Enough hair-pulling about the possibility of winning 81 games. Time to focus on the Brewers. The Bucs get them five times in the next ten days, with four day games that may or may not be sunny and warm.
The Brewers should be better than last year. Will that Lyle Overbay start on a tear like he (and Craig Wilson) did last year? Is that J.J. Hardy a player? Will pitchers not named BS step up for them?
Quick comparison of the teams.
Catcher: Chad Moeller vs. Benito Santiago. Small edge Pittsburgh.
First base: Lyle Overbay vs. Craig Wilson. Evenish.
Second base: Junior Spivey vs. Jose Castillo. Small edge Spivey. For now. Long-term Castillo is clearly the better option.
Shortstop: J.J. Hardy vs. Jack Wilson: Wilson.
Third base: Branyan/Helms vs. Wigginton: Even? The more Helms plays, the better for us. Branyan scares me.
Left field: Carlos Lee vs. Jason Bay: Evenish. We need to see how Lee adjusts to the NL.
Center field: Brady Clark vs. Tike Redman: Even. Clark, like Spivey, has not had many seasons with 300 ABs.
Right field: Geoff Jenkins vs. Matt Lawton: About even. Both these guys have been pretty spotty. Jenkins has had two great years (2000 and 2003) but disappointed last year. Lawton was better last year. Both guys have been hurt a lot.
Bench: Our bench is better.
Rotation: Sheets vs. Ollie - tie; Davis vs. Wells - Wells; Santos vs. Redman - I dunno; Capuano vs. Fogg - I dunno; Glover vs. Williams - Hrm.
Bullpen: Ours is clearly better. Mesa over Bottalico, Gonzalez over Adams, Torres over Turnbow, etc.
The Bucs look better to me. They should win three of five here.
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