With yesterday's win, we crept up to a 89-win pace, at least with rounding.  (It's 88.53, if you're keeping score at home.)  Since the Cubs and Cards are playing this weekend, we were bound to gain ground on somebody; as it stands right now, we're one game out of the wild card, and if the Cubs hold on to an early lead, that could be down to a half-game by the time the first pitch is thrown at Miller Park.

The matchup is Dave Bush vs. Paul Maholm.  At the macro level, that seems to tilt in the Pirates favor--Maholm's ERA is nearly a full run lower than Bush's.  On the other hand, Maholm is a lefty, as as team we OPS about 50 points higher against southpaws.  (For his part, Maholm has an even more dramatic split, and he can expect to see Prince plus a bunch of righties in the lineup tonight.)  Bush, as you probably know, has been considerably better at home, with an ERA of 3.18 at Miller Park.  (Amazingly, that makes his home ERA fourth best among the current starting five.)

Game time is 6:05 CT, and here's the BR Game Preview.

Go Brewers!

If there is one development in the last couple of years that has drastically improved the casual fan's ability to understand the game, it is the appearance of baseball-reference.com's splits pages.  It's especially true of the team and league splits pages, which provide us with endless data on norms, so that when we look at a player's production in various situations, we know how it compares to league or team average.

My favorite stat on those splits pages is sOPS+.  OPS you probably know.  OPS+ is normalized OPS--that is, 100 is average, better than 100 is better than average, and less than 100 is worse than average.  At the moment, Jason Kendall has an OPS+ of 89 while Prince Fielder is at 117.  (Last year he was among the league leaders at 156.)

sOPS+ takes that one step farther.  The "s" stands for "split," so for any split (say, how a lefty batter does against lefty pitching), sOPS+ tells us how a performance is relative to the average for that split.  For instance, Fielder's OPS against lefties is 727--way below average--but it's better than how lefties typically do against southpaw pitchers.  So his sOPS+ is above average, at 112.

My favorite application of sOPS+ is seeing how players compare to positional averages.  We all know which positions have the most and least offense--you expect a masher to play first or left field, and it's rare to have a middle-of-the-order threat playing middle infield.  But those are only general concepts.  Do you know how catcher offense compares to shortstop offense?  Left field to right field?

So, getting to the point that got me writing today, think about the various production we're getting around the diamond.  Braun is mashing the ball, as is Hart; Hardy is hot, Branyan is giving us more from third; Weeks isn't good by any standard at second, while Cameron and Kendall seem rather middling for their positions.

Here's my question for you: At which position are the Brewers getting the best offense, relative to league average for that position?  In other words, at which position does the Crew have the highest sOPS+?

(Take a guess, I'll wait.)

(I know, it's a tough one.  Don't worry, I'm a patient guy.)

(You haven't guessed yet?  Come on.)

(The Jeopardy theme music is about over.)

(Just pick somebody.)

If you said shortstop, you'd be right.  Through yesterday's games, it isn't even really close.  Brewers shortstops have an sOPS+ of 126.  LF is 117, RF is 114, while 1B and CF are 109 and 108, respectively.  Here's the whole list.

Those aren't the exact numbers for the starters, since no one has played every single game at their position.  But for LF, RF, and 1B, they are pretty close.  What's interesting is just how far Hardy is ahead of the pack.  His OPS+ is up to 117, tied with Fielder and just behind Braun and Hart.  Relative to position, however, his sOPS+ is 135.  That ranks him higher than the shortstops of any NL team except for one (Florida).  He's certainly not the batsman that Hanley Ramirez is, but his defense may well make up the difference.

We all know that Hardy is white/red/so/extremely hot right now, but sOPS+ puts it in proper perspective.  Among non-pitchers, and taking defense into account, it's possible--even likely--that Hardy has been the most valuable player on the Brewers in 2008.

And he's younger than Miguel Tejada, too.

Nashville Sounds (AAA) Notes:

Season Record: 34-54, -19.0 GB, 4th place (last) in the PCL’s American North Division
Away Record: 17-31
Home Record: 17-23
Last 10 Games: 4-6
Streak: 3 Losses

Lost (3-4) vs. Round Rock
Chris Narveson (L, 2-11), 6 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 5 K – 5.64 ERA, Game Score: 57
Tony Gwynn-CF, 3-4, R - .312 BA
Brad Nelson-1B, 1-4, 2B, 2 RBI, K - .305 BA
Vinny Rottino-LF, 0-3, R, BB, K - .261 BA

Huntsville Stars (AA) Notes:

1st Half Record: 41-29, tied for 1st place (Lost tie-break game)
2nd Half Record: 9-8, -2.0 GB, tied for 2nd place in the Southern League’s North Division
Away Record: 19-17, 5-5
Home Record: 22-13, 4-3
Last 10 Games: 6-4
Streak: 2 Wins

Won (2-1) vs. Birmingham
Stars win on Gillespie’s game-winning homer in the bottom of the 10th inning.
Troy Cate, 7.2 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 3 K – 2.13 ERA, Game Score: 67
Cole Gillespie-LF, 2-4, HR (12), R, RBI - .276 BA
J.R. Hopf-1B, 2-2, 2B - .400 BA
Matt LaPorta-RF, 1-3, R, BB - .291 BA

Brevard County Manatees (High A) Notes:

1st Half Record: 35-34, -6.5 GB, 2nd place
2nd Half Record: 6-8, -2.0 GB, 6th place (last) in the FSL’s East Division
Away Record: 14-20, 4-4
Home Record: 21-14, 2-4
Last 10 Games: 5-5
Streak: 3 Wins

Won (4-1) vs. Daytona
Christopher Cody (W, 1-3), 7 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 6 K – 4.66 ERA, Game Score: 70
Stephen Chapman-1B, 2-3, 2B, HR (11), R, 2 RBI, SF - .211 BA
Jonathan Lucroy-C, 1-2, 2 BB - .340 BA
Lorenzo Cain-RF, 2-3, R, BB, K - .285 BA

West Virginia Power (A) Notes:

1st Half Record: 32-37, -8.5 GB, 6th place
2nd Half Record: 10-5, +1.0 GA, 1st place in the SAL’s Northern Division
Away Record: 19-17, 4-3
Home Record: 13-20, 6-2
Last 10 Games: 7-3
Streak: 1 Loss

Lost (3-4) vs. Hagerstown
Evan Frederickson, 4 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 4 BB, 5 K – 6.75 ERA, Game Score: 45
Zelous Wheeler-3B, 2-4, 2B, HR (7), R, RBI, K - .284 BA
Eric Fryer-LF, 3-4, 2B, RBI, BB, K - .347 BA
Eric Farris-2B, 3-5, 2B, R, RBI - .251 BA

Helena Brewers (Rookie) Notes:

1st Half Record: 9-9, -3.0 GB, 3rd place in the Pioneer League’s North Division
Away Record: 4-3
Home Record: 5-6
Last 10 Games: 6-4
Streak: 1 Loss

Lost (3-11) @ Billings
Michael Bowman (L, 1-1), 4 IP, 9 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 1 BB, 1 K – 4.26 ERA, Game Score: 20
Christopher Dennis-LF, 2-4, 2 HR (7), 2 R, 3 RBI - .273 BA
Cutter Dykstra-CF, 2-4, 2B, K - .278 BA
Corey Kemp-DH, 1-3, BB, K - .294 BA

AZL Brewers (Rookie) Notes:

1st Half Record: 1-9, -6.0 GB, 9th place (last) in the AZL
Away Record: 0-5
Home Record: 1-4
Last 10 Games: 1-9
Streak: 6 Losses

Lost (1-6) @ AZL Giants
Kristian Bueno (L, 0-2), 3 IP, 6 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 1 BB, 3 K – 8.64 ERA, Game Score: 29
Pedro Ramos-1B, 2-4, R, 2 K - .179 BA
Jose Rangel-RF, 1-3, 3B, 2 K - .107 BA
Jose Garcia-LF, 0-4, 4 K - .225 BA

Like battlekow, I am disclaiming all knowledge of events in Arizona yesterday.

A good way to get that taste out of your mouth is to focus on the matchup today: Ben Sheets and his sub-3.00 ERA against Tom Gorzellany and his 6+ mark.  It's best not to think about how Gorzo has pitched against the Crew.

Game time is 1:05 CT, and here's the BR Game Preview.

Go Brewers!

I am fleshing out a new way of looking at how relief pitchers wear throughout the year for my next THT article and I thought I would start by check our new closer Saloman Torres.  Torres has thrown 46 2/3 innings this year and is on pace for almost 90 innings.  This should be nothing new for Torres who threw more than 90 innings from 2004-2006 all in relief so you wouldn't expect him to wear down.  Also, Torres has now worked three days in a row and it would be nice to see how that might be affecting him.  Here is the plot

via baseball.bornbybits.com

Torres uses his sinker almost 80% of the time so I am focusing in on just that pitch here and plotting the speed and movement against the date.  Here are all of his 40 games and the error bars are the standard deviation of his sinker for that game.  The speed is the black dots in the middle and they go with the axis on the left and the movements are on the top and bottom and go with the axis on the right.  Let me know if this doesn't make sense or if you think this is too busy of a plot.

Anyway, back to Torres.  As you can see it took him a while to get going with his sinker around 91 MPH and about 4 inches of vertical movement.  After about half a month Torres warmed up and raised his velocity to closer to 94 MPH and his vertical movement down to around 2 inches of vertical movement.  Notice on June 8th (date 159) Torres had five days off and he didn't have much sink on the sinker at all.  We all know what happened yesterday and that Torres had thrown three straight days but it doesn't look like his stuff suffered much at all though possible it wasn't riding in to right handed batters as much as it had before (the more negative the horizontal movement the more it moves in to a right handed batter).  It looked to me like Torres made some good pitches yesterday but he didn't get the results and this seems to agree with that.

The biggest news this morning, courtesy of Ken Rosenthal, is that Matt LaPorta is officially on the trading block, and that Alcides Escobar might be packaged with him to acquire C.C. Sabathia. That price sounds a little steep to me, but Tom Haudricourt reports that the Indians have also been scouting Taylor Green. LaPorta and Green sounds about right, which would free the Brewers to trade Escobar or J.J. Hardy (who is confirmed to be available, along with Rickie Weeks) for A.J. Burnett, because the Blue Jays need a shortstop. Haudricourt doubts the Brewers are really offering LaPorta and/or Escobar, but given recent history, I think I'd believe Robothal first.

The Yost Infection takes umbrage with BA & Rock's fellating of Hardy's defense, citing his terrible zone rating, but fails to note the fact that Hardy leads all of baseball in out-of-zone plays; in other words, the Brewers' defensive shifting is messing up his zone rating. He's still not as good as Escobar, though.

LaPorta, Escobar, and Mat Gamel all made what I guess is best called Baseball America's Midseason Prospect All-Star Team, which roughly means they're near the top of their positions in all of prospectdom, but the corrosponding chat casts doubt on whether Gamel and Angel Salome can stick at their current defensive positions.

At FanGraphs, Marc Hulet (who I'm beginning to suspect is a big Brewers fan) points out that there are other interesting prospects in the system beyond the big names, namely Michael Brantley and Cole Gillespie. The point is especially well-taken about Gillespie, who's hitting like a mini-LaPorta, putting up a .273/.374/.498 line. Hulet also put Brad Nelson on his AAA non-prospect All-Star team; I think Nelson would make an excellent throw-in in whatever trade the Brewers end up executing, as he's never going to get a shot in Milwaukee.

Speaking of trades, Scott Linebrink Cutter Dykstra hit his first professional home run for Helena.

Dykstra's fellow draftee, 41st-round Cal State Fullerton SS Joe Scott, is playing summer ball in Alaska and "there's a chance he might sign a professional contract if he plays well this summer." He previously spurned the Brewers last year when they drafted him in the 39th round.

Tired of reading about prospects? Michael Garciaparra probably is too, though he doesn't regret choosing minor league baseball over a two-sport college career at the University of Tennessee.

Back in the big leagues, Tim Lincecum dropped the hammer on the Cubs while Mike Pelfrey dominated the Cardinals, keeping the Brewers from losing any ground after the game I don't remember. David Pinto notes that Lincecum exhibited unusually good control.

Speaking of which, having nightmares about the bullpen after yesterday? This should help.

At Recondite Baseball, TheJay takes a look at players who achieved the Alex Sanchez Special, having a lower on-base percentage than batting average. He ran down the Brewers' leaders in an earlier post.

Before today, all I know about Max Scherzer was that he threw really hard and had heterochromia. Now, thanks to Eric Seidman's interview, I know that Scherzer's a pretty sharp guy with an interest in cutting edge baseball research. I'm amazed that he's able to get anyone out pitching from his mother's basement.

That'll do it. What's that? You wanted another song? If you don't got Mojo Nixon then your store could use some fixin'!