Which team is for real?  I'd like to think with that lineup the 6.9 runs per game is closer to reality, but right now the two slumps may be telling us something is seriously wrong with this offense.  With another poor start, this time  Kenny Rogers, the Tigers don't have the pitching staff to win with a low scoring offense.

The Milwaukee Brewers signed Rookie of the Year Ryan Braun to an eight-year, $45 million contract.

The contract includes this season and a seven-year extension, meaning Braun will not be eligible for free agency until after the 2015 season, general manager Doug Melvin announced Thursday.

At some point, there won't be any free agents or arbitration eligible players good enough to drive up prices.   I starting to wonder if this will change the way the union looks at the current free agent structure.  This has a real chance of actually driving down prices. If Ryan Braun is playing for $6 million a year, why should you give a free agent $20 million.  Braun's a better player!  It's only taken 30 years, but it appears the owners finally figured out how to use the system to their advantage.

Read more about MLB at Baseball Musings.

La Russa was one of the people who brought us into the whole idea of rigid roles for relievers (although others had played with the idea of assigning roles to a setup man/closer combination, with Davis/Gossage coming to mind).  It would be interesting if he's the man to move us out of that mind set. 

The Red Sox tried this reluctantly in 2003.  They were forced into this strategy by not having anyone good enough to be the closer.  Boston moved to the standard model the next season by picking up Keith Foulke.  Even with the committee, they game within a pitching change of making the World Series in 2003.  If Milwaukee and St. Louis can pull this off, maybe the mind set will change to using the right pitcher in the right situation, rather than waiting for the ninth inning to bring in a closer with a three-run lead.

I suspect pitchers will resist this, however.  Right now, teams pay big money for closers.  If this is seen as diminishing the need for one great pitcher to finish the game, I suspect pitchers will start complaining about need to know their roles.  I hope their managers explain that there will simply be a pecking order, with the best pitcher brought in to handle the toughest situations.  Relievers will then be able to use WPA as a bargaining chip, rather than the number of saves they accumulate.  In that case, everybody wins.

Ryan and Score struck out a ton of batters, which somewhat mitigated their high walk rates.  Newhouser struck out 5.0 per nine.  In 1942, players started to leave the majors for WWII.  Bart Johnson pitched a lot in relief that season, and didn't have much of a career after that.  He did make 18 starts in 1974 with a low ERA, but that was it for him.  His strikeout and walk numbers in 1971 are closest to what Matsuzaka is posting this season.

One thing that's making Daisuke effective is that he's not giving into walks.  He seems to treat them as a mistake he made to that batter, rather than something he has to fix for the next batter.  So rather than trying to compensate by throwing the ball down the middle of the plate, he sticks with his game plan, which works quite well.  With batters hitting just .170 against him, his opposition OBA stands at .298.  It doesn't matter how you get to a low OBA, and so far, all the walks aren't hurting him.  He fools enough batters to keep those free passes from turning into runs.

After the game, Maddux kept the celebration low key.  Hoffman gave him the ball, even though Trevor usually keeps his them as a memento of his saves:

Maddux called it a "cool" gesture, then explained that the best part for him is handing the ball to a loved one. "I'll give it to my kid, let him go play with it," Maddux said.

He had praise his catcher, making his major league debut:

He seemed especially happy for catcher Luke Carlin, who was making his major league debut and caught a future Hall of Famer in Maddux and a probable Hall of Famer in Hoffman.

"He gave a real good target," Maddux said. "He looked like he actually had fun."
Carlin was still grinning well after the game.

"It was kind of like all of my dreams came true at once," said the 27-year-old, who was drafted by the Tigers in 2002 and played six-plus seasons in the minors.

"It was a privilege, an honor. I'm pretty much speechless. How could anybody envision this?"

Maddux did not walk a batter last night.  In his career, he's walked less than one batter per nine innings against the Rockies, his lowest number against a team he's faced for at least 50 innings.

Congratulations to a great pitcher reaching a lofty milestone!