Aaron Rodgers is starting, after injuring his shoulder last week vs. the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, he has to. He doesn’t have a choice. All week long, Aaron has said the right things, “I feel like I can play, I want to play, I’m not worried about 250 plus starts, I’m a competitor. I don’t need that as extra motivation.” I agree. But by starting, this does two things for Rodgers and the Packers.

One, it makes Rodgers appear as a tough competitor, a leader. Whether he likes it or not, he’s living in a HUGE shadow and he’ll have to do everything he can to overcome the perception (true or not) that he’s injury prone.

Also, Rodgers start here today takes some of the heat off of the coaching staff and management, at least for the time being, that their worst case scenario (Brett to the Jets for Rodgers and rookies) has come true and there isn’t any experience behind Rodgers in case he went down early in the season.

Secondly, if Rodgers is ineffective or getting beat up, the decision to pull him would then be the coaches and not cast Rodgers in a negative light for his inability to actually take the field.

Best case scenario, the offensive line does its job and allows Ryan Grant to spring free for a big run-game thus taking the pressure off of that injured throwing shoulder of Rodgers. But….look for the Falcons to pressure Rodgers and try to get him on the run. It’s hard enough to throw the ball while set up in the pocket but it’ll put a tremendous strain on the shoulder to throw off balance and not mechanically correct. With Rodgers arm weak right now, that could mean a few lame ducks wafting through the air for Falcon’s DB’s to pick easily.
It’s game time, we’ll see.

Just when you’d thought you’d seen it all, along come the patient Milwaukee Brewers. Who are these guys? At the plate last night the Brewers worked the count, got their pitch, took the occasional walk and actually scored runs. WOW, who knew? You can win by playing smart baseball and not just the grip it and rip it method. 4-1, the Brewers are back in the series…so far.

Here comes game 4 and the raucous Miller Park crowd.

With Dave Bush’s stellar 5 1/3 innings, 1 run performance the Brewers changed their approach when it came to Jamie Moyer as opposed to their plate appearances in Philly earlier this week. Work the count; make Moyer labor, plate the first run and get into the bull pen. That was the key to last night’s victory and thus forcing even more pressure upon the Phillies to close this series out here at Miller Park rather than go home and have to face a fully rested CC Sabathia.
One disappointing note, can Corey Hart play any worse right now? Coming off of his dreadful play in Philly, anger turned to pity as he struck out his first time up, then finally get’s a base knock to extend the 3^rd inning only to get thrown out at first because he rounded the base too far. In the 6^th, Jason Werth drove a long fly ball towards the right field fence as Corey flagged it down, crashed into the fence, rolled backwards and watch the ball flop from his glove. The play was ruled a triple for Werth. The old saying, “If it weren’t for bad luck I’d have no luck at all” applies here. I hearken back to my childhood when I’d watch the Flintsones. There was a character named Schleprock. He had a continuous black cloud looming over his head. Someone had better check Corey’s family tree to see if he indeed is related to Mr. Schleprock.

The Milwaukee Brewers went down quietly in game 2 of the NLDS.  Philadelphia got solid pitching, patient hitting and played fundamentally sound defense en route to a 5-2 victory over the punchless Crew.

“We’re just not putting the bats on the ball”, Prince Fielder commented, “We’re getting pitches to hit, we’re just getting the key hits when we need them”.  Third baseman, Craig Counsel, exclaimed that the media seems to penalize for the team hitting home runs, “You guys almost penalize us. Look, we didn’t have good at bats.  Our backs are up against the wall now.  We’re going home and we have to play like there is no tomorrow.”

When asked if the Phillies pitching staff was throwing the ball that well or was it mental mistakes at the plate, Fielder emphatically said, “No, it’s just us.  We’re not hitting.  You’ve gotta tip your cap to them but it’s us, we’re not getting the key hit.”
In the first inning, the Brewers had plated a run when Durham walked, Braun doubled, Fielder was walked intentionally and then J.J.’s base on balls forced in Durham .  Up to the plate came the struggling Corey Hart (.173 since 9/1) who didn’t do anything to help his cause.  After an intentional walk and yet another free pass to J.J., Corey took an off-balance hack at the first offering from Brett Meyers and hit a dribbler back to the mound for a 1-2-3 double play.  A cardinal sin was committed and the Brewers lost what could have been a big inning.

This type of inning epitomizes the Brewers lack of experience and free-swinging mentality and thus cost them game 2.  In their September to remember (yes, that’s sarcasm) the Brewers bats cooled off dramatically (.227 since 9/1) and these type of mental-less at bats are the reason why.
It’s easy to be Cy Young when the opponent will swing wildly at anything you throw up there.

The Brewers confidence came today because they knew Sabathia was going to the hill, “You always feel good when your ace is up but we didn’t do anything to help him today”, a disappointed Counsel reiterated.
“I didn’t have it.  I struggled with my command a bit and didn’t get ahead in the count.  That’s what hurt me”, CC said, “I got behind on a few hitters and just missed when I needed a strike.  These guys are too good; you can’t get behind like that.”

Now the Brewers head home, to Miller Park , where they’ve had a solid 49-32 home record.  “We like playing at our place”, Billy Hall said, “We’re comfortable there, we hope our fans get behind us and make it a tough place to play and maybe we’ll find our bats and feed off of that”.

Down 2 games to 0 in the NLDS, the Brewers look at their deficit as if they have to sweep a 3 game series.  “We’ve known pressure.  We had to deal with it just to get here”, Counsel said, “We’re not afraid of pressure, hopefully we’ve learned to deal with it.  We’ll get back to work tomorrow and hopefully find our stroke at home”.
Put it this way, if they don’t, the Packers will have a more attentive audience on Sunday.

The Brewers lost game one of the NLDS but, after spending time in the clubhouse, there’s a confidence, believe it or not, from within this young team.  That’s an oddity coming from a team that’s been beaten by the Phillies 6 out of 7 times this season.  The confidence is 3-fold.  The fact that the bullpen did its job today, except for the 3^rd inning, the Brewers pitched a solid game.  The Brewers bats finally woke up and against Brad Lidge of all people.  This is the same Brad Lidge that converted 41 of 41 save opportunities and won the NL comeback player of the year.  Last, but not least, CC Sabathia’s on the hill tomorrow for this ballclub.
“Yeah, we’re confident, very confident”, Jason Kendall proclaimed, “We took the best closer in baseball this year to the mat.  We worked him into a corner and that’s something that a lot of people haven’t been able to do this year.  Brauny, Prince, JJ all worked him really well and solid at bats against him we just didn’t make the plays early to get the job done.  We’ll be back tomorrow.”
Craig Counsel reiterated Kendall ’s sentiments, “Sure, we got past the opening game jitters and then it was just baseball and I think that’s what a lot of these guys needed to experience.  We’re confident with CC on the hill tomorrow and these guys will know what to expect.”
The game was lost in the third inning; Cole Hamels dropped down a sacrifice bunt to move Carlos Ruiz over to second but Ricke Weeks dropped the throw from Billy Hall and that put runners at first and second with no outs.

Leadoff hitter, Jimmy Rollins, flew out to Corey Hart and Jayson Werth followed that up with a strike out.  At that point, the Brewers should have been out of the inning.  Chase Utley then lined a deep fly ball over the head of Mike Cameron, who originally broke IN on the ball, which drove in Ruiz and Hamels making it 2-0.  Ryan Howard drew the intentional pass then Gallardo lost Pat Burrell with a walk loading the bases.  With nowhere left to putem’ Shane Victorino worked Yovani for a base on balls and that forced in Utley.  By then the damage was done, 3-0 Phillies.
The rest of the bullpen (Stetter, Villanueva, Parra and Mota) threw 4 innings giving up 1 hit, 0 runs, a walk and 4 strikeouts.
Against Brad Lidge, the Brewers managed to plate a run but came up short and dropped game 1 of the NLDS 3-1.
Gallardo said after the game that he got away from his game plan, “I had good velocity and decent command today, I just got away from what we wanted to do with Utley, you can’t leave a fastball up to Utley, he’ll hurt you and Howard, Burrell and then Victorino, that was my fault.  I just didn’t get the ball over the plate and I was trying to make the perfect pitch.”
With everyone, including the veterans admitting that they were excited, nervous….call it what you will, all felt as if they settled down after the first pitch or two and it was just another baseball game after that.

The Brewers need to do what they do best, hit the ball. The old adage in baseball is “good pitching will beat good hitting”. The Brewers believe that their good hitting can beat Cole Hamels and good pitching.
“If we’re on our game (at the plate) there’s not a whole lot of teams that can beat us.” Proclaimed Prince Fielder “When we’re seeing’ it, we’re pretty tough. We need everyone to be patient and work it (the count) and we’ll be fine. The guys in that clubhouse (Phillies) are feelin’ it right now (pressure) they’re expected to win it all here in Philly.”
Make no mistake about it, the Brewers need this one today with Yovani Gallardo on the hill making only his second start since coming back from that ACL injury. The worry here in Philly is that if the home town team loses tonight they don’t have a shot against CC Sabathia tomorrow and that’ll swing the momentum heavily in the favor of the Brewers who are returning home to Miller Park where the Crew was pretty dominant (49-32) this season.

Here’s a few stats to make you think;
The Brewers Wins and Losses Day By Day:
Monday…..….8-7
Tuesday….....16-8
Wednesday...15-11
Thursday…....7-14
Friday…….…12-12
Saturday……17-10
Sunday……..15-12

When the Brewers score first: 57-30
The the opponent scores first: 34-43
When the Brewers hit a home run: 74-46
When the Brewers do not his a home run: 16-28
Leading after 7 innings: 68-9
Trailing after 7 innings: 9-53
1-run games: 28-17
Extra inning games: 12-8

Between the Sixers, Flyers, Eagles and Phillies, combine, there’s over 100 years without a championship here in the city of brotherly love.  Those who are native to the area call it the curse of William Penn.  There’s a building in downtown Philly, City Hall, which has a large statue of the man that championed freedom and peace.  For a long time there was a rule that no other building in downtown could be built taller than the tip of the hat of William Penn.  As you can see in the picture below, the city has exploded with high rise buildings.  Since those buildings were built, Philly hasn’t won a professional sports championship.  The curse of William Penn is alive and believed whole heartedly by those who feel that Penn’s spirit governs the negativity around their sports teams.

THE 2008 MILWAUKEE BREWERS PEP RALLY....CLICK HERE

  Rally Video #1                           Rally Video #2

When the Brewers announced that Ned Yost was being replaced by Dale Sveum, many in the baseball community felt that this was an unthinkable move.  The thoughts are, in baseball circles, that this move will hurt the franchise behind the scenes, Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports takes a look at Mark Attanasio's bold move and how it's paid off thus far.
CLICK HERE to read the story.