Game Notes: Minnesota Twins @ Milwaukee Brewers (5/27/13)

Final Score
Twins 6, Brewers 3

Game Summary
The roof was closed at Miller Park, given the rain, so there was some opportunity for fireworks offensively, and they didn't disappoint. The Twins (20-28) put together a 2-out rally in the 1st for a 1-0 lead, and the Brewers (19-30) threatened in their half despite Ryan Braun and Aramis Ramirez getting days off before great defense bailed out the Twins. Minnesota added a run in the 4th, which Milwaukee got right back. The Twins out together a couple runs in the 5th, and Milwaukee stormed back again in the 6th. The Twins shut them down after that, adding a couple insurance runs towards the end for some padding they wouldn't end up needing.

Pitchers of Record
W: Kevin Correia (5-4): 6 IP, 7 H, 3 R (3 ER), 1 BB, 4 K. Correia got bailed out by his defense to avoid damage in the 1st, then cruised most of the rest of the way. He did give up three home runs in this game, though fortunately for the Twins they all came with nobody on.
L: Wily Peralta (3-6): 5 IP, 5 H, 4 R (3 ER), 5 BB, 3 K. Peralta retired the first two men he faced, then walked the next 2 batters before giving up an RBI single. Walks tend to kill you, and those two put the Brewers at a disadvantage from the get go.
SV: Glen Perkins (10): 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 2 K. Perkins punched out the first two men he faced before Ron Roenicke decided to bring Ryan Braun in to pinch hit, and Perkins got Braun to line out to end the game.

Key Stats

• Joe Mauer (MIN): 1-3, HR (4), RBI, 3 R. Mauer's average is up to .339 for the year now, but he drew a couple big walks to start rallies for the Twins. His home run was also the first time I've been in attendance for a replay review. (Related note: Angel Hernandez was the 2nd base umpire today. Somehow they correctly ruled that the ball went over the yellow line for a home run like I saw from my seat and overturned what was originally ruled as a double. He's still an idiot though.)
• Milwaukee: Hit into 3 double plays. The first one came in the first inning after the Brewers loaded the bases with nobody out. Yuniesky Betancourt then lined to short, and Florimon threw to second to get the back end of the double play. Alex Gonzalez bounced into a double play in the 4th after Milwaukee got on the board to kill a tying chance, and the immortal Jeff Bianchi grounded into one in the 6th after the Brewers hit a couple more homers to kill a chance to tie the game. Those are killers.
• Carlos Gomez (MIL): 2-3, 2 HR (10), 2 RBI, 2 R. His first was a no-doubter to left center that I lost track of, and his second followed a Jean Segura homer a little short of where he hit the first one. The former Twin has been on a binge lately (I guess he homered twice on Saturday), and was a big reason why the Brewers were close in this one despite sitting several of their regulars.

Final Thoughts

This was the second baseball game I got my fiancee too this season; it was her first trip to Milwaukee for a game, raising her ballpark count to 3. Same for Arnie the Alpaca (pictured to the right). I think she kind of enjoyed the trip, and definitely enjoyed the food that Miller Park has to offer. She thought that "it was too easy to hit home runs" here, which may or may not be true; I haven't kept track of how many homers a game I've seen at Wrigley versus at Miller Park.

Either way, this was a fun game to get to (and I got to enjoy the WONC traffic bed in the 1st inning), and makes it 10 years running of trips to Milwaukee for ball games with my dad. Neither of these teams are likely to play more than 162 games this year, but either team could go on a little run of some sort. You never know.

NBA Conference Finals Preview

There was a fair amount of drama and some good basketball being played in the past couple weeks as part of the NBA Playoffs. Even though the Bulls are no longer in, I plan on predicting everything down to the NBA Finals, if for no other reason than I like to prognosticate things.

For the most part, I share Geoffy's thoughts about this Bulls season. I'm disappointed they got ousted by the Heat again, though I expected it, and they gave the Heat a decent series. I'm immensely proud of this Bulls team for sticking together and overachieving without their best player, and I'm looking forward to next season.

So without further ado, here's how I figure the conference championships are going to play out.

The LeBron Rules

I will freely admit: when it comes to LeBron James and the Miami Heat, I am probably incredibly biased. Put them against my Bulls, and that bias grows against this super team from South Beach. After seeing some video of last night's Game 3 though, I had to write something. I may not have gotten to see the game since I went to see Iron Man 3, but from what I've seen, some things need to be addressed.

Coming into this series, I didn't expect the Bulls to win. I don't think my favorite Bulls expert Geoffy did either. I did expect the Bulls to give the Heat hell, and to an extent they have. But like Geoffy said, I think the Heat have gotten into the Bulls' heads a little bit. I love the fact that this series has brought back playoff basketball from the "good old days" when Michael Jordan played, but I fear this Bulls team is going in the direction of the Bad Boy Pistons... and I'm not overly thrilled about it.

It's the playoffs; hard fouls are going to happen. You have to keep your cool through it all. Miami has lost theirs some, but the Bulls have lost theirs more. I love that there's fire in this team. That's what makes me love Joakim Noah (especially for the GIF to the right) and even though he scares me sometimes, Nate Robinson. That block on LeBron was amazing. This team is going to make Miami earn every win they get. And so far, the Heat have definitely earned their two wins in this series. LeBron raised his game a level since Game 1. Miami absolutely deserves to be up in this series, and they're clearly the best team in the league.

But there's things that continue to bother me about this Miami team, hence the title of the post. The biggest moment last night came in the 2nd quarter:

Did LeBron deserve a technical for the extra-curricular shove he put on Nazr Mohammed? Probably. Did Nazr deserve to get tossed for his shove after that? Yeah, absolutely. But when I saw this the first time, my first thought was "LeBron flopped". Yeah, Nazr should have kept his head there and not shoved LeBron. It might have changed the complexion of the game. It was dirty.

But the thing I take away even after having some second thoughts watching this YouTube video a couple times continues to be, "LeBron flopped". Even Tom Thibodeau, someone who I wouldn't necessarily expect to call out an opponent for something like that, said that there was some flopping. Think back to that game where the Bulls broke Miami's long winning streak and LeBron's flagrant foul. Boozer barely budged when LeBron ran into him. Now seemingly the strongest guy in the league, who couldn't knock over Carlos Boozer, is going to fall over after a shove? It doesn't smell right. And if you watch that Nate Robinson block again, Marco Belinelli gets the rebound and Wade flops. It's disgusting.

This Miami team, if they win the title, will probably go into lore as one of the best teams of all time, and they should. The Bulls will not go quietly and Miami will have to earn this series win. But there's a reason people hate this Miami Heat team. It's not because they're talented; I respect their talent. But this is a dirty team that whines and flops, and the ultimate thing I can say about that LeBron play above, or Wade's flop? "MJ would never have done that. Not in a million years." That is why I hate Miami, dislike James, and hate Wade. As talented as these guys are, flopping should be the farthest thing from their mind, not their go-to tactic. Play the game the right way.

NBA Conference Semifinals Preview

I may not be a pundit when it comes to predicting things (my NCAA tournament record speaks for itself), but I think I did all right when it came to first round predictions. Six out of eight isn't too bad, and neither is successfully predicting the entire Eastern Conference for the first round (plus nailing the number of games on three of those series), so naturally I'm going to try to build on that success only to watch everything crash and burn in the next round. Hey, at least I'm honest and realistic about it.

On the whole though, most of the series went the way people were expecting things to break, though I think some people may have been surprised by Golden State Steph Curry going off like he did, and maybe the way the Clippers collapsed, so now I don't have to listen to the KTLA people go on about either Los Angeles basketball team. Good times.

Anyway, here's how I'm thinking the next couple rounds break:

Impromptu Chicago Adventure

I'm a lucky man.

So a rare glimpse into the personal life of yours truly: on my usual Fridays off, I take Logan off to school in the mornings and come home to relax a little bit. Today was a little different in that I was heading to my fiancee's house. The original reasoning for it was that they were down a car and I was taking her mom to work today to help them out. I was mistaken. Kristen had set me up: she had taken the day off of work and had completely fooled me with an elaborate plan that led to a fun afternoon, culminating in this:

Boston Strong (Language), The FCC and Sports

My four years at North Central College on the WONC staff taught me a lot about the world of broadcasting. On air shifts were the most important thing, of course, but there was an academic side to it, with readings weekly about different broadcast-related topics, and almost all of them had something to do with the FCC. Mostly, it was about things they could fine you for (read: don't do this at WONC, lest we get levied a heavy fine and the station has to shut down), and these things appeared on tests during my time there (I take responsibility for this my senior year, since I wrote the tests).

On the broadcasting side of things in terms of being on the air (with a good concentration in sports), there were probably three major lessons I learned.

1. "W" is pronounced "Double-You", and anyone who pronounces it differently will be promptly corrected. It's John Madormo's pet peeve (so that's probably where I picked it up) and it probably put you on his hit list.
2. Don't even speculate possible reasons for why a door in a press box slams shut on air. You will incur the wrath of Naperville North's "Press Box Mom". For the record, I wasn't the speculator, but I was there when it happened, and being both the Assistant Sports Director and the guy calling the Huskies' football game the following week (against Central, no less), I was put in the unenviable position of trying to clean up that mess with the Press Box Mom (which ultimately was resolved).
3. "If you wouldn't say it to your grandmother, don't say it on air." -"ancient" radio proverb, regarding the use of strong language in a broadcast setting.

It's that last one that has a lot of people buzzing after the Boston Red Sox game at Fenway yesterday.

NBA Playoff Preview

With a little bit of time today, I figured I'd try to throw out a quick playoff preview for the NBA. I'm not going to try to predict the entire tournament, but all the first round games should be a good exercise.

I'll go through each series one by one and at the end predict who I think will advance. I'll try and do separate ones for each round, though I end up falling in the group of people that think it will be Miami against probably San Antonio or Oklahoma City again in the Finals. Basketball seems easily predictable like that.

Without further ado, here's how I think the first round plays out.


Eastern Conference

(1) Miami Heat vs (8) Milwaukee Bucks
Miami, to no surprise, wound up as the consensus best team in the league and earned the top seed out east for the first time in the LeBron era. Meanwhile you have a Milwaukee team that picked up J.J. Redick at the deadline to help make a run to help Brandon Jennings out. Milwaukee might be able to make these games at least somewhat competitive but otherwise this should be over quickly. Heat in four.

(2) New York Knicks vs (7) Boston Celtics
It's kind of crazy how Boston has fallen even though I think everyone expected them to fall off each of the last couple years. Without Rajon Rondo though this Celtics team is down to basically just Garnett and Pierce, though Jeff Green has had his moments. Meanwhile newly crowned scoring champ Carmelo Anthony finally seems to have a really good supporting cast around him and Mike Woodson is a good coach. The C's will make this a series but we're looking at an early exit for them this year. Knicks in six.

(3) Indiana Pacers vs (6) Atlanta Hawks
It's kind of amazing how the Hawks have been able to survive without Joe Johnson and still be a decent team, but you have to continue to credit guys like Al Horford and Josh Smith for carrying this team. Indiana survived losing Danny Granger to win the division. This tough team that plays a similar style to the Bulls likely won't have issues here. Pacers in five.

(4) Brooklyn Nets vs (5) Chicago Bulls
I'm going to defer to Geoffy for most of the in-depth analysis here. In the grand scheme of things though, I think the Bulls' experience, even without Derrick Rose and possibly Joakim Noah should be enough. Angry Thibs will make sure "WE HAVE MORE THAN ENOUGH TO WIN WITH." Bulls in seven.

Western Conference
(1) Oklahoma City Thunder vs (8) Houston Rockets
After falling short in the Finals last year, Sam Presti decided to send James Harden and his beard away, and ended up in Houston where Daryl Morey looks like more of a genius than normal after rebuilding this team's core. Even with that though, I don't think Houston has the firepower to keep up with Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. Thunder in five.

(2) San Antonio Spurs vs (7) Los Angeles Lakers
I'm not going to lie; I wanted the Lakers to miss the playoffs because of the overhyping and also because it would have been hilarious to see the Lakers without a first round pick and out of the playoffs. Given what happened to Kobe though, I'm kind of glad they did make it for him. Even with that though, I don't think the Lakers have the depth to take out the Spurs. Tony Parker has been really good, and Tim Duncan is still chugging along despite his age. Spurs in five.

(3) Denver Nuggets vs (6) Golden State Warriors
Denver went on a nice little win streak for part of the year as well, and they have a very well balanced team that will be a tough out, especially with home court. This team plays pretty good defense, which is a necessity against Steph Curry. He will not make this series easy. At the end of the day though I have to go with the overall better team. Nuggets in six.

(4) Los Angeles Clippers vs (5) Memphis Grizzlies
It's kind of amazing to see something of a changing of the guard in Los Angeles with the Clippers winning the division instead of the Lakers. This team continues to have its amazing moments, and Chris Paul is still up to his usual shenanigans at the point. Memphis has great defense again this year and even after trading away Rudy Gay they're a tough out. I do think the Clippers have the edge though. Clippers in seven.