To mark the start of the tickets sales, the Arctic Tailgate Party will be back for its sixth straight year. The racing sausages, Bernie Brewer and some old time Brewers will be on hand for the festivities. The first 2,000 fans will get an Arctic Tailgate T-shirt, plus a hot dog and soda. During the event, fans can buy tickets, but the April 6th opening day tickets will be limited.

You can go to Brewers.com to register for the chance to pick up opening day tickets on the 25th, but that ends on next Tuesday the 14th.

The news has been flying around the Web for at least two months now and Brewers fans are hoping like hell that Braun is clean and pulls of a rare win with his appeals process. The odds are likely stacked against him as nobody has ever won an appeal, according to some sources that reported over the last 8 weeks. Radio host, Dan Patrick had some good news for Brewer fans when he put his head on the block and said that after seeing the evidence, he was say Braun was innocent and he should win the appeal. The only issue with that is Dan Patrick does NOT make the call.

News that popped up today shows that the appeal process should be coming to a close and we should be able to hear about Braun in the next 48 hours or so. With this being the off season, MLB has no real urgency to get back to the MVP with their decision, so the fans just might be waiting longer than they want to.

Major League Baseball’s drug policy states that the panel chair, Shyam Das, “shall make all reasonable efforts” to get a decision in 25 days or less. Let’s hope that he can keep to that and we will hear about Ryan Braun some time on Monday.

What do you think about the whole process? If the Brewers lose Braun for 50 games, what record do you see the team with over those 50 games?

The “middle relief” has a combined 14 loses up to this point in 2011.  That is just too many times and I understand that you might have a game where you are only in front by one run, but the “hold” is even more important then.  Right now, Kameron Loe is the one name that creates a special silence over the crowd when he is called in.  He has a 2-6 record and of the 32 innings pitched,  he has given up 19 ER, 4 HR’s, walked 10 and hit 2 batters.  He does have 27 strikeouts which is nice, but that one stat doesn’t really silence the groans.

I am not going to go off and compare Loe to Suppan, but that ERA of 5.23 has got to start coming down.  At least for right now, I am not sure why Loe is the go to 6th/7th inning guy?  Hawkins has pitched well, why not give him a couple more innings per week?  Mitre and Estrade have also held their own when the team needed them, when compared to Loe anyways.

What do you think about the Brewers activity after the starting pitching takes a seat?

In 2010, how many times did Casey McGehee get beaned at the plate?

For those of you that are following, the answer to this week’s trivia question is TWO.  Casey McGehee was smacked at the plate 2 times in all of 2010.  Guess that’s because Prince to most of them :)

If you are good at searching stats on the web or have your own little program you use like I do, this one is easy.  But since it’s really just a guessing game, if you watched games throughout the year, you might get close with your answer.  If you have one, go ahead and comment on this post with it.

Narveson finished 2010 with a 12-9 record, a 4.99 ERA, giving up 21 home runs and accumulating 93 earned runs.  Those stats are ok, but when compared to only a couple other pitchers in any starting rotation, turn out to be not so good.  Now, flash forward to 2011.  I know it has only been about 10 games and Narveson has only pitched on two occasions, but am I the only one that sees a totally different Narveson on the mound?

So far in the two starts for the 2011 season, Narveson is 2-0, giving up ZERO runs and only 9 hits in 13 innings of work.  Striking out 14 (on pace for 140+ in 20 starts) at the plate and with an ERA of 0.00 is pretty good for a BREWERS pitcher.  Granted he is going to get knocked around, but what can be said about confidence when your season starts like this?  A LOT.  Maybe that was part of the issue last season, we don’t know that, but nonetheless, he is certainly more calm than I remember seeing him on the mound.

Do you have as much confidence in Chris Narveson as it appears that I do?  After all, he is no Randy Suppan Wolf, right?

Name ONE of the THREE players from the 1982 Brewers that was featured on a Kellogg’s 3D baseball card.

Ok, no replies again this week, I am starting to think I am the only one the reads this blog.  The answer to the trivia question posted above is:  Yount, Fingers or Cooper.  All of these players were featured in 1982 on Kellogg’s 3D cards.

If you know the answer, or searched Google to find it, just leave your answer in the comments section.  Check out other Tuesday Trivia’s to see if you knew any of those answer when you got some time.

We won’t know, but after watching one of the most exciting games to open the season, it sure would have been nice to at least see John Axford get his first save.  Some said that apparently Axford learned too much from Trevor Hoffman, but I am sure that he was nervous as can be getting the call to put the Reds away in the 9th.  Of course, we all know, it didn’t quite happen like that…not even remotely close.

Axford is a young man and seems to be able to overcome things like food poisoning and late inning rallies, let’s just hope that he can put this behind him and get his 30+ saves for the year.  The team played very well together, the bats are still hotter than ever and the pitching wasn’t all that bad.  There was one blown call when 1st base umpire thought a short fly ball hit the ground before Kotsay could nab it, but a quick reply showed that Kotsay was on that ball in right field and caught it by 6 inches easy.  Things like this happen, but the Reds capitalized on that and continue to dominate late in the game.

The best part is that it’s early in the season and even though Brewer fans were burning jerseys and looking for apartments in Chicago after the first loss, I think without injuries, the Brewers are going to be a force in the Central for sure.

What do you think?

With many new names on the Brewers for 2011, I always like to hear about the youngsters and keep an eye on how well they do playing in the big leagues with seasoned pros.  This weeks question should be quite easy, like the others, so if you know, just post your answer in the comments section like always.

What Brewer Is The Youngest According To The Active Roster?

After taking a quick look at the Brewers active roster posted on Brewers.com, the answer to this weeks question is Zach Braddock.

Of course, there is no prize awarded, it’s more about getting fan interaction on the blog.  So it’s always a good thing to click the “LIKE” button too :)  Maybe someday we can give away a gift card to the MLB Shop once we find a friendly way to run a contest.