Well I'll Be Damned

So, the Brewers defeated the Astros last night and I must say, I'm shocked. For many reasons.

1. The Brewers won a road game
2. The Brewers won a road game and it wasn't the last game of the series
3. The offense picked up a struggling pitcher
4. The bullpen looked very strong...on the road...in a hitters park
5. Jason Kendall IS physically capable of hitting a homerun

All in all, it was an impressive win for the Crew.  For the first time in god knows how long, the Brewers will enter the final game of a series seeking a series win, not attempting to avoid a sweep.  Unreal.

Corey Hart and JJ Hardy look good at the top of the lineup.  The two-hole is where JJ flourished last year.  Why mess with it?  Cameron strikes out way too much to be hitting in front of Braun and Fielder.  Think about it, would you want Billy Hall hitting second?  Didn't think so, and Mike Cameron is essentially another Bill Hall.

Corey Hart is more of a natural leadoff hitter than Dick Weeks.  Thats where Hart flourished last year and put up his best numbers and most dingers.  Weeks isn't a leadoff hitter.  Drop him down in the order to five or six and see what he can do there.  All through his upbringing in the minors we heard about how much he could hit and how he was a prototypical two or three hitter.  I hate the argument people make for Weeks saying batting average doesn't matter.  Simply not true.  While batting average does matter, I'll agree it's not the most important stat.

It was good to see Manny Parra pick up a win in a game he didn't pitch all that great in.  We haven't seen that too many times for any Brewers pitcher this year.  The only games I can recall are Suppan's performance in New York and Sheeters outing in Chicago.  It was a good thing for Parra though, who's margin of error had been very thin all season so far.

Mota and Villanueva looked good out of the pen.  Villanueva ran into some trouble, but got out of it only surrenduring one run on a bs blopper.  If they can get anything out of Gagne when he returns and if Riske can bounce back, this has the makings to be a very good bullpen.

JJ Hardy did leave the game last night and it looks like he'll miss todays game to rest his shoulder.  It will be interesting to see what the lineup looks like today.  Counsell will get the start at short, but who'll be at second.  I'd give Iribarren the start.  That would give the Crew four left-handed bats in the lineup, unheard of.  But it is Ned, so I'm assuming we'll see Counsell, Dillon, Kapler and Rivera all in the lineup today.  His usual getaway day, I would say waive the white flag but Dillon and Kapler have looked well lately, lineup.