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! (Best event/news of the week)
Ryan Braun Procreates: In the middle of a week when it looked like the Brewers have thrown in the towel, this was cute. I’m not blessed with children myself, but I understand most folks who have made that leap find it rewarding. Although you wouldn’t know it by the way they talk about it. From the outside, parenthood seems to be a lot like Facebook – the people who do it complain about the downsides way more than they talk about the upsides. The kids keep them up at night, they don’t listen, they won’t be quiet, they ruin the sex life, they make a mess of the house, etc. Maybe they think the benefits are so obvious they aren’t worth remarking on?
But never mind all that. Let’s assume Braun and his wife Larisa feel nothing but undiluted joy at the birth of their first child. Hopefully they didn’t give her a silly name.
Congratulations to Ryan and Larisa Braun on the birth of their first child, Celine Elysse! Braun is expected to rejoin the team tomorrow.
— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) September 4, 2014
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There’s no accounting for taste, but Celine Elysse is pretty good. It might be a little too fancy for some, but I think it strikes a decent balance between being uncommon without begging for attention. Congratulations to the happy family.
Buzzkill (Worst event/news of the week)
RIP Bruce Seid: At the opposite end of the circle of life, Brewers scouting director Bruce Seid passed away on Tuesdayat 53 years of age. Seid seemed like an amiable guy in his periodic segments in the broadcast booth with Brian Anderson and Bill Schroeder. In professional sports scouting, the misses probably outnumber the hits by a wide margin, but Seid’s impact has been felt strongly this year – players he drafted like Scooter Gennett, Mike Fiers, Khris Davis, and Jimmy Nelson have been big contributors in 2014. What a shame. The “Bruce” uniform patches and the sign out in center field are nice touches.
Have One on the House (Brewers player who deserves a drink)
Scooter Gennett: The Brewers have been atrocious for two weeks, but at least they were able to stop their nine-game losing streak on Friday. Gennett came up with two big hits to drive in three runs and propel our heroes to a rare win against the goddamn Cardinals. It was essentially a pyrrhic victory since Milwaukee lost three of four to St. Louis, but one win is slightly better than no wins.
Time to Sober Up, Pal (Brewers player who made me want to drink)
Elian Herrera: There have been plenty of players who made us wince these past couple of weeks, but Herrera’s two errors on back-to-back scoring plays in Tuesday’s loss in Chicago were pretty bad. A lot of things went wrong in that game, but two errors in the first inning set the tone for a lopsided defeat. When a team is in the middle of a long losing streak, they’re certainly not getting breaks but they’re also not fundamentally sound. Herrera’s sloppy defense was a perfect example of how this team just looks clueless out there.
Back on the Wagon (Thoughts on the week ahead)
The home stand continues against the below-.500 Marlins and the shadow-of-their-former-selves Reds. If we were optimistic fans, we’d look at this week as an opportunity to close the gap on the Cardinals…but c’mon. Now that the Brewers have lost 11 out of 12 what reason do we have to be optimistic? You never know what might happen in the final three weeks of the season, but you’d be going out on a limb to predict the Brewers can re-take the division lead. Given the trajectory they’ve been on, even rooting for a road wild card game may be fanciful at this point. The Brewers look like they’ve given up, so why shouldn’t we?
I try not to be the kind of fan who is always expecting his/her team to fall apart. They’re the dopes who incessantly talk about how the team they supposedly care about will choke down the stretch and end up going nowhere. These miserable people always demand some coach or manager be fired after a single loss. They’re the ones who seem to relish their home team’s failure just so they can say they told us so. They’re the ones who called in to sports talk radio ahead of the trade deadline saying the Brewers should be in sell mode even though they were leading the division at the time. They’re just awful people.
It makes me sick they’re being proven right. Every jerk this year who said “just wait, the Brewers will blow it” are a few short weeks away from telling us they saw it coming. I didn’t see it coming. At the end of June I was mentally calculating how much I’d be comfortable paying for World Series tickets. I bought in. And now every jackass who never got his/her hopes up is this close to being able to say they were right all along and I was a sucker.
Bloody hell.
(Image: Benny Sieu, USA TODAY Sports)
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