CONSECUTIVE CASEY

Casey McGehee has gotten a hit in each of his last nine at-bats.  The Major League record for consecutive hits is 12 by Pinky Higgins of the Red Sox in 1938 and Walt Dropo of the Detroit Tigers in 1952.

Higgins streak included two walks and therefore spanned a total of 14 plate appearances.  So if you were wondering if the streak can be snapped by a walk, it can not.  Dropo's streak was 12 consecutive hits in 12 plate appearances.

McGehee is currently batting .285, which means there is slightly better than a 1 in 4 chance he will get a hit in his next at bat.  And in his next.  And in his next.  The probability that McGehee will get a hit in each of his  next three at bats is 1 in 43 (2.3%).  The chance that he will get four more consecutive hits and set a new Major League record is 1 in 151 (0.66%).

Apart from today and yesterday, McGehee has had two other 4-hit games in his career.  In each of those two instances, he had a 3-hit game either the game immediately prior or the game immediately after, meaning  that this is the third time he has gotten 7 or more hits in consecutive games.

INJURY BUG

The Brewers are third in the National League and sixth on all of the Majors in total number of player days on the DL.  That surprised me.  It hasn't seemed like this year has been that bad in that regard.  Let's see...  There was Doug Davis, Hawkins, Zaun, Coffey, Mat Gamel - does he count?  Oh yeah, Suppan.  Am I missing anyone? I guess in terms of impact on the team, my perception is that there have been a lot of other years where we have been hit harder than this.

ANY RELATION?

OUT OF RIGHT FIELD

(Took a brief hiatus, but I'm still here.)

The signing of Corey Hart took me by surprise, as it seems to have most everyone else.  Just a few initial thoughts...

1.  This does not necessarily mean that he won't get traded anyway.  In fact, having him under a 3-year contract might improve his value in a trade.

2.  But, by that logic, Ryan Braun would have even more trade value. He's younger and has a much more favorable contract.  But Melvin wouldn't do that.  Would he?

2.  But, the Brewers now have this group of players signed and/or under their control at least through the 2012 season - the next two years.

SP	Yovani Gallardo
SP	Randy Wolf
SP	Manny Parra
SP	Chris Narveson
RP	Carlos Villanueva
RP	Zach Braddock
RP	Mitch Stetter
CL	John Axford
C	Jonathan Lucroy
C	George Kottaras
SS	Alcides Escobar
3B	Casey McGehee
IF	Mat Gamel
LF	Ryan Braun
CF	Carlos Gomez
RF	Corey Hart
OF	Joe Inglett
OF	Lorenzo Cain

That's a pretty impressive, solid nucleus of talent.

3.  But, that same nucleus of talent, plus Prince Fielder and Rickie Weeks, is currently 9 games under .500.

4.  But, that nucleus of talent is young.  Save for Randy Wolf and Joe Inglett, they are all under 30 years old.  They could get better.

5.  But, seven of those players are past their 27th birthday and at the theoretical peak of their careers (Parra, Narveson, McGehee, Hart, Stetter, Axford, Kotarras).  You can't expect that those players will get much better.

Five years ago, when the huge wave of talent came spilling out of the Brewers minor league system all at once, there was an enormous storm cloud on the horizon when all of these players would become free agents.  Doug Melvin has dissipated that cloud little by little and now has only Rickie Weeks and Prince Fielder left to deal with.  I at least give him credit for that.