Ryan Braun Suspension Taints Brewers History

In 2008, the Milwaukee Brewers chased down their first playoff berth since 1982.

Over the final week of the season, Brewers fans experienced some real goosebump-type moments.



Three years later, more of the same, this time for the NL Central title.



Nearly five years later, those moments have suddenly taken on a different meaning.

And it isn't good.

The man responsible for many of those moments -- Ryan Braun -- has been officially outed as a cheat and the ultimate fraud.

It's one thing for a pro athlete to take performance-enhancing drugs and lie about it. Unfortunately, guys do that all the time.

But Braun took it to another, nauseating, degree.

I spent 23 minutes under the warm Arizona sun two Februaries ago listening to Braun earnestly, arrogantly and pointedly proclaim his innocence, blaming the man who collected his urine for "chain of custody" issues. That's how he beat the rap, on a technicality that he would never admit while professing his innocence.

That day, I listened to him say that upon learning he tested positive for testosterone at "three times higher than any number in the history of drug testing" on Oct. 19, 2011, he said he told the players association: "I promise you on anything that's ever meant anything to me in my life, the morals, the virtues, the values by which I've lived in my 28 years on this planet, I did not do this."

Monday, I watched Braun accept a suspension without pay for the rest of this season, 65 games and about $3.5 million worth, and lamely say, "As I have acknowledged in the past, I am not perfect. I realize now that I have made some mistakes."

Fine time to get religion, isn't it? With his Brewers in last place, 18½ games out? Cutting a deal when he's making a mere $8.5 million this summer, before his salary increases to $10 million next year, $12 million the year after that and then leaps to $19 million in 2016?

What we already suspected, but sadly learned beyond reasonable doubt the minute he signed off on this deal, is that Braun is a phony and a liar. And he is the worst kind of liar: the kind who stares straight into your eyes as he's lying to you.

It's one thing that Braun lied. Sad fact is that people lie all the time, often about stuff not worth lying about, and more often than that about stuff they'll eventually get caught for lying about. And here's the thing: We all know we're going to get caught, but still lie!

But Braun's lies and deceit are only trumped by the awful statement he followed Monday's suspension announcement with.

"As I have acknowledged in the past, I am not perfect," Braun said in a statement. "I realize now that I have made some mistakes. I am willing to accept the consequences of those actions. This situation has taken a toll on me and my entire family, and it has been a distraction to my teammates and the Brewers organization. I am very grateful for the support I have received from players, ownership and the fans in Milwaukee and around the country.

"Finally, I wish to apologize to anyone I may have disappointed -- all of the baseball fans especially those in Milwaukee, the great Brewers organization and my teammates. I am glad to have this matter behind me once and for all, and I cannot wait to get back to the game I love."

Thanks.

When the initial suspension was overturned, Braun had the nerve to call out the man who took his urine sample in October 2011. He went through back channels to impugn this man's character, even going so far as to insinuate that there was some sort of intent behind the chain of custody issue that got Braun out of a 50-game suspension.

None of this gets Major League Baseball out of its responsibility, but this is not the time to attack Bud Selig. I don't disagree with Brew Crew Ball, which closed its piece on the suspension by saying Selig "got the feather" in his cap that he "so desperately wanted." Part of this was clearly a personal vendetta on Selig's part, but I'm not going to sit here and act as if Braun is some sort of victim.

Ryan Braun put himself in this spot. He did so with what has been reported to be a long pattern of PED usage, not just a one-shot deal. He chose to not only lie about what he had done when presented with the evidence, but he chose to throw a drug-test collector guy to the wolves as part of his defense.

No, Dino Laurenzi, Jr., didn't follow procedure to the letter. But that didn't mean Braun had to go out of his way to point fingers and accuse Laurenzi of acting maliciously. Braun did so knowing that Brewers fans were likely to stand by him, and they did just that.

Now, it's the job of Brewers fans to send their own message.

Not going to suggest vandalism or running on the field to attack, or anything dumb like that.

But here's a novel idea to separate Brewers fans from the neanderthals in San Francisco that cheered Barry Bonds throughout: Make Braun earn it.

After all, the fans are the ones who bought the tickets to fill the coffers and allow the team to pay Braun an absurd amount of money. And the fans are the ones who stood, cheering and screaming when Braun hit home run after home run to get the Brewers to the playoffs twice after a more than quarter-century drought. Those moments -- memories for fans of all ages -- are forever tainted by Braun's use of PEDs. The memories might last, but so will the questions.

Would Braun still have been an MVP without drugs? Would CC Sabathia still have been able to hoist the Brewers to the playoffs in 2008 with not even a half-season's worth of starts? Would the Brewers still have beaten Arizona in 2011 without Braun getting hits in half his 18 at-bats over the series?

We'll never know.

He can't change what he did. But he can make himself a better man for having put himself -- and others -- through what his choices have put them through. No one made him ingest PEDs, but he can make sure it doesn't happen again, and he can earn back the trust of those he has let down.

That's true in his clubhouse, and it's true in Section 218, too.

Ryan Braun, Others Targeted by Angry Bud Selig

Bud Selig is mad. I mean, he's pissed, man. He's mad as hell, and he's not going to take it anymore.

Selig is tired of his sport being torn down by steroid cheats.

If you don't believe he's mad, look at what he's reportedly about to do.

Commissioner Bud Selig's office is expected to suspend (Ryan) Braun and (Alex) Rodriguez, along with as many as 20 players sometime after next week's All-Star break, for their roles in the Biogenesis case, several sources told "Outside the Lines." As OTL reported, MLB started building cases against the players last month after Bosch agreed to cooperate with investigators.

The question is the length of the suspensions.

Sources said the commissioner's office was considering 100-game bans for Braun and Rodriguez, the punishment for a second offense, even though neither player was previously suspended for violating MLB's drug policy.

The argument, one source said, would be that they -- and possibly other players -- committed multiple offenses by receiving performance-enhancing drugs from Bosch and by lying about it.

Yeah, he's going to do that.

(I'm not going to touch the 100-game bit. Hardball Talk already nailed that.)

Listen, I'm not in favor of steroids or steroid users. I think PEDs should be pushed out of sports, but I'm also not stupid. It isn't going to happen.

But let's not hide from what's going on here. Selig wants to catch high-profile PED users in his sport (no, Melky Cabrera doesn't qualify), and his testing system is apparently antiquated to the point where any advanced user is able to beat the system.

In other words, baseball has -- before our very eyes -- turned into cycling, another sport where it seems participants are assumed guilty until proven innocent because no one can believe in the athlete being clean anymore.

It no longer matters if the athlete looks everyone in the eye and denies using anything, and it sure as hell doesn't matter if the athlete passes drug test after drug test. Just ask Lance Armstrong. Or Barry Bonds.

See?

No Brewers fan wants to believe Braun juiced. But the facts make it impossible to believe he didn't juice. Yes, Braun has been betrayed by the system that was supposed to protect him. He's faced endless scrutiny since word leaked that he failed a test and was facing a suspension.

If anything is worse than MLB's handling of the Biogenesis case, it's MLB's inability to keep this stuff secret, despite a policy that clearly calls for confidentiality.

The Biogenesis case is Selig's opportunity to punish people he's been dying to punish. He's wanted to punish Braun and Rodriguez for years, to set an example for players and fans that this stuff isn't going to be tolerated. But he's doing so in this case without either player failing a properly-administered drug test under MLB's policy, a policy Selig helped write and get approved.

Milwaukee scribe Michael Hunt offers this on the situation.

Once you might have asked why Braun would risk his good reputation here by using banned substances. The answer, at least for now, is that he likely stands to lose little locally. If — more likely, when — the 100-game suspension is done, he will return sometime next season as if nothing had happened. Certainly, no one is going to blame him for taking down a season that is already lost.

But beyond the five-county area that finances the house in which he plays, Braun is going to take a nasty hit.

He is somewhat fortunate that the national story will always be led with Alex Rodriguez's name, but the damage will be in the fact his accomplishments from 2011, one of the greatest in franchise history, always will be tainted by the public court Triple Crown of suspicion, disbelief and mistrust.

Baseball is to be applauded for its belated crackdown on cheaters, but this whole slimy Biogenesis affair doesn't exactly have credible sources on either side. Whom to believe? I don't even think that's a legitimate question anymore. Braun has twice been in situations he should have avoided. If he is innocent as he claims of putting banned substances in his body, he certainly is guilty of placing himself in circumstances that project more than a veneer of guilt.

This is well-done by Hunt. It's spot on.

No one wants to take the side of Braun and Rodriguez, especially the latter. Cheaters are the scourge of sports, the guys who make it impossible to truly believe in athletes the way that people used to. But I don't want Braun and Rodriguez suspended because two guys -- Tony Bosch and his partner -- who have virtually zero credibility (they've lied to MLB and other investigators, as well as the media, and now MLB is taking their testimony as gospel to the point that players will be suspended based off it) decided to talk to avoid federal lawsuits. Basically, MLB made a deal with these guys so they could nab the players they want to nab.

This is a personal vendetta by Bud Selig. He doesn't care how he catches players. He wants them caught. CBA and drug policy be damned. By going this route, Selig is unknowingly delegitimizing his own drug policy and testing program.

Braun and Rodriguez (and the others implicated) are hardly innocent here. In fact, they are more than likely guilty of this and probably other drug-type crimes. That's not the point. The point is that MLB crafted rules designed to catch the cheaters. Unable to do so within the auspices of the system, Selig and his cohorts have resorted to means that can't be reasonably justified.

This is a sad time for baseball, for many reasons. He doesn't understand why, but Selig is a huge part of it.

Brewers Officially in the Tank

As if a recent series losses to the likes of San Diego (twice), Pittsburgh, and Washington weren't bad enough, the Milwaukee Brewers have clearly dropped off the face of the earth.

Suddenly, their biggest problem isn't the first baseman charging towards an opponent's clubhouse to kick the living hell out of a pitcher who threw at him. It's also not the star left fielder popping off about the bad pitching.

No, now it's the team being, well, awful.

The Brewers are 15-26 in day games this season, 19-31 overall since July 1, and just got swept by a team that gave up the ship a month ago (Cincinnati).

Things have gotten awful in Milwaukee, reminiscent of past losing efforts that often blew up in the second half.

So what's gone wrong?

The pitching staff had a razor-thin margin for error this season. Anytime you enter a season with Jeff Suppan as your opening-day starter, things are bound to go wrong. The Brewers have Yovani Gallardo, but he's the only starter who has pitched like a major-league pitcher this season. Dave Bush was okay before he was injured, and as he proved in Thursday's latest Brewer Meltdown, he is still overly prone to huge and disastrous innings out of practically nowhere.

(In case you weren't paying attention, Bush had two out and no one on in the sixth inning, then proceeded to walk the Reds' pitcher to launch a five-run rally that turned a 4-1 lead into a two-run hole.)

If that's not bad enough, the bullpen has completely lost the ability to get people out consistently. Guys like Mark DiFelice and Mitch Stetter were steady early in the season, but have crumbled in the wake of a ridiculous workload. That workload was caused by the starters. Even Gallardo is completely incapable of pitching into the seventh inning on a consistent basis, and the relief pitchers are often responsible for five or more innings in a game.

That will happen when Suppan, Manny Parra, and Mike Burns are taking regular rotation turns. None of them are good enough to be able to do this, and all of them have had more than their share of awful starts this season.

It's a plague that's likely affected the offense. After all, it's tough to know that you need seven or eight (or 15) runs to win games, even against bad teams. Outside of Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun, not one of the Brewers' hitters has had a great season. Mike Cameron can't hit for average. Jason Kendall can't hit. Craig Counsell and Casey McGehee have been good, but neither of them should be expected to play every day. Corey Hart wasn't hitting when he had his appendix. J.J. Hardy hit so well that he got sent to the minors.

And the beat goes on.

This team isn't going to the playoffs. They'll be lucky to finish anywhere near .500.

Hopefully, the newly-started playoff drought doesn't last as long as the last one did.

Milwaukee Brewers Start Second Half

I may have shown my homer colors when I picked the Milwaukee Brewers second in the NL Central this year, but my expectations were totally realistic heading into the season.

I thought Milwaukee would struggle with their pitching, and the bats would have to carry them. True to form, the Brewers' best streaks of good play this season have been buoyed by a balanced, dangerous offense.

Unfortunately, those flashes of good play haven't been enough to balance out some totally bad baseball in June and the first half of July (15-23 record).

Heading into the unofficial start of the second half Thursday night at Cincinnati, I have some serious concerns about this club that stand in the way of a second straight playoff spot.

Starting pitching depth

It's okay if a team suffers some injuries and is short in the rotation as a result. That's going to happen.

It's not okay if a team is already short in the rotation, and then suffers injuries to steady pitchers. That's what happened to the Brewers, who had to deal without Dave Bush -- a real surprise this season -- because of a bad arm. Braden Looper was signed to be a bottom-of-the-rotation inning-eater, and he has not exceeded expectations. Jeff Suppan is generally terrible, but his bursts of good pitching are better than anyone else on staff.

Mike Burns tried hard, but he's not even a replacement-level starting pitcher. Getting Bush back is key, and while the bullpen is a concern, there are enough workable parts there to get you through a season. The rotation is a complete mess right now, and it's barely adequate if all the pieces are healthy.

The Brewers' smartest fans knew this was a possibility going into the season. They knew a healthy rotation was a must, and Suppan and Looper had to carry more than their weight. You can argue that Suppan and Looper have been as good as you can realistically expect, but the health concerns have helped drive the rotation down a bit.

Scattershot offense

Let's face it. The Brewers aren't going to get better until guys like Corey Hart, J.J. Hardy, and Bill Hall can hit more consistently.

In Hall's case, they just need him to hit. The hell with consistency.

Hart and Hardy have been major disappointments. Hart continues to wave at the in-the-dirt slider, while Hardy has been a victim of some awful, awful luck so far. J.J. will come around in the second half. In fact, I'd be shocked if he didn't hit at least .300 from now to October. He's been whacking the ball pretty hard, but it always seems to find a fielder.

Hart and Hall can't even get to the "hit the ball hard" stage, as they're stuck on "Just make contact, please".

Casey McGehee and Craig Counsell have held their own, and then some. Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder have been magnificent. Mike Cameron has even had his moments, and continues to be wonderful defensively.

The glass ceiling effect

With the struggles Milwaukee is having generating consistent offense, it might be time to think outside the box. The club doesn't want to shift Hardy to a different infield position, but Alcides Escobar is probably ready for a shot at the big club. They can't hold him back forever, especially with Hardy not hitting.

Even though he's been up-and-down, I hope Mat Gamel gets more playing time in the second half. I like his bat, and he's not nearly the butcher at third base that I was expecting.

All in all, I'm not surprised by anything I've seen from the Milwaukee Brewers. Now, it's time for Ken Macha to prove me right about him, and lead this team to some improvement over the summer months.

Melvin Pissed at Braun

Seems like the Milwaukee Brewers have some turmoil heading into the last week before baseball's All-Star break.

As noted in this space Monday, Brewers slugger Ryan Braun was a tad miffed that the team got clubbed like baby seals by their division rivals, the Chicago Cubs. Chicago won three of the four games, scored 19 runs in those three wins (17 of the runs came over the first and last games of the set), and generally stomped a mudhole in the then-first place Brewers.

Instead of an intelligent, well-reasoned, behind-closed-doors response from Milwaukee general manager Doug Melvin, we were treated to this.

“It was inappropriate for him to say what he said, and I’m not happy about it,” Melvin said. “To make the statements he made and also get on his teammates like that, it was irresponsible on his part. It just ticked me off.”

... “We all work every day from 9 a.m. to midnight, and basically 12 months a year,” said Melvin, referring to his baseball staff. “I’ll be glad to have Ryan help if he wants to. I’ll give him a badge and he can be my deputy.

“I don’t know his motivation for saying it. It demoralizes the people in the organization at a time when we should be pulling together. It puts a bad taste in our mouths. That’s a pretty strong statement.

“I understand that maybe he thinks it’s taking a leadership role. I don’t know if he’s trying to tell me I’m not doing my job. We need to stick together as an organization. We’re all trying to win."

Melvin said it wasn’t appropriate for Braun to make unflattering comparisons between the Brewers’ starting rotation and Chicago’s, even with two spots in flux since the losses of Bush and Parra.

“I think he made a fundamental mistake,” said Melvin. “I didn’t hear our pitchers complaining when we lost a 1-0 game (to New York last week) or the 2-1 game in 10 innings in Chicago.

"They didn’t say the hitters weren’t doing their job. He’s hitting in front of one of the best hitters (Prince Fielder) in the game.”

Aargh. Great. We're the Yankees now.

I get that Melvin doesn't like the perception that he got called out. But he didn't get called out.

Braun made it clear in his rant that the offense needed to be better, and the pitching needed to be better. He also went out of his way to not throw anyone under the bus -- even Melvin -- by acknowledging that it was not easy to make a trade with this market right now.

This wasn't about Braun trying to assert himself as the leader. It was about Braun saying what no one else in the clubhouse has the clout to say at this point. Braun, having signed a monster contract last year, has enough cred in the organization that his words will ring with many people, probably even Melvin.

Ultimately, it was about Braun being frustrated because his team just lost three of four games -- largely because of bad pitching -- to a team that had spent the entire month of June not hitting and not scoring runs.

It's one thing for a young superstar to speak out of turn (though I don't feel this is a case of that, I'll give Melvin the benefit of the doubt). It's another for an experienced executive to open his trap and make himself sound like a babbling idiot.

If he believes Braun's beef was best handled in a one-on-one meeting, this was no way to express that feeling. Instead, Melvin has only invited more criticism of his work, which has hardly been impeccable.

I'm not on the "fire ___" bandwagon, because I still think the Brewers got rid of the right guy -- albeit two years late -- last year. Melvin has to be careful, though, because he is and always will be a helluva lot more expendable than Ryan Braun.

Braun Unloads on Crappy Pitching

Sometimes, it takes an honest young dude to say what everyone else is thinking before it becomes relevant.

The Milwaukee Brewers have been playing with fire along most of their starting rotation all season. We're halfway through the season, and it's obvious that the Brewers are simply not going to easily rise above "These guys suck" status with the starters.

Since the offense seems to alternate between being unstoppable and unstartable, the problems on the staff become even more magnified.

Keep in mind, this isn't last season, when an incompetent boob managed the bullpen into the ground and practically destroyed the team's playoff chances from his perch in the dugout.

Most Brewer fans have understood this, but it wasn't a huge topic among the national baseball folk. We just needed someone prominent to say something about it.

Enter All-Star outfielder Ryan Braun.

"We're at the point right now where it would be important for us to go out there and acquire somebody," Braun said.

"I know [GM Doug Melvin] is trying to make our ballclub better. I know he recognizes the importance of making a move and making it soon, but at the same time I think everybody's recognized there's a lot of teams that are still in the race."

This isn't about criticizing Melvin, manager Ken Macha, pitching coach Bill Castro, any of the pitchers, or the scouting department. The pitching sucks, and they need to find a way to fix it.

Braun continued.

"Regardless of the reasons, we’ve got to find a way to throw the ball a little bit better for us to have success. When you’re constantly behind in games, it’s not easy and not fun.

"Their starting pitching was clearly a lot better than ours in this series. All four guys we saw in this series are No. 1, worst-case, No. 2 type starters. They make big pitches in big situations. You’re not always going to get hits in those situations."

It would probably earn more headlines if 1) Braun were not on steroids, 2) he wasn't talking about the Brewers, or 3) he asked for a trade.

Braun has a history of this. He spoke out in May of last year after the Brewers fell to last place in the National League Central. His intelligent, well-reasoned comments about now-former manager Ned Yost were right on the money, and it just took someone in the room saying it before most of Brewer Nation actually believed it.

In this case, Braun's refreshing honesty is again on the money. It's not the frustration talking, and it's not Braun being a me-first guy. Braun wants what we all want, and he's not afraid to speak his mind on it.

Since we now live in an era of canned soundbites and the same generic crap being spoken by practically everyone in sports, a guy like Braun should be celebrated. He knows what it's going to take for the Brewers to remain a contender, and he isn't afraid to ask for it.

Now it's up to Doug to find a way to make it happen.

KEN MACHA RIGHT ABOUT BRAUN, DEMPSTER; WRONG ABOUT PUCKETT

Friday night, Brewers left fielder Ryan Braun hit a game-winning two-run home run in the eighth inning against the Cubs. When bat met ball, Braun went into a bit of a walk, instead of running toward first base. He also stuck his tongue out (right). Video can be seen here.

(Dear MLB, please enable embedding of videos. This isn't 2007.)

Saturday night, Braun hit another long bomb, this one to give the Brewers a 5-2 lead on their way to a 12-6 win. The at-bat before his long home run, Cubs starter Ryan Dumpster had a message he wanted to send the slugger's way.

(Let's see how long this video is available for.)



Set aside for a moment the argument about whether the pitch actually grazed Braun's helmet, because it's irrelevant. The umpire ruled that it did, Braun was awarded first base, and it didn't matter because the Brewers won by six runs and absolutely destroyed the Cubs pitching on this night.

Focus instead on the location of Dumpster's pitch.

Yeah. There.

"I think the league frowns upon people throwing at people's heads," (Brewers manager Ken) Macha said. "I don't know if (MLB vice president) Bob Watson will look at that or not.

"I don't think that's a good idea to throw at people's heads. I don't know if (Dempster) was or he wasn't. I can't answer that. It's hard for me to tell anybody what somebody else's intentions are."

I wouldn't be happy, either.

After all, it has to be kind of scary watching people throw at your best player's head.

I am all for the policing that we see in baseball. To me, there are no issues with a pitcher sending one between a guy's numbers when they feel it's necessary.

But it has to be between the numbers, not into someone's earhole. You just don't go after a hitter's head, no matter how much of a jerk they may act like.

Macha's right about this, and Dumpster would probably face a fine or a possible suspension if he didn't play for the Cubs.

Where Macha goes wrong is in trying to tie in a larger point about the dangers of headshots. This comes from the same Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article.

"The implications of hitting somebody and the effect that can have on somebody's career, look at Kirby Puckett. He was one of the stars of our game, enjoyed the game. He got hit in the face by Dennis Martinez and that was pretty much the end of it. There are consequences of what you do out there."

I have great respect for Tom Haudricourt, but it would have been nice if he had found a way to correct Macha. After all, it only took me one Google search.

To this day, Puckett searches for the logic behind his illness. "Nothing popped. There's nothing detached. Doc says it was just the pressure building up behind the eye for 35 years. And finally it just got to the breaking point on March 28."

(Dr. Bert) Glaser has ruled out as a cause any residual trauma from the beaning Puckett suffered Sept. 28 when his left sinus was shattered by a Dennis Martinez pitch.

(NOTE: The Times article cited Glaser, who was with the Retina Eye Institute in 1996, as "one of the foremost eye specialists in the country", so there's a good chance he knew what he was talking about.)

Ken Macha is far from the first person to blame Puckett's blindness on Martinez, either directly or indirectly. Sadly, many people continue to make this mistake even now, over 12 years later.

It would have been nice for Haudricourt to reach into the vast amount of information available on the internet before he allowed Macha to become the latest.

NED YOST SPEAKS ON NOT GETTING FIRED

Because Ned Yost hasn't been ripped enough lately.

The fun continues.

A non-sports blog reported that Yost would be fired on the off day after the team was swept in Boston, and this blog picked it up and later posted comments from general manager Doug Melvin, saying he would not respond to erroneous Internet reports about his manager losing his job.

Well, Yost did respond. And he was not happy, as evidence by his tone and choice of un-publishable words.

"It's not right," he said after settling down a bit.

"Blogs and the talk radio show guys, it's fun, but they don't have all the information. To sit back and criticize and talk about certain situations and they don't have all the information, now that's where it gets hard to listen or give it much credability."

Yost also said the Journal Sentinel should shoulder some blame for picking up the blog report.

"It's a joke," he continued. "There's no legitimacy there at all, and we put it on the Internet for everybody to see and raise havoc. It's a joke. It's not fair and it's not right."

Wow. We finally figured out a way to get Ned Yost to swear. Tom Haudricourt also got Ned to contradict himself. In the same meeting, he asked Ned about Ryan Braun's comments (the ones where basically said the manager is an idiot without saying it).

"I had no problems with what Ryan said," Yost said. "Everybody's got the right to say what they want."

Apparently, people who want Ned fired don't have this right. Just players who want to indirectly call him out in the media.

Don't you love double-standards?

BRAUN STEPS UP AS LEADER; FIELDER DOESN'T DO ANYTHING; YOST DOES THE USUAL

Ryan Braun is not happy.

"I almost felt like this series, we didn't expect to win," Braun said after the 11-7 defeat that dropped the Brewers into sole possession of last place in the NL Central with five consecutive losses. "We were competing; I know everybody tried hard. But it's not about trying hard. You've got to expect to win. I almost feel like we never really expected to win any of these games. I just kind of had that feeling.

"It's just a feeling. Every time we were winning, I just didn't feel we expected to win. It was like we were just content to be there and compete. I don't think we necessarily expected to win.

"Obviously, they're a great team. It's a good gauge of where we're at when we can go out and compete with those guys. For us, as a team, our goal can't be to compete. Our goal has to be to win.

"Obviously, to come in here and win the series would have been extremely difficult but it's a real disappointment to come in here and get swept.

"A team like (Boston), they come out every day and expect to win. You can just sense it. I feel like we're there at times but we need to come with that approach every . No matter who we're playing against, no matter who's throwing against us, and expect to win. Part of that comes with success, comes with beating good teams and good pitchers. We're too talented to approach the game any other way.

"We've got to figure it out and figure it out in a hurry. We're better than that. We're certainly talented enough to win games. But a lot of it, our approach mentally, sometimes has to improve.

"We've got to go to Pittsburgh and try to find a way to win the series and go to Washington and find a way to win that series. We can't play like this for very long, as deep and talented as our division is. We're six weeks into it now.

"By no means is it time to panic. We just have to find a way to start playing better consistently in all facets of the game."

I'm not sure Prince Fielder agrees.

"We've still got to go out there and do our job," Fielder said. "Just because we lose doesn't mean that everything isn't going on all cylinders. I don't look at it that deep.

"It's not fun to lose but it's our job. We've got to do it whether it's hard or not. Every day, just try to go out there and each one of us try to do our part to help our team win."

I must say that I'm not totally sure what the hell he's talking about. Similarly, I haven't been sure what the hell he's swinging at most of the time this season.

Meanwhile, Ned Yost was seen after the game doing what he usually does.


This might explain a few things.

You want good news? The Brewers won't lose Monday.

Bad news? They're going to Pittsburgh, where they win about as often as the Lions do in Green Bay.