Kuzul

The Milwaukee Brewers are mired in a Catch-22 with Rickie Weeks. The 30-year-old second baseman is flatlining on a club that was expected to contend heavily in the National League Central division. Instead, the Brewers are more than 10 games out of first place with a record of 16-24.Concerning the Brew Crew's woes, there is plenty of blame to throw around.Predictably, the bullpen has looked atrocious at times.Ace Yovani Gallardo is struggling mightily, watching his strikeout rate dip to a career low while suffering through a 1.46 WHIP.Starters Marco Estrada and Wily Peralta were expected to have large, positive roles with the staff this year. Instead, they have combined for a 6-6 record and 5.63 ERA.Let's not forget the injured Corey Hart, who has yet to hit the diamond thus far.The disappointment of the Brewers is amplified by the sluggish Weeks, though.As most fans in Milwaukee know, Weeks is touting ...

If your stat line reads four home runs in four games to start the season, that’s good, right? Well, it doesn’t if that stat line is pitcher John Axford’s stats after his first four appearances in the 2013 season.Axford has lost his closer role after surrendering four home runs and losing two games of the four he pitched in so far this season. Similar to the bump in the road he experienced last season, we’ll see if Axford can regain his stuff and become the effective closer that he was in 2011.Last season Axford gave up 10 home runs, making him the 20th Brewers pitcher who did not start a game to give up 10 or more home runs in a season (note: the Brewers record for most home runs allowed by a pitcher who did not start a game in a season is 16 by Luis Vizcaino in 2003. Eric Plunk in 1999 and ...

Milwaukee Brewers star outfielder Ryan Braun was scratched from the lineup prior to his team's game against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Friday night.The club's official Twitter account reported the scratch before game time, citing neck spasms as the culprit:Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel also reported that Braun was scratched from the fourth Milwaukee game of the season, opening the door for another Brewer to get his first career start on Friday night:The news is both disappointing for Milwaukee fans and fortuitous for Arizona starting pitcher Wade Miley, who Braun has had some considerable success against so far in their pitcher-batter battles. The Brewer Nation had the tweet:The 2011 National League MVP has a .313 career batting average and just hit his 203rd career home run against the Colorado Rockies in the opening series of the 2013 MLB season. So far, Braun has four hits, four RBI and the ...

You don't win 11 World Series championships by stumbling upon them blindly. The St. Louis Cardinals, with the second-most World Series titles in the history of baseball, have almost always been a shrewdly run organization.Throughout their history, the Cardinals have consistently managed player evaluation, player development and the team's payroll with world-class precision.It's for this reason that the Cardinals' recent signing of Adam Wainwright, as reported by Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal, is such an interesting topic. Especially on the heels of their decision not to pursue Kyle Lohse, who, according to Adam McCalvy of MLB.com, was recently signed by the Milwaukee Brewers.Although Lohse, at the age of 34, is a few years older than the 31-year-old Wainwright, there seemed to be more at work in the Cardinals' evaluation of these two players than just the wear on their respective arms.Lohse had one the best years in his career last season, ...

Although the Milwaukee Brewers have a relatively deep farm system with many players close to the major leagues, it’s devoid of a true impact prospect. Rather, it’s top heavy with numerous high-floor players, many of whom are on pace to reach the major leagues in either 2013 or 2014. The organization’s prospect pool is highlighted by right-handed pitchers Wily Peralta, Tyler Thornburg and John Hellweg. But after the graduation of Jean Segura to the major leagues in late 2012, the Brewers need one of their young hitters to step up during the 2013 season. They do have a pair of power-hitting prospects in Hunter Morris and outfielder Victor Roache. But beyond those two, power is scarce within their system. Here’s a look at the Milwaukee Brewers’ top 10 prospects heading into spring training.Begin Slideshow

Mat Gamel can’t catch a break, and it will cost the Milwaukee Brewers in 2013.For the second time in the last year, Gamel tore his right ACL. The Brewers first baseman was injured May 1 at San Diego after crashing into a wall in an attempt to catch a foul ball off the bat of Nick Hundley.With hopes of making a comeback this season, the 27-year-old re-injured his right knee Saturday during the Brewers first full-squad workout of Spring Training and will miss his second straight season. The injury could not have come at a worse time for Gamel, who has played just 106 games since his major league debut with Milwaukee in 2008.“It really surprised me because there was no really major event that happened that you would have thought that would have been that serious,” Brewers manager Ron Roenicke said, according to ESPN.com. “I figured, OK, he tweaks it. Coming back ...

Over the past several years, baseball has proven with multiple reports and documents that it still has further to go in order to rid the sport of performance enhancing drugs. First time offenders in baseball currently receive a 50-game suspension, second-time offenders receive a 100-game suspension, and a third-time offender is banished from baseball. While this may deter a handful of players, it definitely does not deter all players.  With the different masking agents and assistance of personal physicians, athletes are slipping by the current testing methods.The risk of being caught currently does not outweigh the benefits that are reaped from performing at the Major League level.  Contracts for everyday players are in the millions, and if you are an all-star you could be looking at anywhere from 10-20 million a season.   Melky Cabrera gets caught on a one year deal with the Giants where he was arguably the mid-season NL MVP ...

This series will evaluate one team per day, starting on Jan. 23, 2013, and ending on Feb. 22, 2013 (the first game of spring training). It is based on last season's performance, offseason changes since and the author's outlook for the team in 2013. Please keep in mind that rosters can, and will, change before Opening Day. We started in the AL East, worked across to the NL counterpart, and now, tackle the Central divisions in alphabetical order. Next up, the Milwaukee Brewers. 2012 finish: 83-79 (3rd place, NL Central) Notable additionsLHP Michael Gonzalez, LHP Tom Gorzelanny, RHP Burke Badenhop, RHP Kelvim Escobar, IF Bobby Crosby, 3B Donnie MurphyNotable lossesLHP Manny Parra, RHP Fautino De Los Santos, RHP Livan Hernandez, RHP Jose Veras, RHP Francisco Rodriguez, RHP Kameron Loe, RHP Shaun Marcum, OF Raul Mondesi Jr., OF Nyjer Morgan, 1B Travis Ishikawa, C Yorvit TorrealbaWhy they will improve this yearDid you see the way this team ...

Major League Baseball has been given an excuse to pursue some unfinished business with Milwaukee Brewers slugger Ryan Braun, but a renewed pursuit may not lead to the result the league wants.By now, you've heard that Braun has been linked to the alleged PED-supplying wellness clinic profiled by the Miami New Times last week. Tim Brown and Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports discovered Braun's name in the clinic's records, meaning that he's now in the same boat as Alex Rodriguez.The catch is that they're not on the same ends of the boat.Rodriguez is the central villain in the records of Anthony Bosch, the biochemist who ran the Biogenesis clinic. His name is repeatedly linked to various performance-enhancing drugs (including HGH and testosterone) purchased between 2009 and 2012, damning stuff for a guy who's already admitted to juicing in the early 2000s.Braun's name, on the other hand, is not listed next to any ...

The Milwaukee Brewers salvaged what was a disappointing 2012 season by playing themselves into the NL wild-card race by the end of the season. The Brew Crew went 18-10 in September. That surge pushed Milwaukee to within 1.5 games of the St. Louis Cardinals for the NL's second wild-card spot, as of Sept. 21. However, that's as close as the Brewers got before falling back and eventually finishing five games behind in the wild-card race and 14 games out of first place in the NL Central.Part of the Brewers' late-season success can be attributed to Corey Hart's second-half performance.After the All-Star break, Milwaukee's first baseman hit .292 with an .875 OPS, 14 home runs and 45 RBI. Along with Ryan Braun and Aramis Ramirez, the Brewers had a formidable offensive trio in the middle of their batting order. Unfortunately, Milwaukee learned on Friday (Jan. 18) that it will be without Hart for at ...