For three years, Ben Sheets has been a one-man version of the Cubs’ two-headed nightmare.
The Milwaukee Brewers counted on him to lead their pitching staff, but, like Kerry Wood and Mark Prior, his health let them down every time.
A very intriguing dynamic has been at work in Milwaukee this season.
Sheets has been both remarkably healthy and maddeningly inconsistent. The Brewers have won anyway.
That’s a very good sign for the shelf life of the first-place team in the National League Central.
General manager Doug Melvin built his pitching staff with the idea of being less dependent on Sheets. It looks like the signing of free agent Jeff Suppan, following trades over the last four years for Chris Capuano, David Bush and Claudio Vargas, might be the move that gets them over the top, especially if Sheets fulfills the potential he flashed as the ace of the U.S. gold-medal team in the 2000 Olympics.
Sheets was only 1-2 during the Brewers’ 16-9 April, his victory a complete game on Opening Day. He left a start April 25 against the Cubs with a strained groin but returned strong Tuesday, beating the St. Louis Cardinals as part of Milwaukee’s three-game show of force.
Sheets struck out three and walked one in six innings, spotting his pitches much better than he had through most of April. He created an adjustment in his release point that made all his pitches better, especially his curveball.
“My curveball got better,” said Sheets, who starts Sunday against Pittsburgh. “Everything just looked sharper. I think it can bode well in the future. As I’m healthy, I’m going to eventually figure things out.”
While Sheets was searching in April, the Brewers’ deep staff turned in a 3.81 ERA. That’s the kind of solid start that breeds confidence. The sweep of the Cardinals demonstrated how Ned Yost’s team has grown up.
St. Louis arrived in town with an empty locker where the late Josh Hancock would have been dressing. The Cardinals could be excused for being conflicted as they returned to work while still mourning the death of their teammate, but the Brewers handled the situation exactly the way a good team should.
They extended their sympathy through personal gestures while seizing the opportunity to put more distance on the team that has been the best in the Central since manager Tony La Russa arrived in 1996. Milwaukee outscored the Cardinals 23-3 in the three games.
“They’re going through a tough situation, but they’re the world champs for a reason,” said Yost, the fifth-year manager. “Once they set foot on that field, they’re doing everything they can to beat you. We played a pretty good series.”
That’s been common this season. The Brewers dropped only one of their first 10 series, when they lost two of three to the Cubs at Miller Park the first weekend of the season. They entered Saturday having won 16 of their last 22 games.
Geoff Jenkins, the senior Brewer, doesn’t think it’s a fluke.
“We just have better players, bottom line,” he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “We’re a better ballclub.”
With the understated Suppan (4-2, 2.55 entering his start Saturday against the Pirates) proving to be a foundation piece, the Brewers finally seem to have the pitching to go with a talented lineup.
It doesn’t hurt that shortstop J.J. Hardy and second baseman Rickie Weeks are healthy and that Prince Fielder (.281-7-23) is showing why some people talked about him as an MVP candidate. The left-field platoon of Jenkins and Kevin Mench (a combined .321-7-25 entering the weekend) has been a revelation.
“Instead of hoping to make things happen, we expect it now,” Fielder said.
Moving fast
A part of Ryan Langerhans hated to leave the Oakland Athletics. “I enjoyed my time here,” he said, keeping a straight face. He had been with the A’s all of two days.
Langerhans, part of Atlanta’s left-field platoon at the start of the season, was traded to Oakland on Monday. He joined the team Tuesday in Boston, went 0-for-4 with a walk in two games and then was traded again after Wednesday night’s game, this time to the Washington Nationals.
The A’s seemed a little sheepish about their handling of Langerhans but decided they’d rather have Chris Snelling, a 25-year-old outfielder from Australia, when the Nationals offered him for Langerhans.
“I would say this is not something we’ve done before, but as soon as we concluded the trade with Atlanta, Washington called, and it sounded like he was a guy they’d wanted for a while,” said David Forst, an assistant to Oakland GM Billy Beane. “Snelling is a guy who, when he’s healthy, is an offensive threat.”
Give Langerhans credit for not taking himself too seriously. “You’ve almost got to laugh,” said Langerhans, who hit .068 in April. “You never see anything like that.”
Show and tell
Reliever and native Texan Mike Stanton held his own jewelry showcase when the Cincinnati Reds visited Houston last week.
On Tuesday he walked into the visitors clubhouse at Minute Maid Park carrying a plastic bag that held seven diamond-encrusted rings: four from winning the World Series (three with the Yankees, one with Atlanta) and three from reaching the Series. His League Championship Series rings also came from Atlanta (two) and the Yankees (one).
Injured Reds reliever Eddie Guardado had asked to see the rings, so Stanton, 39, brought them out of storage. “Just a little incentive for the boys,” Stanton said.
With the exception of the strike season in 1994, Stanton made 11 consecutive trips to the postseason with four teams: Yankees, Braves, Red Sox and Rangers. He hasn’t been there since 2002.
Worth considering
The Royals’ promotion of the sweet-swinging Billy Butler makes right-handed-hitting right fielders Reggie Sanders and Emil Brown expendable. Either could be short-term fits for the Cubs, allowing Matt Murton to play right field on a daily basis for Triple-A Iowa.
Murton’s a big-league hitter, and the Cubs haven’t had enough of those in the last two decades. But with Alfonso Soriano in left field through 2014, the only way for Murton to fit long term is in right. You wonder if he can get the playing time to make that adjustment on a roster that includes Jacque Jones, Cliff Floyd and Felix Pie.
Brown, a Chicago native, averaged .287, 16 homers and 84 RBIs over the last two years with Kansas City but no longer fits in an outfield that has Butler in left, David DeJesus in center and converted third baseman Mark Teahen in right.
Butler’s going to be fun to watch. He won two minor-league batting titles and was hitting .337 with six homers and 23 RBIs in 25 games at Triple-A Omaha.
Thumbs up
To Padres minor-league right-hander Cooper Brannan, who is making strides in extended spring training and is a candidate to play in a short-season league this summer. A former Marine infantryman, Brannan served two tours in Iraq and lost a finger in a grenade explosion before starting his baseball career. “He’s improving,” said Grady Fuson, San Diego’s scouting and farm director. “He’s got a lot to learn, but his attitude’s been great.”
Thumbs down
To 69-year-old Hall of Famer Orlando Cepeda, who was arrested when the California Highway Patrol found marijuana and a white powdery substance in his 2001 Lexus. Cepeda’s attorney said he’s innocent, explaining that a relative is diabetic and has a prescription for medicinal marijuana. Cepeda spent 10 months in prison in 1975 on a charge of smuggling marijuana and since 1990 has been working for the San Francisco Giants, delivering anti-drug messages to schools. Here’s hoping this is a misunderstanding.
The last word
“It seems like you should be killing him. I haven’t been able to figure it out yet. He’s great at what he does.” — Marlins third baseman Aaron Boone on Philadelphia’s Jamie Moyer, who lacks velocity but is 3-1 with a 2.65 ERA.
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