A Month to Forget

After a month of being stuck doing group projects and writing essays for school I am finally done with school for the summer.  Now it is time to get back to writing about the Crew.

Yes, the Crew is still winning the division but they are really going to need to turn it around.  With the Cards crawling their way back to second place they can not have any more 2-9 stretches.  Yeah, the Cards are still under .500 and 6.5 games back but we still have months of baseball left.  The good thing is our bats are starting to get hot again and we have a couple series coming up that we should win. 

Prince Fielder come on down!! This guy is playing straight up lights out the last couple games.  He can do no wrong with his bat.  Tied for the lead in HR's for the entire league and he is hitting these HR's with people on.  The combo of him and Hardy is going to be sick to watch for the next couple years.  Hardy has cooled off a bit since his early tear but he is still putting the ball in play and driving runners in.  Now add the fact that Braun just got brought up and is proving he is worth all the hype.  Hopefully he will continue to produce and with Prince behind him they will have to pitch to him, because you know if you’re an opposing pitcher you do not want to see Prince at the plate.  Now the one question mark that is left is Bill Hall.

Bill Hall was never meant to be a player that is going to get you 35 HR in a season, or at least I did not expect him to be.  He had a great year last year and I expected similar numbers but most likely a drop in RBI's and HR's.  This is fine as long as he can keep getting on base and goes back to hitting for gaps and not hitting for HR’s.  However if he did become a consistent 35 HR that would greatly improve Prince Fieders game.  The Brewers are soon going start watching Prince take a lot of walks.  That is why we are going to need somebody behind him to make pitchers pitch to him.  I'm not saying we need to make a trade, if Hall can get himself back to last years form then we will be alright.  Otherwise maybe we make a move around the deadline.  Not sure if any player we got we would actually be able to resign, but even a nice rental player would be nice and greatly improve our chances of making a run to the series.  Trade Aquino, Gross, and maybe another prospect for another big bat and then bring up Gallardo and we are looking pretty.  At the moment I'm am still alright with Gallardo in Nashville, but if Bush continues to struggle I would not object to bringing the kid up.  He has some real good stuff, the kind of stuff aces are made of.  Of course I would much rather have Bush pitch well and let the kid develop a little longer, but I can hide my excitement to see him pitch in the big leagues.

After a horrible month for both the Brewers and my school work I see clear sky’s ahead.  Out of the 10 series we play this month I look for us to win 8 of them.  Series win number one comes tomorrow with another win over the fish!

JT Brewer