Top of the 11th is your lucky half an inning. Discuss.

OK, I caught some of the press conference, the ESPN reporting with the Mike and Mike video, and Friday's Margarita. (Really, if we ever have a Best of BCB, that thread belongs there. Great stuff.)

So I understand the premise behind the actual ruling: a violation in chain of custody procedures would be based on a premise of tampering, that MLB could not prove that the sample with such high readings was unadulterated Ryan Braun pee. Which is all true, and not to be taken lightly -- that alone should be sufficient to overturn the ban.

What I'm less clear about is the premise behind Ryan's innocence. It doesn't seem likely that an unrefrigerated sample, when left to its own devices on a desk somewhere, would show such elevated reading of testosterone. So Ryan's claim of innocence would, I think, mean one of two things: that the sample was doped with testosterone, or outright replaced (either accidentally or intentionally).

I usually assume negligence before malice, and I think that's the line of reasoning behind Ryan's offer of a DNA test, which MLB had refused: that the sample the MLB tested wasn't in fact his. This is where I start getting lost:

• If it were negligence, or something as simple as misplaced paperwork accompanying the sample, where did we get the ridiculous readings from?
• If it were tampered, wouldn't that mean breaking some sort of seal, which would certainly invalidate the sample? (Can you taint a sample without opening it?)
• Or, maybe it's possible to take a doped, non-Ryan sample and change the labels on it to make it looks like his.

I guess, I'm wondering if it's possible to get such elevated readings without tampering. If not, then does Ryan's presumption of innocence rely on a narrative of someone actively tampering with his sample to make him appear guilty? (Note: I'm not doubting his innocence here -- he's had so many tests over the years, all of which had been clean, that to have one test with such out-of-this-world readings makes me immediately think a bad test, by mistake or malice. I'm just curious if this was the result of oversight or negligence, or if he's being framed.)

Relatedly:

• Is it possible that Moises Alou just didn't understand the drug testing procedure?
• As I'm writing this, I'm also watching an Amy Winehouse performance, speaking of tainted samples. As much as a mess as she was, she was also quite talented, and of course gorgeous.

The horror, the horror.

There seems to be an intrusive, non-Brewers-related post by an SB Nation Partner on our front page, asking you to come up with, of all things, a clever three-word toast for a well-known brand of rum. Of course, this is the very definition of spam: it's hawking a product that has nothing to do with the Brewers (unless Doug Melvin has just announced that Ned Yost will be managing the Brewers' 2011 postseason, in which case it could come in handy). However, it is the worst kind of spam out there: authorized spam. There's no overcoming authorized spam. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you have bought some crappy-a$$ rum.

I, for one, hate to bear witness to our SB Nation overlords actually selling out. Pretty much, when asked if they would consider making participation in their blogs a less enjoyable experience for a wad of cash, their response was "sure, you bet!"  Lame. (And yes, I feel this crosses a line: it's one thing to have ads on the site. It's another to actually turn the blog posting activity into a revenue-generator. To me, it interferes with why I come here every day.)

Anyway, the post can't be deleted (not by me, that is), the user can't be banned. Not that I would ever consider doing those things.The worst one can do is "flag" it for being spam, which isn't very satisfying. However, tellingly, they have closed their own post for comments. That's too bad, because I think we have some intelligent, creative people on this site who would like to comment on this idea.

So here's what I suggest. If you're so inclined, create a three-word "toast" that describes how you feel about SB Nation's decision to let advertisers create front-page posts that actually are ads. You can post it below. I'll start us off:

An SBNation Embarrassment

As a bonus, on the flip is an SBNation ad that claims this site to be "of, by and for the fans." Funny, I don't recall being asked about this.

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WP: Takashi Saito (3-1)
LP: Chris Resop (3-4)

MVP: Ryan Braun (2-3, RBI, .310 WPA)
LVP: Prince Fielder (0-4, -.232)

Win Expectancy Graph

Another day, another one-run victory against the hard-luck Pirates. This time it was Charlie Morton and Shawn Marcum, each pitching into the eighth with giving up a run. The Brewers finally broke through in the bottom of the 10th, with a George Kottaras single, a Casey McGehee double, and a walk-off sacrifice fly by Nyjer Morgan.

With the Brewers' 475th consecutive sweep against the Pirates, the Brewers enjoy a 5.5 game lead over the Cardinals.

(Edited to include standard recap info.)

WP: Marco Estrada (3-7)
LP: Kevin Correia (12-11)
SV: John Axford (34)

HR: Yuniesky Betancourt (9)

MVP: Marco Estrada (+.350 total, +.295 pitching, +.055 batting)
LVP: Casey McGehee (-.093)

Win Expectancy Graph

Sorry this is so short --- I'm typing this on my phone on the way home from Wauwatosa. A pair of unlikely heroes powered the Brewers this afternoon at Miller Park. Marco Estrada held the Rats to one hit over five innings, and Yuni Betancourt(!) knocked one out of the park for the game's only run, leading the Crew to their 15th win in their past 17 games. The Pirates threatened in the 9th when Xavier Paul led off with a triple over the head of T-Plush, but Axford coerced two groundouts in a drawn-up infield before striking out Neil Walker to end the game. The loss was the Pirates' 35th in their last 38 games in Milwaukee.

Hello, and welcome to another edition of the Round Table.

As of this writing, your Milwaukee Brewers are currently perched atop the NL Central standings and fresh off a sweep of the Chicago Baby Bears. (Man, did that L flag get a workout!) That got me thinking: what accounts for the Brewers' good fortunes, compared to last year? Getting two stud pitchers has helped, of course, but even then, our "ace" had an ERA over 5 as late as mid-July. It's hard to say the offense or defense had improved, not when the big offseason addition has been Yuni Betancourt. We asked some BCB experts for their explanation of the Brewers' turnaround from 2010. Nicole and TheJay, what do you think?

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This is pretty flimsy stuff, even for Rumorville, but here goes: I'm told that TMJ listed the Brewers as one of three teams in the market for JJ Hardy. No link, just hearsay.

they're getting the band back together!

Hello, and welcome to the Roundtable, where some of BCB's more esteemed and well-known contributors (present author excluded, unless you were trolling around the site when Trent Durrington and Victor Santos were on the team) weigh in on the team's most pressing issues. In our inaugural Roundtable post, -JP- and BrewHaHeather offer their thoughts on what the Brewers should do about Prince Fielder. Try to re-sign him? Let him walk? Trade him if (perish the thought) the team falls out of contention? The Roundtable begins after the jump!

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I had this whole nice intro going about how well the Brewers have performed in 2011 against pitchers named after apple varieties. That was before I realized the Twins' starter today is named Blackburn, not Braeburn.

Before last night, the Brewers have had about as much luck over the last week as I've had writing game previews. Before yesterday's improbable, come-from-behind-by-seven win, the Brewers had been outscored over the last four games, all losses, by a combined total of 28-6. No team has lost more games on the road. For today, Braun will sit with a calf injury, Gamel is starting at third base, today's starter Zack Greinke's ERA sits at 5.65, our lineup will start Kotsay, Counsell AND Betancourt, and they're playing against a pitcher who is NOT named after an apple. 

One the plus side, we're only coming off what will likely be the biggest win of the 2011 season. Plus, in his last start, Blackburn was lit up for 13 hits and 7 runs in 4 1/3 IP. And even if Ryan Braun sits, we'll still have two 2011 All Stars in the lineup in Weeks and Fielder. And perhaps most importantly, the Twins have Jim Thome in the lineup, the man who struck out last night to end the game. Thome, of course, is named for the Thome Empire apple, which colors to a deep burgundy three weeks earlier than standard Empire.

Here are the lineups:

Twins lineup: Revere 8, Casilla 4, Mauer 2, Cuddyer 9, Thome DH, Valencia 5, Tosoni 7, Hughes 3, Nishioka 6, Braeburn/Blackburn P

Brewers lineup: Weeks DH, Morgan CF, Hart RF, Fielder 1B, Gamel 3B, Betancourt SS, Kotsay LF, Lucroy C, Counsell 2B, Greinke P

In the bullpen, Saito and Axford each pitched an inning last night, and Estrada pitched 2 1/3. Braddock pitched 2/3 on Friday and Hawkins 1/3. Axford also pitched an inning on Thursday.

If you haven't checked these out yet, the Brewers' batting splits on the home and road make for interesting reading.

Go Brewers!

Did you know that Yuni Betancourt has an OPS below .600, second-worst (hello, Alcides Escobar!) among starting shortstops? And that among major-league shortstops who have started as many games this season as Yuni, only four shortstops have committed more errors?

Of course you did -- you've been suffering through our shortstop play as much as anyone. And we pretty much knew this was coming when we traded for Zack Greinke. But, given the unforeseen struggles of Casey McGehee, the left side of our infield now looks like an offensive and defensive wasteland, and only the surprising offensive prowess by the likes of Jonathan Lucroy and Tony Plush has kept our season afloat. (Consider: a full season of Gomez in center, combined with a repeat of Jonathan Lucroy circa 2010, could have given us five spots in the lineup with an OPS of .630 or worse.)

I know we're pretty much stuck internally: we traded our Shortstop of the Future for our ace, Counsell's numbers aren't noticeably better than Yuni's, and not even I can delude myself into hopping on the Josh Wilson bandwagon. Pickings are slim outside the organization too, even if we had trade bait in the minors (which, of course, we don't). The free agent shortstops available don't inspire confidence, either. (Bobby Crosby? Didn't he sing White Christmas?)

Still, not all is lost. To the fold!

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You know Tom H. is annoyed with something, and it's probably you. Find out what you did this time in Wednesday's Brewers chat at 1 p.m.

As tweeted by TheBrewerNation:

Trevor Hoffman claimed by White Sox. Want to work out a trade for him. Villanueva cleared waivers. White Sox perhaps interested in him too.

Brewers 5, Astros 2

W: Randy Wolf (8-9)
L: Brett Myers (8-7)
S: Trevor Hoffman (6)

HR: Rickie Weeks (23, the hard way), George Kottaras (9, the easy way)

Fangraphs aren't up yet, so I'll make this next part up:

MVP: Prince Fielder. Although Wolf, the Hoff, Weeks, and Kottaras deserve the ink, Prince is the MVP for knocking in 2 more runners, giving him 11 in the last 5 games.
LVP: Jim Edmonds: 0-4, 2 Ks, 3 LOB, plus his late jump cost Wolf a shutout through 7 innings.

Win Expectancy Graph and Star of the Game Voting
SBN Coverage

Wow. You can't top Friday night's game for great baseball drama, but the Cream City Crushers gave it a try anyway: from the Brewers' first at-bat until the last out in the 9th, this was an exciting win through and through. Roll that beautiful bean footage!

* Rickie's inside-the-parker. They say you always remember your 23rd of the season, and that's just as true tonight. In the home team's first at-bat, Rickie took Brett Myers to the wall in left center field. Thanks to a curiously timed leap by ex-Brewer centerfielder Jason Bourgeois and the ABSOLUTE LACK OF ANY HUSTLE by ex-Brewer leftfielder Carlos Lee, Weeks turned what looked like a home run off the bat into, well, a home run. Although he looked pretty gassed rounding third, there was no real play at the plate.

* This was the first Brewers inside-the-park home run since 2008, plus the first leadoff ITPHR in all of baseball in almost a year. This leadoff home run was the 20th of Rickie's career and the 7th this season, a new team record. The only other Brewer to ever hit a leadoff inside-the-park home run was (anyone?) Tiny Felder in 1989.

* Let's give another shout-out to Carlos Lee. You might recall that in 2006-2007, we made a pretty substantial offer for his services, which he politely turned down. Lee ended up signing a 6-year, $100 million deal with the Astros, and the general consensus around these parts was that there was no way he was going to be living up to that contract toward the end. His first two seasons in Houston, he was lights-out gangbusters. Last season, he had his lowest OPS since 2005, but it was over .800, so we're still good. This season, he is OPSing .690 with 14 HRs, which, quite frankly, isn't very good. (Heck, Chris Narveson is OPSing .697.) And for this output, the Astros are paying $18.5 million in 2010. And then again in 2011. And then again in 2012. So you'd think the least he could do is back-up a fellow outfielder on a ball hit into the gap. He redeemed himself with a couple of nice catches later in the game, but color me unimpressed.

* After scoring twice in the first inning, the Crew repeated the trick in the 6th on four straight singles, including a fancy hit-and-run: Corey takes off for second, Astro second baseman Jeff Keppinger breaks to cover the bag, and Braun hits it to the opposite field, right where Keppinger was standing a moment before. Keppinger looked like he had fallen for the "hey-you-have-a-spot-on-your-shirt" face flick gag. Cue the sad trombone!

* Randy Wolf made a dandy of a play with one out in the sixth. With a runner on first, Angel Sanchez dropped a beautiful bunt to the left of and past the pitcher's mound. In front of Casey McGehee, Wolf picked it up, facing the wrong direction (of course); while twisting and falling at the same time, he fired to first, on target, to get Sanchez. It was a big out, too, as the Astros' next two batters each doubled, cutting the Brewers lead to 4-2.

* George Kottaras' 9th home run in the seventh inning made the score 5-2. For the sake of comparison, Kottaras has 9 home runs and an OPS of .736. Carlos Lee has 14 home runs and an OPS of .690. He's also making $18 million more this season than Kottaras is. The home run was off of ex-Brewer Nelson Figueroa.

* Speaking of outfielders I'd rather have on my team than Carlos Lee, we had a Lorenzo Cain sighting. In the 8th inning, Cain pinch hit for Todd Coffey and laced a double to the wall in left field. That might have been the hardest hit ball of the night.

* In the 9th, the Miller Park crowd was treated to Hell's Bells, as Trevor Hoffman was called on for the save. Hoffman retired the top of the Astros lineup in order to pick up save #6, and his first since May 7th. It was also #597 of his career. I have no doubt that Macha wants Hoffman to reach save #600 this season, and at home.

NOTES: Coffey, Hoffman, and Loe each pitched in last night's game as well; weird that Hoffman got the call and not the Ax, who hadn't pitched since Tuesday. Perhaps Macha will keep putting those three out there as long as we keep winning....Wolf's line (6 2/3, 2 ER) could have been better: he was one out away from pitching 7 scoreless innings. Having said that, he gave up a LOT of hits and was pitching with men on base all night. Of the 9 hits, though, only one was for extra bases, the RBI double by Pence, and Wolf only gave up one walk...Tonight's win was Ken Macha's 500th in his career...Corey Hart had three hits....The Cubs lost again, dropping 4 out of 5, and are now in 5th place in the division [snicker].

TOMORROW'S GAME: Since being swept by Houston, the Brewers have won 4 out of 5, and now have a chance to return the favor. Gallardo pitches tomorrow against "W. Wright." (Really? There's an Astro named W. Wright? Perhaps Orville will be in attendance.) Game time 1:10 on FSWI.

Soooo...anyone know how this works?  I was looking at the mlb.com site, and I see a lot of the phrase "local blackouts," which seems to defeat the purpose.  Is that for listening to the game over the computer? (Can you not watch the game on the computer? Or is that more than $15/season, I assume.)  Is that a local setup only (i.e., for one computer), or can I access that from any computer with internet access (say, via a user name and password)?

Also, how is GameDay audio related (if it is at all) to mlb.com At Bat for the iPhone, which is also for $15? If you upgrade from an iPod Touch to an iPhone, do you have to pay for all your paid apps all over again?

Anyone have a clue on this stuff?