Brewers' Roenicke has strong case for NL manager of year

While the talk around the Brewers circulating on this off day is who deserves the MVP more Ryan Braun or Prince Fielder (on both Brewers.com and SI.com), there's another award a member of the Brewers should be in discussions for. That man is Ron Roenicke, who has a great case for National League Manager of the Year in this, is rookie campaign as skipper of a Major League team.
Most coaches and managers are only as good as the talent they have on the field, but there have been certain defining moments that have put the talent on the Brewers roster in great position to win like they have in the last month. Here are the top moves made by "Running Ron" and his staff in order as they've occured this season.

1. The first order of business for Roenicke was changing the attitude a bit in the clubhouse, making sure the players that had to like him (read Braun and Fielder) like him. That made sure everyone else followed suit. It is something that has shown up throughout the season and may be the biggest reason things have gone as smoothly. He's let the guys be themselves. It may have had something to do with the prior manager being very "old fashioned" with certain things. Roenicke has let the personalities of this team (see Tony Plush) come out.

2. The move to go with Marco Estrada might go down as the best move Roenicke and the Brewers braintrust made all season. There were a couple choices the team could have made and Estrada made the Brewers look like geniuses. His starts in April for Zack Greinke surprised a lot of people and kept the seat warm until the 2009 AL Cy Young winner was right to return off the DL. He didn't pitch awful, but wasn't great in working out of the bullpen so when Chris Narveson had to miss a couple starts, Estrada again filled in nicely.

3. His belief in Yuniesky Betancourt at short stop may have been by default, but after the All-Star Break Yuni made that loyalty pay off by being named the "Brewers Player of the Month" for July. Roenicke has sat Yuni for a couple days a couple of times, and been public in saying he's giving other guys a shot at the position, but it all seems to have been done to serve as motivation for a man we in the 223 call "Yu Bet."

4. Casey McGehee's struggles this season may have been the surprise of the season. This is another time where Roenicke stuck with his player while questions were abound as to how long it would last. Roenicke has given Casey days off, as well, but gone to him in big spots and McGehee has delivered with pinch-hit homers and clutch hits. It couldn't have been easy with Taylor Greene tearing it up in Triple-A Nashville and Mat Gamel even getting some looks when he was up during Interleague Play, but McGehee has made the loyalty pay off, as well. Casey's batting average is on the rise (over *edit .240 as of Sunday).

5. The way Roenicke got Francisco Rodriguez to settle into his eighth inning role with this team might be the move that pushed the Brewers to the brink. It hasn't been discussed much, but the years the two spent together with the Angels had to have played a role in discussions upon K-Rod's arrival that helped him settle into the role. Having John Axford in the midst of a team-record saves-converted streak hasn't hurt either.

6. When Rickie Weeks went down with a severely sprained left ankle July 27, no one would have been surprised if the team scuffled a bit and stayed even with the pack in the NL Central. Instead, this team has reeled off 27 wins in 32 games, holds the biggest division lead in franchise history and is the only team in franchise history to sit 27 games over .500 at any point in a season.

When it comes down to it, Roenicke has pushed nearly all the right buttons this season. You'd have to figure his closest competition for the award is Kirk Gibson of the Arizona Diamondbacks. He has that team on the verge of unseating the Defending World Series champion Giants. The main talk around it is that since Gibson played, he's got the in on the award. I'd hope the BBWAA voters take note of Roenicke and what he's done with a team that was hovering around 5-10 games over .500 before taking off in late July to get where they are now. Where are they? Breathing down the necks of the "Big Bad" Philadelphia Phillies for the best record in the National League.

Will Brewrs sucumb to the SI cover jinx?

All of the talk this week surrounding YOUR Milwaukee Brewers is about whether or not they will fall victim to the Sports Illustrated cover jinx. Players have been asked (to which my fellow Twitter follower Nyjer Morgan "pleads the fifth.)
Ryan Braun spoke with Tom Haudricourt for a brief in the Journal-Sentinel and said, "I think it's great," said Braun. "It's great for the Milwaukee Brewers organization, it's great for the city of Milwaukee. For all three of us, we're proud to have the opportunity to represent this organization, the city of Milwaukee and the state of Wisconsin."
That's both sides from the players, who will never say the curse exists. The "Taking the Fifth" is about the closest you'll get to it. My take on it is, there might not be a jinx, but after the run they made, there is bound to be some market correction in the next couple of weeks that could make the gap between them and the Cardinals closer.
The start of that correction is already underway with the split in Pittsburgh in the four-games three days at PNC.
The next 16 games have some tests in them with the likes of the Cardinals in three-game sets both at Miller Park and Busch Stadium, plus the Phillies for four and the Rockies for two (all six of which at home). The fact that 12 of the 18 games will be at Miller Park, the other three of which include the Cubs this weekend, should help the Brewers keep from letting things get out of control, but I am thinking it might not be as successful of a run as they've had at home to this point. Although, every time I seem to think that, they seem to run off 8-1 homestands.
The other thing going in their favor is the move by Ron Roenicke (who is making a strong case for Manager of the Year, which I will make in a future post), choosing to skip Chris Narveson the next time through the pitching rotation with two off days (today and Monday) and go with just the Big Four in what has to be a move to push forward with the Magic Number at 22 entering Thursday night with hope of catching the Phillies for the best record in the National League.
So where will this market correction come in? Those nine games against the Cards in St. Loius and the Phillies and Rockies at Miller Park will test this team. You'd have to hope the offense can pull out of this current slumber, Tuesday's 11-run outburst not included. That could be the telling week in whether this team can catch Philadelphia for the top-spot in the NL. 
That Phillies series will be the biggest regular season series this team will have played and all eyes will be on Miller Park. We'll have to see how the team handles those four games and the top-tier pitching they will see in the playoffs.
One would think Roenicke and pitching coach Rick Kranitz have already worked a couple weeks ahead to plan out the pitching staff for the Phillies series and skipping Narveson and utilizing him out of the pen helps maximize victories. With it a ways out, we'll have to wait and see.
Of course, the biggest question mark in this whole thing is the return of Rickie Weeks. One would expect him to return at or shortly after Sept. 1 from his sprained ankle. If he's able to come back in the No. 5 spot in the order and produce like he was prior to getting injured, what I just said will be nonsense. If he slumps, things might get a little tough heading into the final two weeks of the regular season.

No matter how it turns out, the last time they were on the cover, April 27, 1987 "Team Streak" fell flat and missed the playoffs. Well, this team WILL NOT be missing the playoffs, but I wouldn't be surprised with a little market correction bringing this team back to earth a little bit.


As you may have noticed there's no Nussie Hunter in today's section. I'm toying with the idea of doing away with the feature and focusing on just sports. What do you think?

Yuni B carrying the Brewers? Yu Bet!

Way back at the beginning of the season I wrote a blog asking how good Yuniesky Betancourt had to be to not be vilified by Brewers fans this season. To be honest, there were times he was downright horrible and you could bank on him swining at the first pitch and looking silly in the process.
But, as has been talked about a bit by beat writers Tom Haudricourt and Todd Rosiak in the Journal-Sentinel, Yuni B, or as the 223 calls him, Yu Bet, has blazed a trail in the second half of the season and is carrying the bottom half of the batting order for the Brewers. You might laugh at that and until I trotted on over to Baseball-reference.com, I didn't quite believe it either. Yuni is in the midst of a 10-game hitting streak, including back-to-back three hit games, just his fourth three-hit affairs of the season.
His numbers during this 22-game stretch are pretty ridiculous. He is hitting .388 since the All-Star break with 31 hits, three of which are home runs. That's more impressive considering he only has eight on the season. He's also driven in 18 runs to push his total to 48 on the season. Most importantly, his batting average is now approaching .270. Be honest, you didn't think in your wildest dreams he would even come close to that number this season.
Even Ron Roenicke has touched on the fact that Yuni has had his struggles this season, and while he toyed - for a game- with putting him in the No. 5 spot in the lineup, the No. 6 spot (or No. 7 when Rickie was hitting fifth and Casey McGehee sixth)  is where he belongs. It's what earned him the Player of the Month honors on the team for the month of July and to be honest it couldn't have come at a better time.
The loss of Rickie Weeks for what could be six weeks (he won't be back until at earliest Sept. 1 to save the team from making the decision on who to let go) could have been something that sent the team into a tail spin. While the pitching on this team has been great, the Brewers still need runs to come in to score, and they need something behind Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder, especially deeper in the lineup. Both Ryan and Prince are hitting well right now, so Yuni has come through at almost the time the team needed him to most by delivering them and helping this group seize control of the NL Central.
Yes, Jonathan Lucroy has been solid in the No. 8 slot, but Yuni was looked at as a black hole in front of him. As was talked about on the D-List today, Drew Olson made a point that even Yuni's defense somehow looks better with him hitting so well. Now really it isn't but with McGehee finally coming back to where the team expected he'd be, things are coming together behind Ryan and Prince in some equally important RBI spots in the batting order.
I'm not asking Yuni to keep up this horrid pace, but it's been a welcome help in keeping the team rolling. Now with Corey Hart's bruised hand and day-to-day status and McGehee's knee pain, there are not many pops behind Prince in the batting order and help is needed to bridge the gap until all the boppers get healthy and return to the lineup.


Moving on to my faithful Chicago Bears. We are now a week into training camp and storylines are taking more shape beyond free agents. The biggest one on Bears camp in the last couple of days that was not related to the cancelling of Family Night at Solider Field on Friday Night (Ridiculous!) is the naming of all five starting offensive linemen. It was actually a bit of a surprise this would get done this early with the first preseason game coming Saturday night.
Even a tad more of a surprise was the guys themselves who will make up the five and a key omission by line coach Mike Tice. He named J'Marcus Webb as the starting left tackle, Chris Williams to left guard, Roberto Garza to replace Olin Kruetz at Center, Lance Louis to RG and rookie Gabe Carimi the starting right tackle.
The key ommission was newly acquaired center Chris Spencer as a free agent from the Seahawks. I would take this as a sign he's not ready to be the guy to lead this team at the line of scrimmage at the moment and Garza can step in now.
So why is this a big deal? It's no secret the line was what held the Bears back at the start of last season and I don't really want to remember the game against the Giants that nearly got Jay Cutler killed. By the second half of the season, the line had gelled and things started to come together with the same five guys anchoring things in front as a solid unit. This way the group has five weeks to come together in time for the Sept. 11 opener. The feeling among those close to the Bears in the media is this group could surprise some people this season.
The first glimpse of that comes Saturday night against those dreaded NY Giants.

Finally, it's time for the Nussie Hunter portion of our broadcast. I'm pretty sure you've heard of Bar Rafaeli by now. She's been on the cover of the SI Swimsuit Iussue in the past and dated Leo DiCaprio. She might be one of the most perfect looking women in the world. Seriously, find a blemish on her. That might be why she models bathing suits. My boys at Guyism found her modeling a whole ton of them today and my jaw nearly dropped. Here's a link to the entire album. And here's a sample (or two).