a bit more offense from people not named Hardy, but the pitching did a good enough job and the defense (especially in the outfield) was spectacular!

Good win Crew. Let's take another series on the road, shall we?

By: Big Rygg

As loyal readers may remember, I work at the Wisconsin State Fair every year. This year the Fair ran from July 31st through August 10th. It is the best 11 days of the summer, but it is also quite taxing on my time, especially for the "extras" like jotting my thoughts down here at the Brewer Nation. Also, South Side Rob and I do our best not to post too closely together so that our most recent thoughts have a chance to be read by new and returning visitors that only read the latest post when they visit. Those things combined added up to my not posting on July 30th, being basically unavailable for the next 11 days, and playing catch up so far this week since I also went to the Brewers/Nationals game at Miller Park this past Monday.

Anyway, I'm back in the saddle and I have a few things to comment about stored up, so I'll go with current events tonight.

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So the Milwaukee Brewers, as of this morning, were 3.0 games back in the NL Central and 4.0 games up in the NL Wild Card race. This is quite heartening since the Brewers could have easily folded up like an accordion after being swept by the Scrubs in a four-game series at Miller Park to close out the month of July. For what it's worth, I firmly believe that the reasons we didn't buckle like a belt are as follows (not necessarily in order, but quite possibly): Jason Kendall, Craig Counsell, CC Sabathia, Jason Kendall, Mike Cameron, Jason Kendall, Gabe "Boom Boom" Kapler.

The veterans stepped up where management probably couldn't have helped. I added Kapler to this list because he has filled in admirably in the absence of Ryan Braun, by the way, but all the MLB veterans that have multiple years of experience and/or pennant race/post seaston experience were no doubt key in reminding the youth of our team (especially after the Manny Parra/Prince Fielder incident which I may still comment on at some point) that there are still a long couple of months to play. The Brewers, sitting where they are, are still in control of their own destiny in the NL Central, afterall. Obviously, being in first place in the Wild Card race, we control every shot we've got at playing October baseball in 2008.

That's a good feeling as a baseball fan in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Enjoy the rest of the summer, Brewer Nation. Soon enough we'll be able to officially look forward to the fall, both the season and the inevitable one that will be performed by the Chicago Cubs at some point.