Cup 'O Brew

Time for some actual sports stuff on the Oracle in this segment of Cup 'O Brew. You may be asking youself "Why would you ruin a perfectly good blog with sports analysis and stats?" Well, that is a good question and given that I have all these sports things all over my site like the WI team logos, the standings at the far left of the NL Central, and oh, can't forget the sausage racers. So I figured what the hell, might as well try something to appease the sports masses out there. Besides, the Brewers just had a game where 10 players (including 2 pitchers) got a hit in yesterday's 12-7 win. Go ahead and click onthe boxscore link to the left to see, I'm not kidding.

Let's look at the recent 4 game Brewer series against the dastardly Cardinals. First, a calculator and the hittling lines (AVG/OBP/SLG/OPS):

Mil .308/.363/.514/.877
StL .288/.331/.452/.783

Yep, we out-hit them. The Cards actually scored more runs 27-22 than the Crew, but the Crew split the series. But CC, the Cards pitching staff is by no means world beaters you may say, but if you do, you are wrong. The Cards staff is #1 in the NL in ERA and WHIP, #2 in OPS and #5 in BAA. That says that the Crew and their "poor offense" kicked the snot out of damn good pitching staff. The Brewers have still outscored their opponents overall this season. In fact, the Crew have scored more runs than either Washington (54 wins) or SD (50 wins), the current leaders in their respective divisions. A step further on this is that they also have scored more runs than the Angels (division leader, 56 wins) and the Twins (52 wins). This team is so ridiculously close to being real good it's scary (Boo!).

Last year, as you notice on the far left, the Brewers were 48-48 and in a middle of a 1-8 stretch. In fact, this is the last time that last year's squad was at .500 or higher. After this point last year they played .292 ball, that was a monumental collapse. This year's squad is showing no signs of playing over their heads at all. If anything they have underachieved. The bats are starting to come alive all through the lineup (read Jenkins and Hardy). The pitching is still very good as well, and Sheets is finally rounding into ace form.

There is much to be happy and optimistic about with the Crew. An above .500 record is within easy reach this year and next year will only be better. So raise your brews with me and have a Friday morning toast to the Crew. Hey, we're Cheeseheads, we drink when we friggin' want to!