Kuzul

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 ...

In this day and age, home runs get the most "ooh's" and "aah's" at baseball games from spectators. Fans come to the ballpark to see guys like Prince Fielder and Giancarlo Stanton hit mammoth tater shots that come close to reaching Mars' orbit.But there's more than one dynamic to a baseball game. The stolen base is a key aspect to any successful player and team. Of course, players who can hit the long ball, and steal some bases are exponentially more valuable than the one-dimensional player. All-Stars such as Ryan Braun and David Wright are some examples of sluggers who are also bag-swipers.In 2012, rookie sensation Mike Trout paced the Major Leagues with 49 stolen bases (the Padres' Everth Cabrera seemingly came out of nowhere to lead the National League with 46 bags). Braun had his second consecutive 30/30 season (30 home runs, 30 stolen bases). And Jose Reyes reached ...

Here's my early top-60 listing of outfielders heading into exhibition play, with an emphasis on 5x5 roto leagues. This position will likely produce baseball's largest number of four- and five-category studs by season's end. But that star power still cannot obscure the uncertainty of taking inexperienced young players or injury-riddled veterans later in the draft, or household names that will invariably fall short of last year's amped-up stats. Hopefully, this listing will eliminate some of the draft-day doubt and consternation that come with the territory. Especially with leagues that require five starters at the position. Enjoy the show!Begin Slideshow

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 ...

Milwaukee Brewers superstar left fielder Ryan Braun may not be out of harm's way in regards to allegations of his PED use.A report by ESPN's T.J. Quinn and Mike Fish reveals a list acquired from Biogenesis of America clinic founder Anthony Bosch, which names several Major League Baseball players and indicates they received performance-enhancing drugs.Included on that list is Braun.The report cited a source close to the television show Outside the Lines, which obtained the documents in this latest inquiry:The list with Braun's name, which also includes New York Yankees Alex Rodriguez and Francisco Cervelli and Toronto's Melky Cabrera, was a list of players who received PEDs, and that there is "no other reason to be on that paper."The figure next to Braun's name signifies $1,500, the amount of money that Braun allegedly owed Bosch for purchasing PEDs.Braun's stellar stats were called into question ...

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 ...

Milwaukee Brewers outfielder and former National League MVP Ryan Braun beat accusations that he used performance-enhancing drugs once during his career, but he will have to do so again after his name has reportedly shown up on documents from the Biogenesis clinic. Yahoo! Sports’ Tim Brown and Jeff Passan reported the following:  Milwaukee Brewers star Ryan Braun's name is in records of the Miami-area clinic alleged to have distributed performance-enhancing drugs to a rash of baseball players, and Major League Baseball will investigate the link to the former MVP who tested positive for illegal synthetic testosterone during the 2011 postseason.  UPDATE: Tuesday, Feb. 5, at 9:10 p.m. ET by Ben ChodosIn response to his name being mentioned in connection with Biogenesis, Braun released the following statement, via MLB.com beat writer Adam McCalvy's Brew Beat blog: During the course of preparing for my successful appeal last year, my attorneys, who were previously familiar with ...

Who says you have to pump iron (or, in these days, pop PEDs) to be a slugger? For goodness sake, Babe Ruth did it on hot dogs and beer!Power hitters come in all shapes and sizes, from a rounded Prince Fielder to a towering Adam Dunn to a perfectly proportioned Albert Pujols. But wait, what about the skinny guys? You know, the ones who frequently take off days from the gym just because they weren't in the mood (we've all been there). Surprisingly, some of these players are renowned as some of the best home run hitters in the game. Let's see who made the list.Begin Slideshow

The Milwaukee Brewers failed in 2012.There's no need to sugarcoat it or try to make light of a dark season.The fact is—the Brewers underachieved.Coming off a trip to the National League Championship Series in 2011, expectations soared even higher entering this season. Those expectations were quickly put to bed.With injuries stacking up, as well as blown saves and losses, the Brewers shipped Zack Greinke to Los Angeles for highly touted shortstop Jean Segura. Milwaukee started winning shortly after and eventually became in contention for the second wild card spot.They came up short and finished the season with a 83-79 record, good enough for third in the N.L. Central. Without the injuries and the lack of a solid bullpen, Milwaukee's season might have ended on a different path.Here are my grades of the Milwaukee Brewers offense, starting pitching and bullpen in 2012.Begin Slideshow

The pressure of Major League Baseball's stretch run has boiled the race for the National League Most Valuable Player award down to two realistic options. With all due respect to Andrew McCutchen, Yadier Molina and—if you want to get sabermetric-happy—David Wright, Buster Posey and Ryan Braun are the only horses in this race.On one side, you have the cherubic golden boy who seems to embody the James Earl Jones version of America's pastime. On the other, you have the disgraced-oh-wait-no-he's-not-on-a-technicality defending 2011 NL MVP.The latter's surge is laying the national baseball media bare for all to see who care to look.Although Posey seems to have the inside track at the moment, Braun has been charging hard at the San Francisco Giants' catcher for the last couple of months.A hot August gave way to a scalding September, and though the Brewers have fallen out of contention in the last week, that they ...