In Ned Yost's Words...

During tonight's broadcast of the Brewer's vs Padre's game, Brewers' skipper Ned Yost was interviewed in the dugout. He was asked why the Brewers would be better prepared this year to win the division than last year. Ned gave two reasons:

1. Last year the Brewers were in the bottom 3 of all NL teams in defensive stats. He felt like a number of games would have gone in the Brewers favor had they played better defense. He pointed out that by aquiring Cameron and Kendall, and moving Braun to left and Hall to third, the Brewers have improved their defense by leaps and bounds. He went so far as to say that when pitching coach Mike Maddox heard that the team had signed Mike Cameron, he said immediately that his pitching staff was better. Just the presence of a gold glove CF would help the pitchers get out of more jams and thus throw fewer pitches.

2. The team wasn't quite prepared mentally to be division champions, and that they had a very difficult time learning how to play with expectations after racing out to a 8 1/2 game lead in the division by June. He noted that the core young leaders of the team had never been through that at the major league level, and that now they know what to expect, they know what it's like to play in front of a packed house every night. What it's like to be featured on Sports Center.

I personally think those are two great, great points, and if we keep our health, there's no reason why we can't win the divison.

P. Higgins
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