FanHouse TonyGraffanino

Status Check is FanHouse's conversation with fans from the rest of the blogosphere. Today, we talk with David Hannes from Brewers Bar, ESK from The Wisconsin Sports Bar, and Brad and Matt from Chuckie Hacks.

The Brewers are certainly primed for success over the next several years here with their young core of players. At what point do you say, "Screw the next couple years talk, this team is good enough to win now!" Have you reached that point for the 2007 season?

David from Brewers Bar: GM Doug Melvin, Owner Mark Attanasio, and Manager Ned Yost have been saying "we can win this year" all season, and I think most fans have, too. The fast start convinced almost every Brewers fan that the team had what it needed to win the division and even make it to the World Series. I think trading away Will Inman and two other prospects for Scott Linebrink solidified that the Brewers management wants to win now, and the fans are still thinking that way.

For the past month or so, the Brewers have been trying not to panic with their NL Central lead disappearing fast. They've been doing a decent job of it (they are still in first place, afterall), but I think it's going to get much tougher to do in a very short order.

First there was the Ben Sheets injury. That wouldn't be so much of a problem if Yovani Gallardo (his replacement in the rotation) didn't just give up 11 runs in less than three innings yesterday. Throw in Jeff Suppan and Chris Capuano's struggles, and their rotation is in serious trouble. Then they demoted Rickie Weeks because of his struggle to rehab a wrist injury. Craig Counsell and Tony Graffanino became the de facto second base platoon in his absence. Now Graffanino has injured his knee and is going to miss more time than expected, meaning Weeks will probably be on his way back up.

It just seems like all of the wheels are coming off at once on Milwaukee's train. Sheets will be back soon, but he really can't be back soon enough given the struggles of the Brewers' rotation. The Cubs have been sliding a bit in the past week, which is the only reason that the Brewers are still in first. They're going to have to hold on for dear life or hope something pulls them out of this slump, though, because things are not looking up for them right now.

Usually a clubhouse shoving match like the one seen in Milwaukee today is met with a whole bunch of "we're going to keep this in-house" quotes, with variations like "we'll handle this internally". And initially, after the Johnny Estrada/Ned Yost public argument, that's exactly what we got.

But to Yost's credit, he clarified what happened in that dugout later on, and basically took his catcher off the hook:

What actually happened was that infielder Tony Graffanino, then Estrada, came to the defense of a teammate who they thought had been unfairly singled out by Yost for poor play. In an interview with the Journal Sentinel later in the day, Yost confirmed that Graffanino and Estrada were defending a teammate. Yost said it was unfortunate the incident was being interpreted by some as a problem between him and Estrada.

"Nothing could be farther from the truth," Yost said. "For Johnny Estrada to be portrayed as the villain in this, as somebody who instigated it, is not even close. To be honest, Johnny stepped up to protect his teammates."

Yost then goes on to open up his heart to us some more after the jump.

With their lead in the NL Central shrinking, it looks like the Brewers have finally had enough of Rickie Weeks' year-long rehab at second base. Weeks had his 2006 season ended by a wrist injury and he's spent some time on the DL this year trying to nurse it back to health. Unfortunately, he's never been able to get his bat going, putting up a .212/.330/.363 line that's shown neither the power nor on-base skills the Brewers expected from Weeks this year. As a result, he's going to AAA Nashville.

The question, however, is how much this will actually solve for Milwaukee. Weeks will probably be replaced at second base by the two-headed monster of Craig Counsell and Tony Graffanino, the guys that started the year at third base for Milwaukee before the emergence of Ryan Braun. Their play at third is what necessitated the calling-up of Braun in the first place. Counsell is hitting .242/.352/.341 and Graffanino is hitting .237/.314/.400. I guess if you combine Counsell's on-base percentage with Graffanino's slugging percentage, you've got a decent second baseman. Unfortunately, that's not really an option.

Still, the Brewers didn't have a whole lot of choice here. Weeks has been even worse than his line suggests since coming off the DL, so they really had to do something. I know Weeks is the second baseman of the future in Milwaukee, but at some point the Brewers have to realize that playing for this year is just as profitable as playing for the future (they are in first place and all), and I'd guess that a revelation along those lines just took place.

It's been a while since all of the "The Brewers Are the Best Team in Baseball" talk. There is good reason for that. The Brewers have now lost seven of their past ten games and are 1-7 in their past eight games not started by Ben Sheets. They're not hitting, they're not pitching, they're not really doing much of anything right now (those splits are from the Baseball Musings Day-by-Day Database). That's quite a slide and it's one you would think would have the Brew Crew in a rather precipitous position atop the NL Central.

Not quite. Lucky for the Brewers, they're the only team in the NL Central that seems to be any better than they were last year. In fact, even though the Brewers are 3-7 in their past ten games, only one team in the entire freaking division has made up more than one game in the standings against them, and it's the Astros. They went an impressive 5-5 and made up two games in the division. The Cubs and Pirates went 4-6 and the Cards and Reds went 3-7. It's not like Milwaukee is exactly terrible, their 27-17 record is still good for second best in the NL and fifth best in the majors, but it's like no one else is even trying.

Things aren't exactly going to get easier for the Brewers in the near future either, as they close May out with six games out west against the Dodgers and Padres and three games at home against the Braves. And Ben Sheets can only start two of those games, so it would probably behoove the Brewers to start playing better. I mean, if they keep playing like this someone will probably have to catch up to them eventually, right?

The Houston Astros have been having trouble scoring runs lately. That's no secret. They're so desperate to do something about it that they called up top prospect Hunter Pence to try and add some pop to the lineup. Even with Pence in the lineup today, they turned in one of the most pathetic performances in recent memory when they loaded the bases against the Brewers' Claudio Vargas in the third, fourth, and fifth innings and emerged with no runs. That's not a typo, they loaded the bases three innings in a row and didn't score once. In fact, they loaded the bases with only one out in both the fourth and fifth innings and didn't score. I don't even know what the odds on that happening have to be, but it's gotta be astronomical.

Needless to say, the Brewers won today 3-1 and at least some credit should certainly go to the man that stranded all the runners, Claudio Vargas. From the wire report:

"Sometimes, you focus a little bit more when we get into that situation," Vargas said. "That's the place where you have to make the pitches and get out of it for the club."

Someone needs to give Claudio a little bit of incentive to concentrate before the bases are loaded, I think. He only made it five innings today because those five innings took him 98 pitches, which is what happens when you load the bases that much. The Brewers' pen shut down the Astros over the last four, though, only allowing a Mike Lamb solo homer (which is fitting). The Brew Crew offense came from a Geoff Jenkins solo homer and RBI hits by Tony Graffanino and JJ Hardy. Those all off of Woody Williams, who continues to be old and not worth the $6 million the Astros are paying him. He falls to 0-4, though he did lower his ERA to 5.66.

Previously at the Fanhouse
Houston Has a Problem