Former Oakland Athletics manager Ken Macha has been hired by the Milwaukee Brewers to take over the managers position for the 2009 season. Macha had previously coached the A’s and took them to a pair of American League West titles while going 368-260.

Macha signed a two year contract with the Brewers. Macha was considered the lead candidate to become Brewers manager six years ago when Melvin became GM, but Macha was promoted from bench coach to manager in Oakland.

Macha was chosen over Willie Randolph and Bob Brenly for the managers position.

Brewers Transactions

In an unbelievable move, G.M. Doug Melvin fired Manager Ned Yost on Monday the 15th.  The Brewers had let a 5.5 Wild Card lead vanish in a disgusting start to September, and Yost was not allowed to manage two late season collapses in a row.  Never in memory has a team fired their manager this late in a season, and it will be interesting to see how the players react.  Many of them are shocked, but those who are glad to see the laid-back Yost go are hiding it for now.  Dale Sveum, a former Brewer player, and a fan-favorite during the 1987 season, in which he hit a memorable home-run on Easter Sunday to keep their 13 game winning streak alive, has been named interim manager.  Robin Yount has come back to fill the bench-coach void left by Ted Simmons, who was also let go.

Alex’s Take:

Wow.  I have never been a huge supporter of Ned Yost.  I can not say that I am sad to see him go, because his laid-back, “we’ll get ‘em next time,” approach to the game was really hindering the Brewers.

Some other questionable things that he did in 2008:

Constantly use burned-out reliever Eric Gagne late in close games

Start Rickie Weeks, probably the worst second baseman in baseball defensively, and certainly not great offensively either,

Start Bill Hall, an undeniable strikeout machine who has shown nothing of his solid 2005 or 2006 seasons, use Weeks (hitting under .230 most of the year) as the leadoff hitter,

Refusing to use small ball in almost any situation

Failing to pull the plug on pitchers at the proper times.

I will admit, the 2008 Milwaukee Brewers do not have many small ball-compatible players, save Craig Counsell and Jason Kendall, but there were far too many times in which a Brewer would obviously be trying to hit a home-run instead of simply advancing runners in critical situations with no outs, and would end up grounding into a double play or striking out.  Yost should take a good portion of the heat for failing to get his players prepared for big games or failing to take big series seriously, but it was not really all him.  The players fundamentally have been awful all year, and Yost did in fact bring winning baseball back to Wisconsin.  He deserves HUGE credit for that, but it is unlikely he was capable of taking them to the next plateau: the postseason.  As for Sveum, I know little about him other than he was not the greatest 3rd base coach in the league and that he was a popular Brewer back in his day.

Jeff Suppan continued the streak of stellar starting pitching by the Milwaukee Brewers as he tossed 8.0 innings, yielding only 2 earned runs off of two solo homeruns.  He struck out 3 and walked 2.  The Brewers offense relied on the homerun ball themselves, using a solo shot by Mike Cameron (the former Padre) in the third and three-run blast by Prince Fielder in the fourth.  They scored one run in the seventh off of a fielding error by San Diego third-baseman Kevin Kouzmanoff (it was actually Suppan scoring, who had walked earlier in the inning).  Salomon Torres threw a perfect ninth for his 23rd save of 2008.

Offensive MVP: Prince Fielder (1-3/1R/1HR/3RBI/1BB/0K)

Pitching MVP: Jeff Suppan (8.0IP/4H/2ER/2BB/3SO/2HR/Win-8th)

My Take:

It is good to see the Brewers winning on the West Coast.  Last year, there struggles there were well documented.  Suppan has been every bit as reliable as Doug Melvin hoped when he originally signed him, and is probably pitching as good now as he ever has as a Brewer.  The offense wasn’t great in the clutch today, but they took advantage of the hits they got.  The Crew is now 4.0 games ahead of St. Louis and only 3.0 games out of the divisional lead.  They’ve bounced back nicely from the Cubs’ debacle.

Ben Sheets pitched 6 innings and gave up 3 earned runs.  Seth McClung relieved him and gave up 2 more runs.  Guillermo Mota pitched .2 scoreless.  The Brewers stranded 8 runners in the game.

Offensive MVP: Braves SS Yunel Escobar (1-3/2RBI/0BB/0K/0HR)

Pitching MVP: Braves SP Jorge Campillo (7IP/6H/0ER/0BB/6SO/0HR)

My Take:

You win some, you lose some.  I wouldn’t read too much more into this 5-0 loss than that.  The only thing that is concerning is how mediocre Ben Sheets has been lately.

The Milwaukee Brewers signed outfielder Jay Gibbons to a minor league contract on Tuesday, July 22nd.

Gibbons had been mentioned in the Mitchell Report for using Human Growth Hormones to help his recovery from a wrist injury. He wrote a note to all of Major League Baseball apologizing for his actions, and supposedly offered to play for free if needed. He is a veteran, left-handed bat, with a reliable glove.  He will most likely be called up to the Bigs in September.

Around 27,000 tickets were sold for Tuesday night’s game as of last weekend. 42,533 were sold by Tuesday night. The reason: the fans wanted to welcome reigning A.L. Cy Young Award winner C.C. Sabathia to Milwaukee…and what a welcome he received. Three standing ovations BEFORE he threw to Rockie’s leadoff hitter Willy Taveras, managed to electrify Miller Park and, according to the hefty southpaw, overexcited him just a bit. His game was solid, but not flawless. He walked and surrendered hits to as many Rockies as he fanned (five), but managed to wriggle out of trouble in the first, third, fourth, and sixth innings.

Unlike many of his starts in Cleveland, Sabathia was provided ample run support, beginning with Ryan Braun’s three-run tape-measure shot to left field, scoring Rickie Weeks and J.J. Hardy. In the top of the fourth, Rockies’ speedster Willy Taveras coaxed a double down the left field line with only one out, threatening the Crew’s three run lead. Sabathia promptly retired Tulowitzki’s replacement, Clint Barmes on a first pitch flyout to right field. With a pair of Rockies out, the left hander managed to get the deadly Matt Holliday to ground out to third on a jam-job slider to squash the rally. Milwaukee tacked on an insurance run in their half of the third on a Prince Fielder RBI fielder’s choice, giving the Crew a 4-0 lead.

Colorado made a strong bid to ruin the party in the next frame, as they loaded the bases with no outs. Sabathia immediately induced a double play groundout…Hardy to Weeks to Fielder, which scored a run but kept the lead well intact. Omar Quintanilla was then retired to finish the frame. After an uneventful fifth, the Rockies loaded the bags again, but this time, cashed in in a big way. Backstop Yorvit Torrealba smashed a two run double to the right field corner, which would have tied the game had outfielder Ryan Spilbourghs not strained his oblique while rounding the bases. So with zero outs and two runners in scoring position, Sabathia speared a looping line drive off the bat of Jayson Nix and flipped it to third to double off Scott Podsednik at third (Spilbourghs had since been removed from the game). After walking the next batter, he whiffed pinch hitter Brad Hawpe, sealing his eventual victory.

The Brewers’ offense put the game out of reach in the seventh. The bases were loaded and two were out when Corey Hart, continuing to make a strong case for the All Star game, walked in a run. Third baseman Bill Hall singled to left and although Rickie Weeks scored easily, Prince Fielder would have been meat at the plate had Hart not distracted the Colorado infield by getting himself caught up in a rundown between second and third. With the score 7-3 Relievers David Riske, Eric Gagne, and Brian Shouse made the final three frames largely uneventful, and sealed what I hope will be the first of many National League victories for Sabathia.

Brewers Blog

The Milwaukee Brewers scored single runs in the final four innings as they rallied and came back to beat the Arizona Diamondbacks by the score of 4-3 on Wednesday night.  Mike Cameron delivered the game winning hit in the top of the ninth when he singled and Russell Branyan scored the go ahead and winning run.  The Brewers are now up two games to one in the four game series and the final game will be played on Tuesday afternoon.

Cameron led the Brewers with two rbi as he also hit a solo home run in the seventh inning.  J.J. Hardy had a rbi single to score Jason Kendall in the sixth inning and the other Pirates run came in the eighth inning when Rickie Weeks had a solo home run.  It was nice to see the offense wake up and actually put some runs on the board as they appeared dead in the first five innings of the game.

David Riske who pitched the eighth inning recorded the win and is now 1-1 on the season.  Riske did give up a run in the eighth inning as well.  Salomon Torres earned his 15th save in the ninth inning.  Brewers starting pitcher Seth McClung tossed 5 1/3 innings and gave up eight hits and two runs to get a no decision.

The Brewers will try to take three games from the D-backs as they face off again on Thursday afternoon.

Brewers Blog

J.J. Hardy led the Milwaukee Brewers with three rbi as they defeated Randy Johnson and the Arizona Diamondbacks by the score of 8-6 on Tuesday night.  Hardy hit a solo home run off Johnson in the second inning and finished the game with three rbi to lead the team.  They were able to knock the Big Unit out of the game after only 3 2/3 innings.

Joe Dillon hit his first home run of the season in the second inning off of Johnson as well.  Dillion finished the game with two rbi as they both came on the home run.  Mike Rivera had a rbi double and a rbi single in the game to record two rbi in the game.  Corey Hart contributed with one rbi in the game as well.

Jeff Suppan pitched five innings while giving up nine hits and five runs to pick up the win.  Suppan didn’t have his best stuff out there on the mound but he was able to get through five innings and improve his record to 5-6.  He should really thank his bullpen and offense for picking up the win for him.

Mitch Stetter, David Riske, Guillermo Mota. and Salomon Torres all pitched one inning of relief for the Brew crew.  Mota was the only reliever to give up any runs as he gave up two hits and one run in the eighth inning.

The Brewers will now try to take the series lead on Wednesday night.  Brewers Blog

The Milwaukee Brewers kicked off their series down in Arizona with a 6-3 loss to the Diamondbacks on Monday night.  Dave Bush didn’t have a very good game as he took the loss and fell to 4-8 on the season.  Bush only pitched five innings as he gave up nine hits and five runs.  Four of the five runs were earned.  A error in the fifth inning by Corey Hart that let a run score really hurt the Brewers and Bush.  If that play was made, Bush might have stayed in the game longer in my opinion.

Carlos Villanueva pitched two innings and gave up a solo home run to Mark Reynolds in the seventh inning.  Mitch Stetter then pitched the eighth inning without giving up a run.

The Brewers had three different players all record an rbi in the game.  Things got started for the Brewers right away as J.J. Hardy had a rbi double that scored Rickie Weeks.  Then Prince Fielder singled to scored Hardy and the Brewers were up 2-0 after the top half of the first inning.  However the Brewers wouldn’t score again until the sixth inning when Gabe Kapler walked with the bases loaded to score Fielder.  The Brew Crew had their chances to score more runs but left 18 runners on base.

It was a really bad game as well for the Brewers because the Cubs and Cardinals both won their games.  The Brewers are now 5.5 games out of first place.  Brewers Blog

The Milwaukee Brewers were attempting to sweep the Atlanta Braves in their three game series but the Braves had other thoughts and defeated the Brewers 4-2.  It was still a good series for the Brewers however as they took two out of three games from the Braves down in hot Atlanta.

Jeff Suppan suffered his sixth loss of the season as he fell to 4-6 after taking the loss on Wednesday.  Suppan pitched six innings and allowed nine hits and four runs to score.  Suppan did strike out five batters but still had trouble getting outs in the game.

Mitch Stetter and Guillermo Mota finished the up the game for the Brewers on the mound.  Stetter pitched 1 2/3 innings while Mota recorded the final out in the eighth inning.

The Brewers scored both of their runs on rbi doubles in the third inning.  Mike Rivera doubled to score Mike Cameron and then Rickie Weeks doubled to score Rivera.  The Brewers as a team were limited to only six hits during the game.

So after taking two of three from the Braves, the Brewers will now be off on Thursday as they fly to Minnesota to begin a three game series on Friday evening.

Are you a big Brewers fan that watches or listens to most of the Brewers games?  Do you have an intrest for writing or letting your opinion be heard on the Internet?  Brewershomeplate is currently looking for a contributer that cover some game recaps during the middle of the week and a possibly a weekend here and there.  If you are interested, please use the contact us link on the main page or leave a comment in this thread and we will get back to you.

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