Brewers' confidence apparent
posted: Wednesday, May 9, 2007
There were many times in 2006 when the Brewers wore their inexperience like Aloha shirts, loud and ugly. Maybe you'd see it in Prince Fielder's face after a rough at-bat, or in Rickie Weeks' body language after he kicked a ground ball. They were learning on the job, and some of the lessons overwhelmed them.
Watched a lot of their victory over the Nationals on Tuesday, and their transformation continues to come rapidly. There was Weeks hustling back to run down a blooping hit, turning and firing a nearly perfect throw to second base -- where shortstop J.J. Hardy picked the ball cleanly and dropped a tag on the sliding Robert Fick.
There were whispers among scouts last year that Weeks was so poor defensively he might have to be moved to the outfield, and guess what? Weeks has been among the most efficient fielding second basemen in baseball, committing one error so far.
Hardy got two pitches to hit last night, a hanging breaking ball and a first-pitch fastball. He clubbed a double on the first, and blasted a homer on the second, which is what good hitters do. There was once a fear that Hardy was going to be a good-field, no-hit kind of shortstop, and this morning, he ranks 18th in the majors in batting average. You watch the quickness in his swing and you realize this is no fluke. The man can hit.
Jason Simontacchi pumped a high fastball to Fielder last night, the kind of pitch that most left-handed hitters can't get to, with their free-flowing, lowball-killing swing -- and Fielder absolutely crushed the chest-high pitch, tomahawked it, driving it over the wall for a three-run homer. The way Fielder is hitting, he is headed toward a 45-homer, 135-RBI type of season, and the fact that his plate discipline is steadily improving tells you he will be less prone to slumps.
In the seventh inning, Gabe Gross misplayed a fly ball, extended a Washington rally, and put Milwaukee's one-run lead in jeopardy. And Matt Wise came out of what has been an exceptional Brewers bullpen -- sixth-best in the majors in ERA -- and got an out, picking up Gross.
A veteran scout has recently seen the Brewers. "They are for real, no question," said the scout. "They are not going away."
