The Brewers Bar Weekly Hangover 4/10/16

Each Sunday evening we will review our favorite and least favorite events of the previous week, and share our perspective on how the team is doing. Please enjoy responsibly.

Cheers! (Good things that happened)

With the first week of the 2016 season in the history books, fans can take heart in a number of positive developments. For one thing, the Brewers have more wins than they did this time last year.  For another, they have yet to trail the Cardinals in the NL Central.

Most significantly (at least for a blog called The Brewers Bar), those of us who were at Opening Day or attended other games this week we thrilled to discover BEER PRICES DIDN’T GO UP. You can still get a 16 oz. can of domestic suds for $7.25.  If you’re a big spender, you can enjoy a “premium” beer for $8.75.  No one has to pay $9.00 for a beer if they don’t want to – although they can if they are unable to resist a draft Riverwest Stein.  Mere words fail to express how great it feels not to squeeze out an extra 25 cents for something I remember paying $7.00 for.  Surely, one day we’ll look back on $9.00 beer as being affordable, but until then let’s be grateful beer inflation has bypassed Miller Park for 2016.

Buzzkill (We’d prefer to forget these things that happened)

The weather this week was a real bummer. Windy with flurries is not tailgating weather.  Fans leaving the game Friday saw fresh snow on the ground and had to scrape ice off their cars.  This story claims that the coldest ever Opening Day in Milwaukee was in 1994 when it was 31 degrees, and the coldest home opener was in 1997 when there was a “zero-degree” wind chill.  So it could have been worse, but not by much.

Weather aside, my personal buzzkill for the week was that the banh mi brat was a real let down. It was one of the few new Miller Park novelty foods I was looking forward to.  It did not live up to my expectations.  One Lacey Muszynski summed up the root of my disappointment on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/WorthHerSalt/status/717083931384946688

The toppings and the sauce conspire to make the brat impossible to eat without utensils. Otherwise you try to take a bite and the meat slithers away like it hasn’t come to terms with its fate.  If you get stuck with a paper wrapper instead of a tray, you’ll wind up with a pile of banh mi droppings in your lap.  There’s no accounting for taste, but fans deserve a minimum level of convenience in their dining experience.

Here’s to You (Standout players or plays of the week)

There were plenty of strong individual performances this week from the likes of Chris Carter, Jimmy Nelson, Tyler Thornburg, and Chase Anderson. One guy who has set himself apart is Scooter Gennett.  Not only is he hitting close to .400 in the not-nearly-meaningful sample size of five games, but he’s shown some unexpected power early.  One week ago if you had said the first Brewer homer of the year would come from Gennett off Madison Bumgarner, your loved ones would have told you to lie down.  Opening Day was not much fun, but we’ll always have this highlight.

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Aaron Hill deserves some recognition as well, primarily for this nifty play in the Brewers’ first win of 2016.

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Even if Hill likely isn’t part of the Brewers’ future, it’s heartening to see that a guy in his mid-30s can still do good work out there in the field.

Back on the Wagon (Thoughts on the week ahead)

The Brewers only won six games against the goddamn Cardinals last year, but the first was a doozy since it spoiled the St. Louis home opener.  It was an ugly game with four errors, but the record-breaking crowd went home dissatisfied, and it was one of the few bright spots for Brewers fans during the 2015 season.  We go for two in a row tomorrow!

The road trip continues in Pittsburgh, where the Brewers face a Pirates team they still have a fair amount of success against. Although past performance is no predictor of future results, the Brewers were above .500 against the Pirates last year.  In fact, the Brewers are 25 games over .500 versus the Pirates since 2010.  Despite the Pirates’ recent success, Pittsburgh fans must be wondering why the hell the Brewers are such a tough matchup.  May they still be asking that question after next weekend.

(Image: Dylan Buell/Getty Images)