Lou’s Brewers Banalities

Did Lou give me a slightly back-handed compliment? WIN!!!! Photo: Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports

This is round 2 of my monthly segment.  This should catch you up to speed:

"If you are not sure what exactly a banality is, it is just a fancy way of saying “old news” or “cliché”.  Essentially, once a month I am going to lay out a couple of Brewers issues or topics that may be a little played out, but then I will give them my spin.  I have been told that my spin is sometimes stupid, uneducated, and even immature."

Essentially, I am going to address news that we have all beaten to death…and just give you my unique and often mentally unstable thoughts on said news.  There is a lot to get to, so here we go.

Brewers Re-Sign K-Rod:  If I overlook the fact that the last time he made news in Milwaukee it was for beating his girlfriend, this signing still pisses me off.  People are going to say, “Well it is a low risk, high reward signing”.  I want to know what the reward is?  Do you seriously think that K-Rod is going to come in and save the bullpen single-handedly and become a model teammate and citizen?  The odds of that are the same as Yovani’s BAC (more to come on that), 0.22%.  This is just a waste of time and resources.  There is a reason he was still available.  I hated the initial trade for Rodriguez, hated seeing him come out of the bullpen, and loved watching him completely implode on himself once he was given the closer role.  From my standpoint, this is going to be a non-story in about 30 days.  He won’t pitch well enough to bump anyone off the roster.  Calling my shot now.

Yovani Gallardo DUI:  Just go read Colin Bennett’s article.  He sums it up better than I ever could.  The one thing I would like to add…Wisconsin’s DUI “policy” (if you can call it that) is disgusting.  A $300 ticket?!?!?  Initially, I thought that was misreported, but no.  Shame on the state that I call home.  And super-shame on Bud Selig for wasting time buying medical records so he can bust 6 players for HGH…rather than protecting the lives of his players and the communities that pay his robust salary.  Oh yeah, did we all forget that Bud Selig tried to purchase confidential medical records?  That happened…even if it has been swept under the rug.  At what point do we, as fans, simply give up and just let athletes break any and every law they choose…unless it has to do with HGH or steroids, which will require the Supreme Court.  Those players are criminals and should be persecuted to the fullest extent of the law (please re-read the last two sentences with intense sarcasm and spite). 

Yuni Betancourt’s Grand Slam:  My initial reaction to his Grand Slam off of Barry Zito was disbelief.  Then I saw that it was the 5^th big slam of his career.  Yuni has hit 5 Grand Slams!?!?!  Then it turned into blind dumbfounded rage!!!  Ryan Braun only has 3…!!!  Yuni’s 5^th career slam puts him in an elite club with;   Roger Maris, Ryne Sandberg, Honus Wagner, Gorman Thomas, Mike Cameron, Rob Deer, Will Clark, Cecil Cooper, and Rod Carew.  Pretty amazing when you think about it…might be worth holding onto this guy after all.  I am not willing to say I like him, but even I can admit when a player does something impressive.  Yuni has been a blessing this season, rather than the burden he was in 2011.   

Rickie Weeks’ struggles:  My last article was about Rickie not being “clutch”.  Since I wrote that article, I have realized two very important things.  One, it is almost impossible to truly quantify what makes a player clutch.  Two, I did not do a very good job explaining my own definition of clutch.  Here is the real issue, which was brought up to me by several readers, Weeks is not a clean-up hitter.  This has less to do with Rickie and more to do with Ron Roenicke.  Weeks is also not a run producer, never has been and in all likelihood never will be.  But here is a secondary problem: I love Norichika Aoki leading off with Jean Segura in the 2 slot…where does that put Rickie?  Once Ramirez is back I would assume he takes over at 5 or 6, which one will depend on how Jonathan Lucroy keeps swinging the stick.  Rickie did have a huge hit on Tuesday night, but aside from that he continues to struggle mightily batting behind Ryan Braun.      

Mike Fiers Sent to Triple-A:  This is not surprising.  I like Fiers and think that he is talented, but his ST showed that he is not quite ready to be in the rotation yet.  However, I would like to emphasize “yet”.  Here is my second called shot of this article, I predict that he will be in the rotation by the end of the season.  Mike Fiers is a starter, not a bullpen arm.  Guy can throw, but he needs to be throwing every 5 days not getting spot work out of the bullpen.  That is why he is on his way to Nashville.  I am also pretty pumped to see Hiram Burgos go after the Cubs.  So this is not really a bad thing, just not what many of us expected.

The Giants Series: The Crew scored 21 runs against the reigning champs this week.  In the 11 previous games this year, they scored 36 runs.  We all knew that it was only a matter of time before the bats came alive.  But to do so in such grand fashion (pun intended), is a little startling.  How can you go from not scoring a run for almost 3 full games, to demolishing one of the best pitching rotations in the game?  I don’t know, and I am not sure I want to know…I just want it to continue.

Blake Lalli: When your first career hit is to win a game against the defending World Series Champs, you deserve your own hashtag.  My personal favorite was coined by our very own Curt Hogg, #Lallipopguild.  I am just glad that Alex Gonzalez’s (insert sarcasm) amazing bunt  didn’t screw everything up.  Don’t misunderstand, I do not blame Alex for that, I blame RRR for refusing to let his hitters swing away.  This bunting nonsense has gotten ridiculous.  Ron is lucky that the new guy bailed him out.