LEARN MORE<\/a><\/p>\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t
\n\t
<\/p>\n
A: Just common sense.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
AXED AND ANSWERED<\/p>\n
A: Tom Paine probably wasn’t a Brewers fan, but he had
\nthe perfect line to sum up the weekend.<\/p>\n
F: \u201cThese are the times that try men’s souls.\u201d<\/p>\n
A: Indubitably, as Tom might say.<\/p>\n
F: Axford wound up pitching in the eighth inning again
\nSunday, but only because the Brewers were down 9-1 at the time. Unfortunately, he
\nhad no control and gave up a run on two walks and two hits in just a third of
\nan inning.<\/p>\n
A: Relievers cannot walk guys! If you’re a reliever and
\nyou walk a guy, goodbye.<\/p>\n
F: When Axford left, so did my friends and I. That
\nwas effective relief! I got home in time to see a little of Roenicke’s
\npost-game comments, and he said there are no plans to send Axford to the minors
\nto fix things.<\/p>\n
A: I’m surprised he didn’t add, \u201cWe really like him in
\nthat eighth-inning role where there’s an eight-run margin. That’s his spot.\u201d<\/p>\n
F: Well, players want to know their roles.<\/p>\n
A: Fine. \u201cTonight you’ll be playing Biff from Death of a Salesman. Here’s the script.\u201d<\/p>\n
F: The ironic thing about Axford’s disaster against
\nPittsburgh is that it was one time he didn’t groove a home-run pitch.
\nThe one Starling Marte hit for the tying two-run homer was about six inches off
\nthe ground but he somehow golfed it out.<\/p>\n
A: But six homers given up in his first 11 1\/3
\ninnings\u2014that’s hefty.<\/p>\n
F; Which brings up something I’ve noticed in the
\nBrewers’ pitching stats. They went into this week having given up 41 homers in
\n30 games, the highest total in the National League.<\/p>\n
A: That sounds like a throwback to the Ken Macha years
\nof ’09 and ’10, when guys like Jeff Suppan and Dave Bush and Braden Looper were
\nwatching their pitches sail far away.<\/p>\n
F: In those years the Brewers ranked worst and
\nnext-to-worst in the league, respectively, in terms of homers allowed. Two
\nyears ago when they made the playoffs they improved to eighth, but last year
\nthey were back down to 12th. And now they’re 15th in a 15-team league.<\/p>\n
A: But don’t homers allowed depend somewhat on where you
\nplay? And doesn’t Miller Park have the reputation of being a place where the
\nballs can fly?<\/p>\n
F: I found something on Bill James’ web page that listed
\nMiller Park as the fourth-most friendly stadium for homers from 2010-’12,
\nbehind only Colorado, the White Sox’s park and Cincinnati. But the quality of
\nyour pitching staff has to be a factor. Two years ago the Reds were
\nnext-to-worst in the NL in homers allowed. But in 2012 they were seventh-best.<\/p>\n
A: Well, it’ll be very interesting to see how the Brew
\nCrew deals with this embarrassment at home. I’d be a little more concerned if
\nthey’d gotten swept by a mediocre team; this Cardinals bunch sure looks strong,
\nespecially their pitching.<\/p>\n
F: The Brewers better recover quickly. After two
\ninterleague games with Texas at home, they play 10 on the road with the three
\nteams ahead of them in the NL Central: Cincy, Pittsburgh and then back to St.
\nLouis.<\/p>\n
A: The sweep must have left Roenicke wondering, \u201cWhat
\nthe heck do I really have here?\u201d They started 2-8, then ripped off nine
\nstraight wins, and now they start a new week with an \u201cL5\u201d in the \u201cStreak\u201d
\ncolumn of the standings.<\/p>\n
F: Roenicke said that \u201cwhen we play well we can play
\nwith any team.\u201d<\/p>\n
A: Well duh again! That’s true of every team, except
\nmaybe the Cubs and Astros. Tom Paine would be dazzled by that common sense. But
\nthe jury’s still out on the Crew, and it could be out for a while.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
IS STAN THE MAN?<\/p>\n
F: The hot name in the Bucks’ coaching search seems to
\nbe Stan Van Gundy. Is he the obvious choice for you?<\/p>\n
A: Not really. I think he’d be an improvement over
\nSkiles and Boylan, but I’m not on any kind of fevered bandwagon.<\/p>\n
F: What would be Van Gundy’s strong points?<\/p>\n
A: He’s coached in some pretty difficult situations…<\/p>\n
F: Most of them connected with Dwight Howard.<\/p>\n
A: He seems to be a good \u201cX’s and O’s\u201d guy, and I think
\nthat in terms of discipline he’s something like Skiles but seems a little more
\nsane. I think he’d get along with the players better.<\/p>\n
F: Combine discipline with being \u201ca player’s coach.\u201d
\nSounds like that common-sense ideal.<\/p>\n
A: Van Gundy was certainly tested under fire in Orlando
\nwith Howard. It seemed pretty clear that Howard got Stan Van fired\u2014and then
\nasked the Magic for a trade anyway.<\/p>\n
F: I don’t remember much about all that because I try
\nreal hard to ignore anything that has to do with Howard. I think he’s just a
\ndoofus. But didn’t Van Gundy contribute to a \u201che said, he said\u201d thing in the
\npress?<\/p>\n
A: He does speak his mind, and toward the end it did get
\npretty testy between him and Howard. But as I recall it he pretty much kept his
\ncool.<\/p>\n
F: I bring it up because however much discipline Skiles
\nand Boylan tried to lay down, I think they were both pretty hesitant to go
\npublic about it in the press. My vague perception of Van Gundy is that he’d be
\nmore candid about the team’s problems. Michael Hunt described him as \u201cblunt,
\noutspoken and sure of himself.\u201d Might that work against his being more of a
\n\u201cplayer’s guy\u201d?<\/p>\n
A: Yeah, I think he’d be more open with the press, but
\nnot necessarily by calling out players. I’d say he’d be more vocal in defending
\nthem from criticism, complaining about the refs, that kind of stuff. And within
\nthe locker room I think he’d be better at communicating with the players.<\/p>\n
F: Kind of like Roenicke taking over from Macha in 2011,
\nhuh? The perception was that Macha’s door just wasn’t open and Roenicke’s is.<\/p>\n
A: Not that Roenicke is some kind of zany Mr.
\nSunshine\u2014except in comparison to Macha.<\/p>\n
F: The other name that’s being mentioned with Van
\nGundy’s is Kelvin Sampson, the former Bucks assistant.<\/p>\n
A: Apart from not being able to keep track of how many
\nrecruiting phone calls he made, Sampson was a mighty good college coach. And he
\nsure knows the organization.<\/p>\n
F: But the guy he was an assistant to here was Skiles.
\nMaybe Hammond wants none of that connection.<\/p>\n
A: Plus we’re reading that Sampson had a real close
\nrelationship with Brandon Jennings. If hiring him would keep Jennings here,
\nthen I’d vote for someone else. But no matter what, the Bucks have a lot more
\nthat needs doing besides hiring a coach.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
BIG TEN PASSES GEOGRAPHY<\/p>\n
F: One last topic that I think will make you smile. The
\nBig Ten has decided that when Rutgers and Maryland join the league in 2014, the
\nfootball division names of \u201cLeaders\u201d and \u201cLegends\u201d will be dropped.<\/p>\n
A: What? Throw all of that three-year tradition out the
\nwindow?<\/p>\n
F: The new divisions of seven teams each will be East
\nand West.<\/p>\n
A: What again? Going to something so obvious, so simple\u2014so,
\ndare I say it, common-sensical?<\/p>\n
F: And the divisions will be geographically correct. The
\nEast will have Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, Penn State, Rutgers,
\nMaryland and Indiana. And the West will have Wisconsin, Nebraska, Minnesota,
\nIowa, Northwestern, Illinois and Purdue. It was a close call between Purdue and
\nIndiana, but West Lafayette is ju-u-u-st a tad farther west than Bloomington.<\/p>\n
A: I like it! And not just because the Badgers will lose
\nthe Buckeyes as a division rival after this season. It just makes geographic
\nsense\u2014a lot more than Missouri being in the Southeastern Conference or Utah in
\nthe Pacific 12, for instance.<\/p>\n
F: Or a Milwaukee school being in the Big East?<\/p>\n
A: Well, let’s not get carried away…<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Frank Clines covered
\nsports for The
\nMilwaukee Journal and the Journal Sentinel. Art Kumbalek can’t pitch
\nin any inning. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Different sports, different issues, but a common theme emerges… \u00a0 Frank: The last two Sundays were tough on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3775],"tags":[7,103,40475,102,6234,121,3871,1203,6,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-235949","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-milwaukee-bucks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-bucks","10":"tag-frank-clines","11":"tag-milwaukee","12":"tag-milwaukee-brewers","13":"tag-milwaukee-bucks","14":"tag-milwaukeebucks","15":"tag-mlb","16":"tag-nba","17":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115044318271638635","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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