Daily Brew 7/26

Alright lets start with the obvious here, what the hell is Ned Yost doing calling for a squeeze play with one out and his pitcher at the plate? You're in the 4th so you've gotta assume you'll have more scoring opportunities in this game, there's already one out, Brady Clark (who already had two hits at that point) is on deck, there are two strikes, and possibly the worst hitting pitcher in baseball is at the plate. Why? How many times has Ned managed his team out of scoring opportunities this year? Once again though, Yost will catch a free pass on this one because his team bailed him (and for once Ben Sheets) out and won. If the Brewers honestly expect to contend for the wild card in the next year or two, this can't happen. Maybe Yost is not the manager to lead this team to the playoffs. Just because you managed under Bobby Cox doesn't mean you learned anything from him, and I think that's what we're seeing here.

Ricky Williams answered questions from the media yesterday, and I was very impressed. He sounded well spoken, articulate and intelligate and basically admitted he was returning for the money. Listen, if Ricky would have retired in February the whole marijuana thing wouldn't have been an issue, but because he did it so late people made him out to be a "pot head" who quit to get high all the time. I have no problem with what he did, if you don't love the game then don't steal a check, get out. He did, he just did it too late into the offseason.

Phil Nevin killed his potential trade to the Orioles last night, despite the fact that the Padres pleaded him not to and essentially told him if he does kill the deal they won't play him and are going to start Xavier Nady over him. Who is walking into a more awkard situation in their clubhouse today, Nevin or Sidney Ponson? I mean Ponson had no control over this, so that situation has to be really wierd. "Hey Sidney, glad you're still here buddy, sorry about that whole trade thing."

In other baseball news last night, the Cubs got another impressive late inning win over the Giants. Did you see this game? How many pitchers did Felipe Alou use, I swear some of those guys were summoned from AAA. The Curt Schilling experiment took another step backward as the Devil Rays got to him in the 10th and picked up a win, and my team on the west coast picked up another win. It goes without saying but seriously folks, Billy Beane knows what he's doing and he is the smartest man in baseball. Oh yeah, and now there's talk of him making a deal to acquire Adam Dunn.

Alex Smith inked a 6 year $49.5 million deal with the niners and the 32nd pick Logan Mankins also signed with the Patriots meaning the first and last picks of the draft have signed. Is this not the longest we've gone before a pick from the draft has signed?

Larry Brown and Herb Williams are meeting over dinner to "discuss" the Knicks job. Why is Larry meeting with Herb? To tell him he's sorry for stealing his job, and that he has no room for him on his staff?

Raise your hand if you watched Monday Night Golf last night. Okay keep em up, one, two, three, four, fi....oh you were scratching. Four people.

Kerry Wood was placed on the DL again and the Cubs announced when he returns it will be out of the bullpen. I agree with Gaddis on this, just because a guy throws hard doesn't mean he'd be a good bullpen guy. Wood is too erratic and walks too many guys for late innings bullpen appearances.

One more Yost note, did you happen to see who was behind the plate last night? It was Damian Miller, not Sheet's personal catcher Chad Moeller. When asked why Yost said he didn't want to give Miller two consecutive days off, and he noticed his team didn't score that many runs for Sheets so he wanted his better offensive catcher in. Wow, he finally realized what we all did three months ago, but it took you to mid July to do this?