It's time for Make the Call, a weekly discussion on the top Wisconsin sports stories of the week.
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Now, it's time for Make the Call, the Civic Media Sports Production.
It is another weekend here on the Civic Media Radio Empire.
Jimmy Cusca, Civic Media Sports Director here, bringing you along for another weekend review in sports.
as we take a look at everything that's happened in Wisconsin in the past seven days.
As always, on this program, joined by Gray Gunderson in the Northwoods.
Gray, welcome aboard.
Good morning.
Thank you, Jimmy.
And of course, Parker Olson at headquarters.
in Madison.
What's up, Parker?
Good morning, fellas.
Always excited to be here.
Always ready for the Top 8 at 8, Jimmy.
The Top 8 at 8 indeed is what is yet to come.
I am, again, Jimmy Cusca over here representing Western Wisconsin and the Driftless area.
We've got all parts of the state covered so we can dive in to the biggest topics of Wisconsin sports this week.
It is the Top 8 at 8 as we, I guess, formally kick off summer now that we've made it through Memorial Day weekend and we head into June and in the Top 8.
we look at the top eight sports or not sports stories from the week and we start with number eight and count backwards and number eight in our top eight at eight to get us going is a football topic because as we talk about this it is the very end of May and why not talk football the preseason schedule is for announced this week and before you turn off the radios that we're not analyzing preseason football the radio Jimmy before you do that just want to say the schedule came out and it does create an interesting conflict
in August, and that is that the Packers and Vikings have both put preseason games on Friday's opposite high school football.
The Packers did it on back-to-back Fridays, weeks one and two of the high school football season.
The Vikings did it just for the first week of Minnesota's high school football season.
So my simple question to do this is, why NFL schedule makers?
Why are we going up against high school football with practice NFL preseason football?
I don't get it.
I don't like it.
That's my entire reaction to this.
I think that's a complete reaction, too.
You know, I think, uh, you know, as they, as they say in many avenues of life, no, is a full sentence.
It's really good.
If you're trying to be a more assertive person, no, is a full sentence.
In this case, why is a whole question that I've, I'm sitting on this like, and, and we know the answer, guys.
Let's not pretend we don't know the answer to how this happened.
Ka-ching, ka-ching, but.
Is nothing sacred?
Is nothing sacred and immune from the money flow?
Parker, does this end or does this just keep continuing into every day of the week?
Does this end?
Guys, the Packers are playing on Wednesday before Thanksgiving, fellas.
Come on.
Oh man.
Right?
I die.
And Christmas Day.
And Christmas Day, yeah.
Is nothing sacred or the holiday's not sacred?
Come on now.
It's not even just the Packers.
The college footballers started doing this, too.
I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure the Badgers have a couple of Friday night games this year, too.
They have in the past.
They play on the Monday or the Sunday before Labor Day, which is fine.
There's no one at Bell.
But then they play on Black Friday, which is kind of weird.
That sets up a really weird football week, by the way, for people in Wisconsin, because the Packers play Wednesday.
You've got the Thanksgiving slate.
And then Black Friday is Badgers, Minnesota.
And then there's nothing Saturday or Sunday.
the tail end of deer hunting season.
So it is a really like the schedule makers this year, uh, for Wisconsin sports team just decided to be extremely weird.
The Packers play on like every day of the week.
Uh, they've got a Wednesday, a Thursday.
Um, they got, they got a Saturday, the Fridays, a Christmas day, and obviously some Sundays and a Monday.
So the only night they aren't playing this year is a Tuesday, uh, which I think is the only night that the NFL has not yet taken over.
Do we.
Do we not?
There's prime time just too much.
I think prime time's too much now.
I love my noon on a Sunday game.
Can we just go back to that?
Packers have like, what?
five new games out of 17 this year.
And their entire preseason schedule is in prime time as well.
So not only do they have the Friday games, but they're also playing them right opposite the high school football windows at seven or eight o'clock, which, again, I'm whining because I'm a high school football coach and that's what we cover.
A lot of our stations that are Packers affiliates now have to decide, do we cover our local team or do we put the
Packers preseason game on the radio.
All the Packers say you gotta run preseason.
So it does create a whole list of effects.
Traffic in Green Bay for the one home game on that seven o'clock day.
Like all those teams in Green Bay are moving their high school games the Thursday or Saturday.
They're guaranteed.
I'm going to break the whining cycle here, not because I disagree with this.
I'm with this.
This is my spirit animal right now, but I'm trying to cultivate an attitude of gratitude lately.
So I would just like to point out that somehow they dodge the international game bullet that hits so many other teams.
That might be the only redeeming factor aside from the more reasonably timed by week, but you get my point.
The only way it could really be worse is if they were in Brazil or Dublin or London.
Sorry, Jaguars.
It's just always going to happen to you.
All right.
Well, the Packers have the action schedule, the NFL.
So we'll take that for what it was there.
Schedule looks a lot like Toledo once we get to November.
All right.
Let's move on.
Number seven in our top eight and eight, speaking of important things, our very old Parker vertical Olson took part in tarps off at Ampham on Monday when the Miz struck out about 36 batters.
So I got to ask this.
What's the best group fan celebration that exists in sports right now?
Oh.
If you say the wave, you're banned.
Well, the wave is the wrong answer.
I don't know if I have an actual answer, but I know that there are wrong answers, and the wave is that.
Tarps off?
I mean, tarps off is fun.
It's not so much of a celebration.
Unless, eh, maybe it's a celebration of the game.
Everyone going tarps off having a great old time.
I feel so attacked right now.
I was just about to make a very reasonable case for why the wave was going to be my pick because of the essence of simplicity.
Hey, look, look, here's the thing.
You've got, and I'm not going to, I'm not going to say that it's the coolest celebration ever, but it's got one thing that almost no other one has and it's quantity.
You can either have quality or you can have quantity and quantity is a quality all its own.
So when you can get the whole stadium doing the wave, irreplaceable.
That said,
I got to give a call out to the rivals, and yes, Jimmy, I'm going for two this week because you just stabbed me in the guts with those critiques you gave me.
The Skoll fan chant, the Viking Skoll chant is cooler than any rival should be.
I admire it.
It's kind of neat.
Can we ban him twice Parker?
Can we can we do that?
I can
I'm a manager.
It's a virtual studio.
I can
manage.
We can't do anything.
He's purchased management class.
So we can't do anything.
All right.
Well, I got two for you as well.
Jump around at Camp Randall is my personal favorite because when you experience that in person in the press box, especially when it starts moving, you're wondering the whole thing's coming down.
That's such a cool moment with that.
I will give you one very annoying take too.
I figure if Gray's going to do it, I'm going to do it too.
It's been a minute, but if I don't remember Voo Voo Zellas in the World Cup, they made their way here
for a
bit.
We ordered a bunch for the semi-pro football team I covered and it was so awesome to just annoy the crap out of everybody we played that year.
I kept one in the press box with me for like timeouts.
So yeah, and then of course I had a few in my garage as my kids were growing up and they discovered them and they discovered how fun it is to be the most annoying.
Noisemaker on the planet.
So I'm giving you those two this week just for fun Especially at the World Cup coming up here in a couple of weeks.
So yeah, we'll talk more about that next week Let's go to number six in our top eight at eight.
We saw this picture
Around the interwebs a couple days ago, and we thought we had to comment on it erin rogers with the buzzgud Looks like he's gonna be playing power forward for bull Ryan's badgers, but more to the point I'm curious if you guys are giving any attention to the Rogers McCarthy reunion in Pittsburgh I feel like as far as this kind of story goes It doesn't we haven't talked about it a lot and I don't hear a lot of like Packers fans talking a lot about the fact that they're Super Bowl former Super Bowl winning coach and quarterback are reunite
a decade later in Pittsburgh.
There's a lot of reasons for that too, Jimmy.
Most of which to me is that these guys, neither of them have really been on many competitive teams since they left Green Bay.
And so the idea that they might have something left in the reservoir that is fresh and new and ready for the changes that the NFL has undergone since they won that Super Bowl 16 years ago.
Let's just appreciate that.
That Super Bowl victory is almost old enough to vote.
So it's like, okay, if these guys have something that nobody else has, why haven't they used it before?
now and sure, old dogs can learn new tricks, but that's not what these guys are about.
Maybe McCarthy's got something that he thinks he can have Rodgers do.
But if Rodgers disagrees, the track record shows he'll just disagree with the coach and play coach himself.
So clearly these guys think they're in a better spot than when last they worked together.
I don't think there's any reason to believe that until I see it.
To answer the question, I'll give this as much attention as they demand.
And that's nothing right now.
Like if they go out, if they start hot and they win the first two, I'll change my tune here.
Parker, am I in my off base?
No, I think you're actually right on the dot.
That's pretty much exactly what I was thinking, too.
I'm not going to pay much attention to them while they're just kind of rolling about, but if they've actually got something cooking, then yeah, I'm going to pay some attention.
The Packards, I believe, play the Steelers in preseason, so maybe that'll spark my interest for a night.
But after that, they've got to start winning for me to really care.
I will watch the last game, though, for
Rogers.
Yeah, Rodgers is still going to throw for 4,000 yards of this year.
I don't know who's going to throw him too, but you know, it's what's going to happen if he can stay in it for the whole year.
It's going out party and I imagine someone like him is going to.
probably take it a little more seriously than what we're used to.
I want to move quickly to number five in our top eight eight eight because I want to ask about any any favorite memories from the Badgers Hall of Fame class inductees.
There are some big names in this Chris Borland, Sam Decker, Melvin Gordon from from sort of the bigger sports.
But there's there's a number of other sports represented as well.
But I figure that just from the few headliners there, maybe you guys have some favorite
memory from when they played recently
here?
It's honestly hard to pick one from Sam Decker because those Badger basketball teams were so good in the early mid-2010s.
I remember a couple of wins against Arizona, a lot of fun.
I believe he hit a three that basically scraped the roof against Arizona in the NCAA tournament.
There's one memory that is oddly sticking out to me right now.
as opposed to, I don't know, beating undefeated Kentucky in the Final Four, that was a pretty good memory too, Jimmy.
Yeah, I had the same Decker shot in the high school basketball tournament stands out for me.
That's pre badgers, obviously, but as far as a badgers memory, Melton Gordon's 408 against Nebraska was so cool.
Just seeing him just tear up that the Nebraska Wisconsin thing, by the way, the forced rivalry that they put a trophy in, they said they were going to make they were trying to make this happen.
And unfortunately, fetch didn't take here.
But Wisconsin Nebraska, that rivalry never materialized because Wisconsin was too busy beating the
beaten them just bad.
I mean, 63 points in a title game, all that.
It was pretty cool.
Let's move on.
Speaking of teams that are doing well in competitive environments, let's talk about the Brewers real quick here at number four in our top eight today.
We got a couple minutes left here in the segment and we're going to talk more about the Brewers at the bottom of the hour.
We're going to deep dive on them again this week because we're at the one third mark and it's a good time to kind of look back and then look ahead.
But I want to talk just in this part a little bit about their success over some of
the top teams that they've played, they are 23 and 12 against teams that are over 500 entering the weekend.
And the Astros are below 500, so they can't improve on that record.
But they've had a tremendous month of May, nearly two to one in the window loss ratio.
I'm just curious if you have any takeaways, guys, from just the very recent success the Brewers have had.
I think we kind of saw this coming a bit with guys getting healthy right around now, right?
100%, yeah.
Now that you're actually starting to see some guys come back with yellow
and Vaughn especially, and Churio obviously as well.
They're been a really big part of that, but I think the big takeaway from that record is the fact that they've been able to do it against impactful teams, which has kind of propelled them up in the rank, in the standings.
They swept the Cubs, they swept the Cardinals.
Those were absolutely huge.
A little bit of drama against the Cardinals, sort of, kind of, not really, I don't know, we'll see what happens in July when they play for five games.
But yeah, I...
I think the main takeaway is that the brewers are still the brewers.
They're not down like some people kind of thought that they might have been this year.
Although with that said, I don't know how much I'm really buying of this being that important because you have to remember last year, I believe they swept the Dodgers in every game in the regular season, and that didn't go too well in the playoffs.
We're going to talk a lot more about the Brewers coming up at the bottom of the hour.
We'll deep dive on where they're at and where they're going.
Next segment, we're going to talk Packers, because OTAs have gotten underway.
We're going to talk about all the things happening in Green Bay.
And we'll do that coming up next as part of Make the Call.
Let me remember, Mike Clemens joins us too later in the program to recap the week in sports.
His style, much more concise, much more professional, probably.
It'll snuggle us having some fun here on a weekend.
It is Make the Call, part of the Civic Beauty.
Radio Knowler.
Welcome back to Make the Call on Civic Media.
We continue a log on the top eight at eight here on Make the Call on the Civic Media radio network.
I'm Jimmy Kasko, along with Greg Gunderson and Parker Olson.
We are moving on to number three in our top eight at eight, the Packers OTAs, the first session now in the books.
And the question is, are there
Any reactions you have to what you've seen in this very, very early going of the current Packers roster?
Great.
We know that there are a lot of things happening just within the roster itself with some of the recent additions with the new defensive coordinator, a lot of these schemes.
I'm just wondering if you have any big takeaways from what we've seen in the first two days of organized team activities so far.
Well, as you can imagine, Jimmy, we're pretty early goings here.
And a lot of the things that we're seeing take place, like who's taking first team reps, for example, may more reflect what's going on that day than what will happen in August and in September when we get to preseason and the actual games.
And actually preseason is what I'd like to mention first.
The vibe I'm getting is that there's going to be a lot of things tried during the preseason.
And that's, I mean, that's what a lot of teams do.
They use it as the final decider, see who can handle a little bit more pressure.
And hey, maybe we've got two guys at a position.
that look pretty equal, but one just doesn't do well under those lights.
You never know when that kind of stuff will show up.
So pre-season is going to have a lot of things shake out for us, but there have been a couple of things you can glean, like who might be there until Micah Parsons is back, by the way.
It looks like the three knee surgeries, Micah Parsons, Tucker Kraft and Zach Tom, are going relatively well.
Everybody's on schedule, but
It still remains to be seen how late in the season Parsons will be back.
And of course, he might be the biggest absence.
It looks like Baron Sorrel is going to be the one who steps in in lieu of Parsons for at least the beginning of that.
If you go by those first team reps again, we might see something completely different and there's still time to add players to but.
seconded on Tucker Kraft's recovery there.
So I think the tight end room is going to be pretty quiet until Tucker's back.
Maybe Luke Musgraves takes a leap.
Frankly, if he doesn't, I think we might end up with a different tight end, too, going into next season.
Otherwise, it was pretty quiet and the big question remains, what's the defense going to look like?
That said, I haven't heard any reports about defensive ends covering passes a scary amount.
So I'm not too terribly worried about anything I've heard so far.
I'm afraid, though,
By and large, it's a lot of hurry up and wait with one major highlight, guys.
Trey Smack is having a solid start to his OTAs.
He's smacking them, but he did miss one wide right earlier this week.
Seven of eight from 25 and 35.
And if he's missing from within 40, that's not great.
But this is the time to iron out those issues.
He's a drafted kicker in the era of the new K-Ball rules.
So we expect a lot.
Trace Mac is what I would consider the highlight here of the OTAs because he has been clearly consistently successful in a way that even the bystander can tell.
And there's not much of that this early on.
So just as a good reaction to what's happening at OTAs, I am curious now, and this will be number two in our top eight today, if there's any moves that the Packers need to make.
Obviously, there are, you mentioned the injury questions, some availability concerns too at the Packers and other positions as well.
I'm just wondering if you think there's any moves the Packers need to make.
between now and maybe the start of the more formal training camp in July.
Yeah, I would say there are a couple things to keep track of most of the players added both through the draft and through free agency were direct addresses to needs like Zaire Franklin coming in for Kway Walker, for example, Benjamin St.
Juiced for for Nate Hobbs.
So there's a couple direct moves, but there is one glaring room that's lacking a little bit right now.
And yes, it's part of some ugly headlines.
We won't touch on that.
But the running back room is absolutely no matter what that situation going on in the
news turns out to be.
Even if we've got everybody we might have, we still need more because we lost Emanuel Wilson to the Seahawks last year.
He replaced Kenneth Walker, the third who's now a chief.
You've got that going on.
We're at least one running back shy.
And if you look at the list of free agent running backs right now, it's a lot of players between teams and maybe close to the end of their career.
Najae Harris, Joe Mixon, you've got Austin Eckler comes to mind.
So is there an attractive option?
Not to me, but we need somebody.
So hey, maybe a camp body.
There's a couple of UDFAs.
Don't be surprised if a packer's running back.
Well, makes the news good or bad.
I don't know.
Packers running backs are going to be in the news, the ones that we have on the roster, regardless of who that is.
I think it's going to be really interesting to see what Marshawn Lloyd does.
He's somebody that the Packers, I think we're really excited about at first, right?
But they just have not had the health, and Gray has got his hands up going, oh God, Marshawn Lloyd.
The guy stresses me out, and I'm sure he's going through it too.
He's had the most unfortunate injury history between knees and appendixes and things like that.
And now Parker, I'm a little bit worried because he sat out of OTAs earlier this week for an undisclosed reason.
If we've got an update on why that happened, I haven't seen it yet, but man, I'm hoping he had a cold because at this point, if you look at him wrong, I think his knee blows out.
I just, I'm worried.
I'm worried.
I'll admit.
You can't hurt his appendix again.
You know,
it's a one-time only thing there.
I too would look at the running backs and what's in free agency.
And I see a lot of guys that have like six, seven, eight, nine, you know, years of NFL experience, right?
So a lot of guys, as you said, probably at the end of their career.
I mean, there's a couple of names that I think Wisconsin folks would love.
You know, Dariah Goonbowale is probably one like, oh yeah, Badger coming back.
But you know, like the names, yeah, you look up and down the list, you're like, well, I don't, other than maybe diehard fantasy players, like you probably don't recognize a lot of who's available.
It is an interesting conundrum that, you know, an unfortunate for the Packers, through no fault of their own that they find themselves in for running back.
I think another position where you might see someone signed between now and the summer, I think any position on the offensive line, it just feels like there's a death piece missing up front.
And I know we had a meat and potatoes kind of look at things, but in a lot of defensive focus, but the offensive line was something in the draft, they only made one draft pick.
They did have some UDFAs, but I just feel like there's
another person coming in, at least one coming in a short depth there.
100% Jimmy, you can never have too many offensive linemen because there aren't enough of them for every team in the league.
32 teams, you want five, six, seven, maybe even eight offensive linemen, eight's probably a pretty solid number.
And there are not 256 starting caliber linemen out there.
They're just aren't.
So if you can add extra pieces there always and have they,
Great question.
Yeah, it'll be really interesting with the offensive line with that'll look like we are out of time on the Packers talk in this segment.
We have a lot to talk about in the back half of the show.
Mike Clemens will join us to recap the weekend sports in short form style.
Michael join us near the end of the program.
But in our next segment, we are going to deep dive on the Brewers.
We are at the one third mark of the season.
We're going to talk about what's been most impressive and maybe what's yet to come for the crew.
We'll do that next year.
to call part of the Civic Media Radio Network.
Welcome back to Make the Call on Civic Media.
We are through half time of Make the Call here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Jimmy Gray, Parker hanging out with you this weekend recapping the weekend sports.
And speaking of recapping, we can recap a bit of the season so far for the Milwaukee Brewers.
And this is number one.
In our top eight and eight is the brewers at the one third mark.
Uh, what have we been most impressed by?
What are we expecting yet to come?
With the brewers and i'm going to lead it off like this guys because I think you can't understate how big the month of may was for the brewers They were they were in last place in the nl central which by the way has every team over 500 right now uh, or add over 500 I should say and uh They were in last place in this division at the start of the month.
They are now
multiple games up on the Cubs and Cardinals going into the final weekend.
They will be in first place when the month ends, regardless of what happens with the Astros this weekend.
They had a 23 and 12 record against teams over 500.
That won't change because the Astros are several games under 500.
No other team in Major League Baseball, with one exception, has more wins over teams over 500.
That would be the Cubs, by the way.
The team that the Brewers just swept, the Cubs 25 and 20.
They have played the vast majority of their schedule against teams with a record over 500.
The Brewers are 23 and 12 against teams over 500.
Conversely, they are also 10 and 8 against teams under 500 to this point in the season.
And I'm going to start there as my launching off point, because the Brewers did such a good job against division leaders, Dodgers, Cubs, playing the Yankees.
Some really good teams as a blade.
And it's moved them into a position where
You can kind of exhale a little bit in a tough division where you've got multiple games lead.
There's only one team in the entire National League.
You're behind in the loss column two.
Just right now, things looking really good for the Brewers after the one third point.
And a lot of that feel-good feeling comes from the fact that they've done well against teams with good records.
That absolutely makes sense to me, Jimmy, specifically because it happened off the back of last year.
That's what's the most impressive to me is that this hot
I don't want to call it a hot start because it's been up and down, but we're at a hot point in the season here one-third in the year after they put a target on their own back.
After a playoff run last year, regardless of how that went, they lost a couple of players and they marked themselves as somebody to, hey, look out for the Brewers.
So strictly speaking, if I'm any other team, I'm looking at the Brewers and thinking we got to be ready for that if they're on our schedule.
It doesn't seem like people have done that.
I mean, when you pitch that well, when the Miz is doing the Miz things, there's only so much planning you can do, just like the GM of the Cardinals mentioned in an awkward interview with Mike Clemens earlier this week.
But that said,
Anytime your small budget and you have success last year next year is going to be extra tough and they're rising to the challenge That's what really kind of puts the the cross on the tee to me is that it should have been harder and they're making it look easier
I think what's gonna be really interesting now is that they do have that target you're gonna be getting so much more of the team's best because What are they four games up or so in the standings right now in the central?
And that's legit now.
We're a third of the way through.
This stuff actually matters now.
It is, we're getting into June, we're actually saying that like, yeah, the Brewers are what, 13 games over 500.
This is a good ball club, right?
They're going to start to get a lot of teams best stuff.
This week with the Astros, maybe not going to be quite as much of a threat, but I'm really excited about seeing the Giants, the Rockies, a lot of winnable games there.
I think eventually they'll go down to the A's, where again,
Another not awesome team.
There is a lot of opportunity for the brewers to separate themselves here because they're not going to be playing against really, really good teams.
They're going to be playing against some teams that are kind of floating around 500 more so right.
So they've got a what four game lead right now in the central that could grow by a lot.
you know and and the other thing the biggest factor in the lead that they've that they've established for themselves is that they have not a lot a lot of runs in fact There's only one team in all baseball.
That's a lot fewer runs that would be the Dodgers who have a payroll that is I don't know something like you know the GDP of like the 11th biggest country in the world 178 runs a lot the Brewers have allowed 181 and the bats have started to come around as well as the Brewers have gotten Healthier so things are starting to balance out on that front, but just the pitching you
think of what the Miz has done, Jacob Mizorowski.
You had to see him in person, Parker.
You know what that's about.
Obviously, with Kyle Harrison, with other guys stepping up, the pitching, once again, whatever they've got going on in the pitching lab with Milwaukee and their chain of development, and the guys that they find they bring in seem to be doing well too.
It's amazing when you think about just
you know, the Brewers of the payroll they've got.
I saw this week with the negotiations with ownership and players and where the salary cap floor might be and the Brewers are one of like 12 teams that aren't even close to it.
And I'm just I'm amazed that, you know, they're doing so much more with less than other teams.
And, you know, I
He just hats off to the fact that they can develop under without the ability to go out and just spend a gob of money on whatever random free agent or Spend a bunch of money to retain guys like Willie Adamus or other guys who have lot Corbin burns and all these big-time players that have gone on And become stars elsewhere as well.
They're doing this.
I don't want to say a duct tape and rubber bands, but Pretty close
Yeah, it's kind of, yeah.
I mean, the budget has never exactly been there for the brewers, ever.
Who knows what will come of those negotiations that believe that there was a floor and a cap proposed from those negotiations.
I want to follow that a lot as we get.
closer to that.
Remember, folks, enjoy baseball, because who knows whether or not they'll play next year, because that's going to be a big issue, I think.
But right now, when you're looking at the Brewers, yeah, they're doing a lot with not a ton of stuff.
But also, they've got depth.
During the off day, I was watching a little bit of Nashville Sounds, a AAA team for the Brewers.
They've got probably the first like six guys in their batting order are guys that you're either
really excited about for them to get to the big leagues for the first time.
There's a pretty good handful of guys there.
Cooper Pratt obviously just got signed to a big deal.
Jet Williams, another guy that they're going to be having come up I think hopefully this year, maybe once we get in more of the dog days of summer here.
There's all sorts of guys in there that
have been there before, right?
Tyler Black is one of the guys that he might get called up.
I can't remember.
I believe it's Beto or Beto.
I don't know how to say his name in Outfielder that they got.
I believe in one of the trades in the offseason.
There's a lot of guys that are Major League ready that are still in Nashville and they're not with the Brewers yet.
So if the Brewers do run into injuries again, which
Obviously, you don't want to happen, but we've seen them get through injuries fairly well already.
I think that they're going to be perfectly fine.
Honestly, it's really weird to say that, but I think they're going to be really fine if they run into a lot of position players getting into injuries when you've got so much depth there at AAA.
I think positionally, like the one spot where they can't afford injuries, probably third or shortstop, that side of the infield has had a little bit of issue.
But that being said,
I just you know, the brewers have the number one prospect in baseball right now They've got as you said a lot of depth AAA especially when you talk about pitching and things like that Uh, I it makes me wonder now and this kind of leads into the second part of my question at the one third mark You know, we've got two months till a trade deadline So I'm just wondering if there's uh, if there's any moves that we make is there uh, is there is there a best yet to come yet for Milwaukee?
I I I'm just kind of
Shaking you guys magic eight balls here and just curious, you know what you guys think if there's there's a you know We know about the prospects.
We know that they changed their lineup quite a bit They're not shy about moving guys around to get through things I'm just wondering if there's there's pieces that maybe the brewers need or or Or things that you like to see them do here in the next couple months kind of solidify where they are in the standings Which is currently at the top of that
signs point to yes
Ask again late.
Sorry.
Those are magic eight ball answers.
You you sent me down that path I mean for me It's that that interior the infield the left side of the infield that third base shortstop question Honestly at this point I don't think I would I would do anything but trust what I see there But I'll admit I'm a little down on where the prospects are at we talked about it a couple weeks ago And I haven't dove as deep as I'd like to since then but I know Parker has Parker What's going on on the infield or is there somewhere else I should be looking?
I mean, I think
Jet Williams and Cooper Pratt, I know I talked about them a little bit already, but those are the two guys that I'm really looking at that being the moops and I know that this would be an internal
moves with call-ups, not trades, but I really do think that those are the two guys that you should be watching right now, because they go on that left side of the infield.
The birds, one of their blessings, is that they've got a lot of short stops, and they've been able to move those around the infield.
I believe Bryce Turing by trade was a short stop, if I remember correctly, and his arm just wasn't fantastic at one point, so they had to move him over to second, where he ended up being a platinum clover.
I would very, very much like to see something with Jet Williams or again, shortstop Cooper Pratt, he's shortstop.
He could move over to third.
And I think that actually get some production there because what we've got right now, Louisa and Hippo, he's not my favorite.
We've got a handful of guys that have played third base that have not been my favorite before.
So I think that could be it.
When we get close to the trade deadline though, they're going to be buyers, it certainly seems.
I'm not really sure what you need right now, Jimmy.
You've already talked about the pitching depth.
We know about the minor league depth that is in the infield.
What else could they need?
What could they address?
So one thing I will say this, I don't think this actually exists in real life, but
I would take a long pause if I was an opposing GM of the Brewers called Nathan Offer and said, oh, by the way, we're looking at this picture of yours because look what the Brewers have done in training for pitchers and what they've turned around Kyle Harrison this year.
I mean, he's crazy.
I mean, what three or four earned runs in the last.
I think eight stars or something, something crazy like that.
So if they're going to get pitching help, I think teams are going to be very wary of the first call about pitching.
So I do see that if they do make a move, it's going to be dealing from depth, maybe from outfield depth to find somebody to play third base or show up an infield spot because that might be the one area where you look at it like, ah, you know, that doesn't seem right right now.
Like you said, there's just kind of an odd fit right now.
But besides that,
The plank's so well, it's really hard and we're nitpicking at this point.
We don't really have a glaring.
a glaring hole where we say, hey, we got to deal with this.
A lot of what happened early was injuries.
And those guys have come back, you know, Yelich will round into form, I'm sure soon enough, that'll give them a DH, give them a little more roster flexibility around it.
The pitching, even with some of the injuries that have happened there, they've managed extremely well.
And those guys have come back, you know, there's, there's, I think there's three major league caliber arms that are currently on the injured list.
So there's
You know, there's there's depth.
There's depth in weird ways like injury lists.
There's depth in the traditional sense that they can go to Nashville pretty much anytime they need to fill in a spot in the bullpen or even in the rotation.
There's there's a lot of good things on the 40 man roster right now at the Brewer's.
I do think though they will have to address that corner infield spot at some point.
Whether that happens with it's not going to be a big splashy move.
It'll probably be a series of smaller moves, but I see that.
But more to the point.
If they can keep limiting runs, defense wins championships, right?
If they keep limiting runs, there's not a whole lot of reason to worry over the final two thirds of the season, in my opinion.
And that's largely, I think what we concluded last week that the decision, like if they were to elevate either Pratt or Williams, it might actually come down to who they would demote and what kind of batting power they want to keep.
But like you said, if they have a defensive focus, maybe we just keep things the way they are and a slightly hotter bat from Jet Williams isn't worth dropping anybody who's doing a decent cleanup job.
So like anything makes sense.
And just like Parker, excuse me, Jimmy, thank you for mentioning that we're nitpicking because I think we need to call that out.
I think we're spoiled that this is the conversation we're having.
about where they need to improve.
And that's probably the carry away for any brewers fan.
These are the golden days.
Let's cherish them while we know they're current.
I completely agree with that.
Brewers, again, this weekend in a series with the Astros, you can find them.
We have them on six different civic media stations around the company, so you can listen to them in Wisconsin or even the Upper Peninsula.
Pretty much, you can't really go very far in Wisconsin without finding brewers on the airwaves on one of our civic media stations.
Truly, the sounds of summer with baseball.
And I'm glad we turned the page to June.
I think this is when people start getting serious about the standings and where things are kind of going.
And that makes me very excited because, man, I love going to AMP.
I love tailgating and taking my kids to the ballpark and getting them around the bases on Sundays.
That's so cool.
I never have to do that as a kid.
You know, my first MLB game was 19.
I was 19 years old in my first MLB game.
My kids got to go when they were like one.
So they probably don't even have memories of their first game, but they got to go like right away.
So I'm always excited about it.
We got to wrap up the show though.
Mike Clemens is standing by waiting for us to be quiet and he wants to talk professionally about sports and we'll get out of the way from him.
He's next here on Make the Call on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Welcome back to Make the Call on Civic Media.
One final time for Make the Call here on Civic Media Radio Network, my comments standing by the recap of the weekend sports.
But we are at the end of the program, which is the time we ask ourselves, did we miss anything in the sports world today?
And that is what I pose to you, Parker, Gray, our final thoughts here on Make the Call.
Jimmy, I'll actually jump off as something you mentioned a couple minutes ago.
You mentioned that your first
Brewer game, I believe it was or was it your first MLB game was that you were at 19 years old and I immediately was thinking what was mine.
I was 13.
It was our eighth grade class trip and I just wanted to share with you the memory because I bet you guys have one similar.
We were watching brewers versus the Braves.
We were sitting pretty close to the front row in the left outfield and the lady behind me really, really liked the player standing right in front of us.
And so she spent the whole game screaming.
Ryan, Ryan, I love you, Ryan.
And if you wonder how long a human being can do that, it's at least the length of a baseball game.
I could not believe the lungs on that lady.
And finally, during the seventh inning stretch, Mr. Braun turned around, looked her in the eye and gave her a wave.
And so she spent the next two innings.
Ryan, thank you.
It's irreplaceable.
There's no memory I will ever have that will touch that for weird, for positive, and the Brewers got the win that day.
Parker chopped that
I can't I've got nothing on you there.
I've been to I don't remember what my first game was.
I think my first brewer game
I believe it was against the Cubs.
Oh, I was probably a seven or eight or so sitting, sitting very high, not in the, not in the first or second row, like you were great.
You had the best seat in the house, right?
Yeah, that's true.
I could see it all from up here, could see everything from up here.
Um, but yeah, I, I will say real quick that I am going to be turning on the French open, Yannick center got upset earlier.
Uh, so the men's game might be a little more open and less Novak joke, bitch wins again.
Please don't.
There you go.
Those are our final thoughts for the week.
My first game, by the way, was actually a Twins game, and it was at the Metrodome.
So the Metrodome is always an experience when it existed, especially if you're a fan of unusually sized rodents running around the upper concourse.
Anyway, that's my note on my final thoughts this week.
Not a great happy thought.
We do have to turn it over to Mike Clemens, who has the weekend review in sports.
We turn it over to Mike now.
Make the call.
Civic Media Radio Network.
Have a great weekend, everybody.
A star player arrested.
Hi, I'm Mike Clemens with a recap of this week's sports.
As OTA practices got underway Tuesday in Green Bay, we learned that the Packers starting running back, Josh Jacobs, had been arrested on five counts of domestic violence, including strangulation and suffocation, which could be tried as a felony.
It began last Saturday morning at 837 in Holbart, Wisconsin, just west of Lambeau Field, when 911 calls came in.
TMZ 4 has learned more about what went down Saturday morning at Jacob's home.
Dispatch audio lets us listen in as first responders answer the woman's call for help.
A
few minutes later Dispatch received a second call about that incident from a concerned next door neighbor.
Dispatches are later heard saying the man suspected in that assault was not there.
He drove away from the home in a Mercedes G-Wagon, but that easily spotted SUV was being tracked with license plate reader cameras.
In the end, deputies and an ambulance responded to the call of Jacob's
home.
to get to where we are right here.
I know there's going to be a lot of questions about Josh.
I'm going to stick with the statement that we put out as an organization and just let the process play out.
That's Packers head coach Matt LaFleur.
So we asked why would the district attorney in Green Bay release Jacobs after police had filed those five charges against him the next day.
Wisconsin attorney Brent Iceburner.
It's not as uncommon as you might think.
Just because you're arrested doesn't mean you're guilty.
The police have a different legal standard to arrest somebody.
They need to have some sort of probable cause that a crime probably occurred and this person probably committed it.
The district attorney however has a much higher
burden to bring charges.
They ethically can't just charge everybody based on the police statements.
They need to be able to take this in the court and show beyond a reasonable doubt this individual committed this or these crimes.
Do we have enough to charge this individual or not?
Josh Jacobs is valuable to the team.
He rushed for over 900 yards last season, scored 13 touchdowns.
Despite an injury, he is a key weapon on the Packers offense.
The NFL Commissioner's office, however, is keeping an eye on this case.
NFL and former Green Bay reporter Tom Pelicero.
Generally speaking, the commissioner's exemplis, which is paid leave is something the NFL applies closer to.
teams actually being back on to the field.
We are in May, the voluntary portion of the offseason.
Certainly several months for things to play out.
We will be continuing to follow all the developments out of Green Bay.
Packers head coach Matt Loessler met with reporters before practice on Wednesday.
Matt, as far as football goes, do you have to prepare for the possibility that you might be playing some of the season without him, especially this time of year?
Well, I think a lot of, a lot's going to happen between now and then.
Matt, how do you feel about that position in general?
I mean, I like the guys that we have, but certainly you can never have enough, that's for sure.
Turning to baseball, the Brewers in Houston this weekend in a series against the Astros.
On Friday night, Milwaukee trailed the entire game, then came from behind to win 5-4 in extra innings.
The hero?
34-year-old Christian Yelich, who's base running.
in the 10th inning from second to third and then home plate to score the winning run manager Pat Murphy.
There's a lot of underrated plays in the game, but that those two.
Those two were great.
You know, the fact that he got the third on a short fly ball to center field, and the fact that he scored on a line drive to right, the kid with an incredible arm.
Offensively, that won us the game.
You know, 12 years in the big leagues, using your legs.
Yeah, I know he's an MVP.
I know he hit, did he hit 40 when you hit it?
40 homers?
44.
Okay, I know he did that, but there's not many guys that hit 44 and can still run the bases like that.
On Monday Memorial Day, the Brewers ace pitcher Jacob Mizorowski threw 57 pitches all over 100 miles per hour to set a new major league record and pitched into the seventh inning.
I asked the Miz if he's been working on his endurance.
Yeah, of course.
Yeah.
In the offseason, that was the focus.
And, you know, I think it came out better on the other side.
So, yeah, I do feel stronger, but nothing crazy.
Did you have fun today?
Yeah, of course.
It's always fun.
I mean, it's always fun to play baseball.
So, no, it was just another day.
Does that number mean anything to you?
Is it surprising?
No.
Just another day?
Yeah, that's what I do.
I throw hard.
That's Brewer's
pitcher Jacob Mizorowski.
With sports, I'm Mike Clemens.
