October 8 Hour 1: Brewers and Badgers Talk

A mind game won before first pitch. That’s the heartbeat of this one, as we unpack why starting Aaron Ashby wasn’t about perfection on the mound—it was about forcing Craig Counsell into a lineup Milwaukee could exploit. We walk through Pat Murphy’s logic, the ripple effects of sidelining a key Cubs bat, and how a bullpen built for length turned a shaky first into a controlled finish. Then we zoom out: what makes the Brewers so dangerous right now isn’t star wattage—it’s optionality. One night it’s eight singles and three doubles; the next, a three-run jolt from Andrew Vaughn, a phone-call moonshot from William Contreras, and Jackson Chourio splitting the park in two. Pressure, contact, timely power, and relentless at-bats add up to a style that travels in October.

We also spotlight the energy fueling this run. Contreras’ Players’ Tribune message—“No one better than Milwaukee right now”—is more than a quote; it’s a statement of identity. You feel it when Jacob Misiorowski’s adrenaline hits 104 and the dugout rides the wave without losing the plan. On the pitching side, Freddie Peralta remains ace-steady, Quinn Priester’s acquisition looks smarter by the day, and the pen’s mix of bridges and flamethrowers gives Murphy the freedom to play matchups rather than pray for length. That’s how you hold back Priester for a pivotal road start and still keep Peralta aligned for the next round.

We don’t shy away from the noise, either. A Cubs column took aim at Milwaukee’s ire toward Counsell; we explain why it misses the point and why respect in rivalry isn’t purchased—it’s kept. Then we pivot to the Badgers: a best-in-tenure opening script at Michigan, a curious QB rotation, unused timeouts, and why Iowa at home feels like the season’s hinge. There’s promise on the line and in the pocket, but decisions have to match urgency.

If you’re riding the highs and lows with us, hit play, share with a Brewers or Badgers diehard, and tell us your bold prediction for the week. Subscribe for more Wisconsin sports breakdowns, and leave a review to help others find the show.

Chapters

• 0:00 Opening, setup, and Brewers focus
• 1:40 Why Ashby over Priester and the matchup game
• 6:30 Murphy’s strategy vs Counsell’s choices
• 11:10 Contreras leadership and team identity
• 15:10 Why Milwaukee is the most complete playoff team
• 22:30 Calling out Cubs media and Counsell fallout
• 30:10 Sponsor break and Badgers–Michigan takeaways
• 39:20 Fickell’s decisions and Iowa must-win stakes
• 47:30 Fan Zone Q&A and season expectations
• 53:30 Hour one wrap and Packers tease

Transcript

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This is Wisconsin Sports on the Go with Trade. Your place for all things Wisconsin Sports. Now, your host, Trage.

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How are we doing, everybody? And welcome into Wisconsin Sports on the Go with Trade. I'm your host, Trage, as we come back here on this October 8th edition of the show here. I hope you guys are enjoying your Wednesday so far. I hope you guys enjoyed your weekend. It was a great weekend, an even better weekend because the Brewers, the way that this series has started against the Cubs, it has been fantastic. So we're going to get into the brewers today. I can't wait. I my wife asked me, she's like, you know, what's the hardest part about preparing for the show? Because as you guys know, this isn't like this is my day job right here. This is, I mean, just uh a Wednesday thing right now. Until we talk, the radio is going to talk about doing more, but as of right now, it's a it's a Wednesday thing. So I have a day job on top of this. So it's like, as what's the hardest part? Getting the material together. Like, what is the hardest part about getting this show? And I was like, it's the intro. I said, it's always the intro. What do you start out with right off the bat, talking about how do you get into it? How do you get with the flow? Because after you get with the flow of things, it's like a conversation. I mean, you just you just kind of it just flows off your tongue. But it's always the beginning. And I today I sat there and I'm like, how am I going to get this show ready? How am I going to get into it right off the bat? And I was, I was easy. The brewers. It was 100% the brewers. What we saw over the weekend there, the absolute domination. And not to mention my favorite part, and this is the part that made me chuckle. Because we said to ourselves, okay, the Brewers know the Cubs, the Cubs know the Brewers. They're going into the series. The managers know each other. The players know each other by now. They've seen each other multiple times. What's going to be the edge? What's going to be the difference? And I know Cub fans don't. There's some that don't want to blame Craig. They're like, oh well, well, you know, the lineup's been bad and they haven't been hitting and this and that. And it's like, okay, okay, I get that. But Pat Murphy outmanaged Craig Council over the weekend, and it was in the Monday night game. We were everybody was confused because the big thing was, why are the Brewers starting Aaron Ashby and not Quinn Priester? We we were all confused. We sat there and it was it was almost, you know, when when it all was happening, or well, when the playoff was getting set up, when the when the schedule was set up and everything like that, we said to ourselves, okay, there is Freddie Perl's gonna start game one. After that, game two, you expected Quinn to Priest. Pretty simple. I mean it was pretty straightforward. Then it was, well, we don't know who's starting game two. And everybody was I mean, everybody, myself, and we sat there, uh, what do you what do you mean? Quinn Priester seems like the obvious answer. It would have been Brandon Woodruff, but Brandon Woodruff isn't ready. So what's gonna happen here? Well, you could go off of, and I did see a stat, that the Cubs are one of the better teams in baseball at hitting the cutter, and they're very good at hitting the sinker. So that's something that Quinn Priester they hit sinkers and cutters hard. That's something Quinn Priester loves to roll with. Maybe that was part of the decision to keep him out of game two. But I, you know, when you really looked at it, he started Aaron Ashby, which was a lefty, which then in turn Michael Bush doesn't hit lefties very well. Pat Murphy played played the game. That's the funniest part. That that was the part that made me change and just made me sit back and go, Pat Murphy just outmanaged Craig Council before the game moved. That I thought. It wasn't a oh well. It was a he made Craig Counsel take out one of his better hitters, and one of the one of the actual like if you there was a list before the postseason even started. What Michael Bush was one of he is one of the better hitters in the postseason in this race. 2025 regular season, he was a 261 hitter, 34 home runs and 90 uh RBIs there. You made Craig Counsel take one of his better hitters out of lineup and put in Justin Turner. Now, I'm not saying that Justin Turner is just some like just some random guy. He's been there. He's I mean, had some of the most postseason experience out of all the guys who were in the postseason this year. I mean, you talk about multiple years with the Dodgers out there, and the Brewers have seen him many times. So this is a guy who's been there, done that. Not quite the hitter that Michael Bush has been. So the ability of Pat Murphy to say, Oh, I like, I like Aaron Ashby's ability to go out there. Now, did it work? No. He gave up three rounds. Suzuki took him deep. Okay. And you saw all across social media everybody freaking out about that. They're like, oh wow, you know, why? Why? This is what happens when you when you start a guy like Aaron Ashby. Why would you start a guy like Aaron Ashby? This was bound to happen. It just came back to bite you in the butt. It did. I mean, it in all in all fairness, it did. It doesn't mean that it was a terrible decision or not a smart move by Pat Murphy. It doesn't mean that at all. You're going to the way that the way that the Brewers have operated this season, if you look at the opening day roster versus what you got now, even what you were halfway through the year, they didn't get this far by doing things the right way. Kosher made sense. None of it made sense. And you know what any lineups I looked at, we all looked at, where we said, what is he doing? What's he throwing out there tonight? What is this? Four hole. How many times did you look at a lineup like that? But they won the game. They found a way to win it. That's exactly what we saw here. Sure, Aaron Ashby gave up three runs. Sure. It was a bullpen game. And it worked out, didn't it? We sit here and we and I I'm I am I am subject to this too and guilty of this. Questioning Pat Murphy and his decisions and what he does. I'm done with it. I I have questioned this guy. I've said to myself, why is Isaac Collins not out there? And I love that quote from Isaac Collins when they said about Jackson Churio, and Isaac Collins said point blank, he's like, This this guy is instrumental to us. He said, I hope he plays tonight. That he's that's what's best for the team. But if if he can't go, I will do my best to step up in that spotlight. Not word for word or any probably anywhere near the quote, but you get the gist. You can go back, look at the quote. It was it's close, it's in the ballpark, right? In the ballpark. But Isaac Collins, when he said that, um, I said to myself, man, that speaks volumes for what this team is. And then I read William Contreras's trip player tribute. And if you haven't read that, I wanted to run through a wall when I read that. I I what I read that and I ran upstairs and I was, I told my wife, I'm like, I gotta get myself a William Contreras jersey because I, you know, I've gone through the phases with William Contreras. I have. I've gone through the phases where I was like, I don't know if he's trying hard anymore, this and that. And at one point this year, I was I was thinking to myself, just put him on the IL, bring Cuero up, just let this guy walk. Like, he's just he's not trying, he's hurt, everything like that. I listened to him, and then I listened to him after the game there uh in that press conference. There is there's nothing more that I want than William Contreras to go up there and succeed at this point and just light the world up. He is they they asked him in that press conference, they said, you know, who are you calling? Because after he hit that home run in game two, he held up the phone to and that that was awesome. That was awesome. Pat Murphy talked about it. He said, you know, about admiring home runs. He's like, well, you know, I'm not gonna tell guys they don't they shouldn't. Like, I think there's an excessive amount, this and that. And when he he watched that thing go and he like ring ring answered the phone and then hung it up, and they asked him, they said, Who are you calling? And he said, 'Brewer fans.' And I I was yes, I William Contreras, this whole thing, and listening to Andrew Vaughn, listening to McGill and them give praise to Aaron Ashby. This team won because they're a team. To round it all out to where I was going. This team won this season because this is how they did it. It wasn't right. It didn't seem like it was gonna go right. They're like Isaac Collins said, this team's playing with house money. They're not supposed to be here, they weren't supposed to win this many games. There was they had no they have no business doing what they're doing. But how did they get there? That's what the the biggest thing that I think we we love to hate is that the brewers love to do things in unorthodox. They don't do things the way that we've envisioned them, right? You think to yourself, oh, the Dodgers. It's pretty simple. You're gonna roll out Yamamoto, you're gonna roll out Glasnow, you're gonna roll out Kershaw, whoever it is. You have your starters, boom, boom, boom. Phillies have their starters, boom, boom, boom. The Brewers, they've been thrown for a loop a couple different times because you thought Jacob Mizerelski was gonna be a guy, and then he struggled. He pitched great in game two, we'll get to that. But you have a guy like Jacob Ms. He wasn't gonna be able to fit the fold as a starter, you didn't think. Brandon Woodruff came back, he was fantastic. He gets hurt, he can't go in this series. So then you have to think to yourself, well, what now? How do I throw a monkey wrench into this? Because I feel like, I feel like, and that's where Pat Murphy was, I feel like we have this thing. We know what we have to do. We have a deep bullpen, which is rested, because you look at what game one entailed, they were blowing them out. They didn't have to really work through the bullpen in game one. So you look at it and you said to yourself, I have this rested bullpen, what do I do with it? Okay, I can pitch a bullpen game in game two, and I trust my guys, and this was the thing too. I trust my guys, but at the fore end of that of that trust, I have Jacob Mazarowski. I have Robert Casser. I have guys who can extend this thing as starters forward, and I can save Quinn Priester. One of the better pitchers in baseball this season has been Quinn Priester, one of the better trade accusations that word butchered it last week. I'm gonna butcher it again this week. One of the better trade deadline adds before even the trade deadline, Quinn Priester to the Brewers. You get to have him for game three of the series in Chicago with a chance to go to the NLCS. I it's setting up just like that. And then you can have Quintana go in game four, and then you would have Freddie Peralta for game five, if needed, back in Milwaukee. And if you don't need him, if Gwyn Priester can win this game, you have Freddie Peralta for game one in the NLCS. Even possibly if game four you pitch Quintana, they win, you still have Freddie Peralta for game one in the NLCS. So you have now opened this avenue where you have a lot of pitching options and a lot of ability to get yourself out of places. The Cubs, and this is where Craig Council outmanaged himself once again, and this is where I'm praising Pat Murphy and saying that Craig Council has, in fact, struggled Matthew Boyd game one and Managa game two. It shouldn't have lined up like that if you're Craig. But this is where the Brewers, being the way that they are, this is where they've taken advantage of it. And that's where I'm getting at with this whole thing. The Brewers, the the decision to go with Aaron Ashby in game two was Brewer baseball. Didn't have to make sense. It made sense to Pat Murphy, and it got Craig Counsel to tip his hand by pull putting Justin Turner in there right off the bat. It brought in the flexibility for the Brewers to okay, now Nick Mears, they did burn Nick Mears for a third of an inning, but then they got the lead. You saw Jacob Mizarowski come in, and they just ran with it. Maybe that wasn't playing the whole time. You never know. What I'm saying is, man oh man, what a start to the series. What a start to this for the Milwaukee Brewers, this playoff run. And I I listen, you know, you listen to that, or not listen, but you read the player tribute, and I think I was listening to a guy read it. Uh, he's from ESPN, Milwaukee. I can't remember his name off the top of my head, but he was reading it, and you listen to what William Contreras said, and he said, you know, basically, there is if there's a better team out there, he hasn't seen one yet. I I truly believe that. After watching game one and two of this series, I truly believe that. And I'm going to explain why. I'm going to explain why when I come back from the break here. I'm going to explain why I believe there truly is no team that I have seen right now in this playoffs that is better than the Milwaukee Brewers. I'll explain it when I come back from the break here. We'll be back here after the quick commercial break. We are off and running. Hour number one of two is just getting going here. We'll be back into Wisconsin Sports on the Go with Trage. I'm your host, Trage, as we come back here on this Wednesday. And hey, this next segment here, we're going to continue that brewer talk. This next segment is brought to you by 1891 Winery. They celebrate history with flavors. Sip on artisan wines crafted on location, or grab a cold beer and pair it with a giant pretzel or pizza. Catch some football, baseball. We got breweries going on right now. We got playoff baseball going on right now. We got packers coming up. We got badger footballs. It's there. So, I mean, there's all kinds of stuff you can watch down there. Check them out there. 1891 Winery, veteran owned and operated 1891 winery. They're in Greenwood, Wisconsin. You're only a stranger once. That's your motto there. They're open Fridays, 4 to 7, Saturdays 11 to 6, and Sundays 11 to 5. Follow on Facebook for upcoming events there. You can also plan some private stuff there. Just give them a call down there. 1891 Winery. Check them out there on Facebook. So coming back from the break here, I had I said right away, I said we're gonna go into the my opinion of why I believe the Brewers are still the best team in the baseball right now. But I wanted to read something. So this came from William Contreras, and I kind of mentioned it there off the top of the show, but I didn't have the full quote here. But this is what I had mentioned off the top of the show here. This was from the William Contreras player tribune that he did and that that they wrote for him. And this is what he said. So he said, I still have a little regret, regret years later, for being rude to my agent about the trade. Milwaukee? Wow, what a wrong way to react. Now I hope I spend my whole career here and I hope to be on the first World Series winner in Brewer's history. It'll happen, I bet. It's like Bob always said, no one better than you. Well, actually, Bob, probably some are better than me. I'm not the best. None of our group is. But if you're telling me another team is the best, man, I swear I haven't seen them. No one better than Milwaukee right now. No one better than us. I love that quote. I I heard that. I like I said, I was listening to uh the guy down there from ESB and Milwaukee. I heard that. I wanted to run through a wall, I tell you. That that quote right there, that got me jacked up for Brewer Baseball on Saturday. And then I was just all in. I mean, I was already all in, don't get me wrong, but I was all in on some brewer baseball. So that was awesome. That was awesome there uh from William Contreras. So I went to the break and I said to myself, I said to you guys, well, I said to myself, I said to you guys, the Brewers were the best team in the playoffs. And I wanted, I'm gonna explain why. Why I believe the Brewers are the best team in the playoffs. So if you want to mention, if you want to text into the show, make sure you're doing it. 715-990-4914. Then it's 715-990-4914. I'd love to hear your guys' thoughts on the Brewers, my next comments, anything like that. I believe the Brewers are the best team in the playoffs, and this is why. When I watch the rest of these series, when I watch the Phillies, when I watch the Dodgers, when I watch the Yankees, some of these other teams, even a team like you could, I don't know if you'd say the Blue Jays, because Blue Jays can hit. Just looking across the scope of the playoffs right now. I say to myself, which teams have multiple ways to beat you? Like you look at the Yankees. I don't believe the Yankees can beat you. The Yankees can't beat you. Okay, I'm not even gonna say I don't believe they can. The Yankees can't beat you without the long ball. They can't. I'm watching it, I'm seeing it. We're watching it in this series against the Blue Jays. How do they come back? Long ball. How did they lose? How do they get out of this series to begin with? They couldn't hit it. It's real simple when it comes to the Yankees. Even a team like the Phillies, they haven't been able to connect on the long ball. Why are they losing 2-0 in a series right now to the Dodgers? They can't connect on a long ball. Kyle Schwarmer becomes irrelevant when the long ball isn't there. The Brewers have this crazy ability where we watched it over two games. No, I know game three is happening as I'm talking right now, so I can't vouch for what's happening right now in the Brewers game. But games one and two. Game one, we saw the Brewers go eight singles, three doubles, score nine runs. It went crazy fast there on the Cubs. Game two, we saw him go three-run home run by Andrew Vaughn, solo shot by William Contreras, and a three-run shot by Jackson Churio to dead center there. Set up by guys getting on base. You know, we watched it before Vaughn. You had Contreras dump a single with two outs. You had Yelich dump a single with two outs, and then Vaughn comes up to hits the home run. Contreras, bomb. And then Churio, I think Durbin got hit by a pitch, and then Ortiz singled the center. And that brought up Churio. Ortiz playing an inch. Ortiz is batting really well in the nine-hole right now. I have a bet going on with my uncle. He told me that Joey Ortiz is going to hit 300 or above here in this in this series. I said there ain't no way. Right now he's batting above 300 going into game three. So I might lose five bucks, but I'll be okay if they sweep the series because Joey Ortiz went like he said he's gonna go three for four in the series sweep. So if he's right on that one, here we'll see if we'll see if he's listening to this part. I'll give him an extra five if he's right that Joey Ortiz goes three for four. I'll give him ten bucks in total there. Uh going off this series. But the Brewers, they to me are the best team because they do they can win games in multiple ways. Offensively, they get on base, they have guys who can steal bases, they put the ball in play, they make you make they make you make mistakes, they make you have to earn it out there. As we saw in game one, Sal put it in play. You knew guys were busting it around. Nico Horner made the mistake over there at second base. You have those kinds of things that you know, everybody says, Wow, just the Brewers doing this, you know, silly stuff, and you can't win baseball games like that. You gotta hit the long ball. I I really think why did they say that? They just ticked them off. Like going into game uh two of that series, and they just started launching the ball. I I said to myself, I said, they just ticked him off. That's all they did. After that, Andrew Vaughn home run. I was like, Well, they just proved they can hit the long ball too. Watch this. Boom, William Contreras. It was that was that was crazy. That was crazy. That was a crazy uh uh sequence of events there uh in that game one or game two there to start all that one because you had Suzuki go deep in the first top of the first, bottom of the first. Brewers are like, it's I got nervous. I don't know if I got nervous, nervous, but I said, oh boy, here we go. Here we go. Like it's gonna be a game now. And then we watched as Brewers got a guy on two outs, Brewers got a guy on, another guy on, and Andrew Vaughn launched that one, and it was like, All right, all right, there we go. We're back, we're nodded, and then from there, boom, Mizerowski came in, was fantastic, and it all just went there. The Brewers have multiple ways to beat you on offense, and then I look at the pitching side of it. You have a guy like Freddie Peralta, who has been, if it wasn't for guys like Paul Skeens of the world, would be a very good chance he'd have a Cy Young. But you got to deal with Paul Skeens, and Freddie's been fantastic. So Freddie, he's gonna have definitely have some votes there for uh Cy Young. He won't get it, it's gonna be Paul Skeens, but he's definitely gonna have some votes. So you got you got that, you got the starting pitching aspect where you have a guy like Freddie backed up by a guy like Quinn Priester, who's been nothing but fantastic since coming to Milwaukee. And then you have Jose Quintana to back that thing up. You have guys like Ms. Rowski out in the bullpen, you have Robert Gasser out there, Logan Henderson's supposed to be on the men. Maybe we see him as they get further into the playoffs. We'll see on that one. Brandon Woodruff, hopefully, right? Knock on wood. We see him back and healthier pretty darn soon. You got this pitching staff, though it seems deep. The thing with it is they have a lot of length in their bullpen. And when I say length, I'm looking at the guys that they have out there, and I think that is a strong suit of this team, is the the ability that they have where they can go to an Aaron Ashby for multiple innings. His longest outing was, I believe, like three and a third. You could go to an Aaron Ashby for three and a third, you could go to a DL Hall for three innings, and you could feel comfortable. Grant Anderson could go a couple. I don't know if you feel real comfortable. He's been good this year. Tobias Myers when he's on the roster. I don't know if he's not even on the roster, but when he's on the roster there. You have a Tobias Myers that can go for you. Chad Patrick's been fantastic for uh for the Brewers this season, and he was fantastic in that game, too, there. So you have him that you can talk about there. You have a lot of options out there in the bullpen, and that's not even getting to the high-leverage guys. When you look over at the high leverage guys and you say to yourself, oh, now we have guys like Jared Canning who's been good. You have Nick Mears who's been good. Aaron Ashby can actually be roped into that grouping if you wanted to rope him into there. And then you talk about a guy like Abnier Uribe and Jared, or not Jared County. We said Jared Canning twice there. Um Trevor McGill in that grouping there. You have your high-leverage guys. The Brewers have depth. And depth that they can go, that you can trust that you can have a bullpen game with a lot of arms and a lot of talent. That's where I thought Craig Council, when he was saying, Oh, I'm gonna go bullpen, he doesn't have that depth in that bullpen like the Milwaukee Brewers do. And that I don't think you look across the board, the Phillies would probably have one of the better bullpens. And the Phillies are on the fast track out. The Dodgers' weak point is their bullpen. The Yankees don't have a great bullpen if you can get to a guy like Devin Williams. And then, I mean, Bednar, the Brewers have hit Bednar in the past, so I'm gonna say the Yankees aren't a better bullpen. Uh, let's see. We look across there, the Blue Jays, solid bullpen. I'm not gonna say that they're better than the Brewers, and then Mariners, I don't like the Mariners bullpen. I the Brewers have a darn good bullpen. So you look across the board, you look who has the most complete team. I would say the Milwaukee Brewers, if they don't have the most complete team, they're pretty darn close to whoever you would say is, or whoever you would say does. So I I at that rate, I'm just putting it out there. The Milwaukee Brewers to me, I think, are the best team in this playoffs. Now, is that saying that these other I is that saying that the Milwaukee Brewers have the best talent? No, I'm not saying that they have the best talent. Because you could look and say the Cubs have a more star-studded lineup than Milwaukee Brewers. Sure. You can say the Yankees have a more star-studded lineup. You can say the Dodgers, of course. You can say the Phillies, yeah. But when you put it all together, when you say, and that's where I think why I read that quote off from William Contreras. When you put it all together, who can you say has the better team than the Milwaukee Brewers all the way around? I I haven't seen them. I haven't watched them. I'm watching these other series out there. I haven't seen them yet. This is a really good Milwaukee Brewers team. And I think we have to sit here and just appreciate it. I see way too much complaining across social media. Why is Murph doing this? Why this? Why that? Why don't you just sit there and be like what I do? I take a Miller light and I sit down and I crack it at the first pitch. And I that's my that's my go-to. I put on my Willie Adamas jersey and I crack that and I sit on the couch and I watch the game. And what happens, happens. And I get jacked up with it. I'm one of those guys. I okay, as you guys just got out of that, I'm a superstitious person. I do those same things every time. But I got that, and then I'm one of those people that I'll yell. If I'm gonna go to the stadium and yell, I might as well yell at my house too. I'll yell. Not right now because the kid's sleeping upstairs, so I gotta be a little quiet. So it's like a you get the fist pump going on, and I thought I threw my shoulder out the other night. I was fist pumping so hard. When William Contreras hit his, it's just like, yeah, you know, you just get fired up. You gotta get fired up. I I have no, I understand the people are like, why do you get so like crazy about this? I get that. I get those people, but I also get the people that get super excited for games, even when they're sitting at home. I'm good at those people too. I get it. I'm there. I almost broke my grandma's ceiling fan when Vito Brown hit a three-point. I think it was against like Notre Dame or something like that in March Madness. Vito Brown hit a three and I jumped up and I I my grandma tells me I almost broke her ceiling fan. I don't believe her. I don't believe her, but she says I almost did. So if I if it is broken to this day, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for that one there. But I'm one of those fans. I just get I ride the highs and the lows. We talk about it all the time. We might as well ride the highs and the lows. So I have no problem with those fans out there. But anyways, anyways, when we come back, there was a quote. There was a quote from a Cubs insider, not an insider, but a blogger, journalist, whatever you want to call them. I want to read it. I want to read a little bit of that article. Not well, not the whole thing. Just give you the gist of it. We're gonna read that because this Cubs journalist believes that the Brewers see the Cubs and Craig Council as their World Series, and that's the way that it is. So yeah, I want to talk about that when we get back here from the break. So we're gonna talk about that. We're gonna get some badgers, we're gonna get to the end of the hour here, get to hour number two on the backside here. So we'll be right back here on Wisconsin Sports on the Go Trade. Jeff Sports on the Go with Trade. I'm your host, Trage, as we come back here on this Wednesday. And hey, this next segment here, we're gonna talk a little brewers, then jump over to the badgers. This next segment is brought to you by Casa M Spice, the low sodium, clean label, no MSG, no fillers. When I said low sodium, I know I had a lot of people going, Wow, no salt. What's he talking about? How do you make a good seasoning blend with no salt? Or at least low sodium, right? I don't know how they did it. I don't know. 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Make sure you're checking them out. Casa M Spice there. So if you want to chime in to the show here, make sure you're doing it. 715-990-4914. That is 715-990-4914. I'd love to hear your guys' thoughts on anything happening. Brewers, packers, badgers, everything in between. Love to hear it. And make sure you're checking us out across social media, Wisconsin Sports on the Go with Trades. If you want to find the podcast, also there, Wisconsin Sports on the Go with Trades across all podcast platforms. So I went to the break and we were talking Brewers, and I saw this quote when I was at the break. So they asked Jacob Mizorowski because he had that flip. It was a ground ball back to him. And you would have thought, you know, average day you'd have flipped it to Andrew Vaughn, and he ended up running it all the way to first base. And you had them, you were thinking, like, why did he run it all the way? He could have just flipped it. Flipped it. He didn't have to do his full sprint over there. And this is what he said. He said, I was honestly scared to overthrow Vaughn or do something stupid. I yeah, because then he asked him, he's like, they asked him about his celebration after because he got jacked, right? He was jumping, he was uh flexing the arms, everything like that. He said, I had the adrenaline pump and I didn't really know where my feet went. I love that. I absolutely love that. I know I have a buddy of mine, he's he always says, you know, uh Jacob Ms. Rowski has too much emotion. I can agree, having too much emotion can get you into trouble if you can't control your emotion. I'm good with this, though. If he gets if he comes off that mound and he's fired up, I love that. I love the reaction that he had. It got the crowd fired up, it got me fired up. It it made me think and know Jacob Mizorowski's feeling it tonight. And you, well, we knew that when he came in pumping 104. Like, just I when he came in, I looked at my wife, I was like, you're going to know how much his adrenaline's pumping by this first pitch because I bet you it's gonna be about 104, 103 on the dot, and then he went 104 with the next one, 104. I was like, Yep, he's feeling it. He's definitely feeling it tonight here. That was awesome, it was absolutely awesome to see there uh from Jacob Mesrowski. So I love that quote there. But I saw this, it came from the article was written by Paul Sullivan from the Chicago Tribune. And I I'm not gonna go through this whole thing here, but basically saying he said like council was treated like he stole the beer money of 40,000 fans. He's been lustly booed there uh before both games and during trips to the mound and blah blah blah. He's talking about this. It just he said I took uh psychology class at Mizzou, and my theory is they resent the fact that the Cubs that Chicago is a world-class city with great architecture and restaurants. Well, Milwaukee is a place with a statue of the fonts, it's that simple. Wow. Everyone has their heart broken at some point, but eventually you move on. Milwaukee refuses to move on from Council Snub, even though Murphy has been remarkably efficient replacement. I gotta be honest with you, and you can go read this article yourself by Paul Sullivan there. What a dink. Dink. I said dink. What a dink with an N. I just I I hear that. And you know what? Sure. Sure. The the Brewers have, I mean, I I don't think the Brewers sit here and we go. I don't think we sit here and we go, well, I'm jealous of the Chicago Cubs. You won okay, they won the World Series back in 2016. Okay, great. I'm not really jealous of the Cubs at all. I what have they done elsewhere? What have the Bears done that the Green Bay Packers haven't done? What has um the oh well you can say the bulls, sure, with Michael Jordan. You need Michael Jordan to do it for you. Outside of that, what has the Chicago what Chicago Cubs, the Brewers as of late, what happened in game 163? You had the division all locked up, the Brewers tied it, they beat the Cardinals, tied it. Well, game 163 in Wrigley, and the Brewers beat you. Yet the Brewers have we we we look up to the Cubs, we look up to the city of Chicago? No, no. Actually, we your stadium is identified as a toilet bowl, Chicago Bears. Uh, outside of that, what else? I mean, honestly, at this point, what else are we what else is the city of Milwaukee looking at and saying, wow, we love that? The problem that I have with Craig Council, it's it's always going to be. I watch the videos where Craig says, nothing like Milwaukee. I love Milwaukee. This is my home, this is my place, and he took money to go somewhere else. I love Pat Murphy. I'm glad Craig Counsel left. I'm good with it. It doesn't mean that I respect Craig Counsel's decision that this was the place he went for money. It was about money. My biggest problem in life is that everybody and every athlete and everywhere thinks that they need more money, and that drives this whole entire business. It's the problem I have with the MLB. Why guys have to make so much money and there is no salary cap because of the players' union and such. That's a whole nother ballgame to get into. But I I am not gonna sit here and say I have a respect for Craig Counsel for making the decision to go to the Chicago Cubs. No. Craig Counsel, if you if you made the decision to go to the Cubs, you should know full well that the the Milwaukee Brewer fans, the biggest rival of the Chicago Cubs, is going to be the fans are going to be upset with you for years to come. I don't know what you expected. What did you expect? You might say, oh, just get over it. That's fine. I'm like I sit here and dwell on it. Not like it makes, it takes up my entire day. I just sit here and oh, I wonder what Craig's doing in Chicago right now. I don't care. I don't care. But when he shows up, I'm gonna boo him just because it's fun, right? Manny Machado stepped on Jesus Aguilar's ankle in the 2018 playoffs, and to this day I still dislike and boo Manny Machado. All he did was stepped on Jesus Aguilar's ankle or kicked his ankle. That was it. And I still boo and dislike him. You think I'm gonna get over Craig's pretty fast? No. You went to the Cubs, what did you expect? That's like if you quit your job tomorrow, you had a you're great friends with your boss at work, your boss is your best friend in the world, and you quit. And you went over and you worked for the competitor. Your biggest competitor, your biggest rival. Do you think your friend is gonna be very keen of you? Probably not. Probably not. So, no. I I don't care what Cub fight fans think. It it would be as if let's just say, oh, who seems like he's been there for a while. Like an Ian Hap or uh Nico Horner decided just to go to Milwaukee. I'm gonna go to Milwaukee next year. Cub fans would probably not be too happy with that. It's like if Chris Bryant or Anthony Rizzo would have gone to Milwaukee. You don't just do that. That's like that's I don't understand. I don't get it. I really don't. If you're that diehard of a Milwaukee person, like a fan or a uh player, and you love the city and you have nothing but love for the organization and everything like that, then it just comes true that you just dislike the Cubs. So going and playing for the Cubs or playing for the Brewers and then managing for the Brewers and then leaving for a couple a couple extra mil to go and manage the Cubs, the Brewer's offer was still gonna make him, as far as I knew, the Brewer's offer was still gonna make him the highest paid manager in baseball. It just wasn't gonna give him everything that he had there. But if you realistically, if you think about if when I look at it, if I was a Cubs fan, I would be jealous of the Milwaukee Brewers. If I'm a Phillies fan, I'm jealous of the Milwaukee Brewers. If I'm a Dodgers fan, I'm jealous of them. Mets, same thing. Yankees, everybody. You wanna know why? Because the Milwaukee Brewers do so much with little and have the best record in baseball with the one of the least payrolls. And look what the Mets did with the payroll that they had. Look what the Phillies are doing with the payroll they have, the Cubs, the Yankees, all these teams with the biggest payrolls in baseball. How's that working out for you? So you know what this sounds like, Mr. Paul Sullivan from the Chicago Tribune? You know what this sounds like? A guy who's watching his team get absolutely dominated by the Milwaukee Brewers in game one and two, write in an article sobbing while writing it, crying, because he is jealous of the Milwaukee Brewers and has to find a reason to complain. What did you did? You complain about the roof being open too in game one? Did you complain about that too? Because it's controlled by the MLB, not the Milwaukee Brewers. They weren't doing it to get an edge, they weren't doing it for any of that. It's controlled by the MLB. They can't just open the roof. Everything that happens with the roof when it comes to playoff time is dictated by the MLB. So you want to yell at somebody, yell at them. If they wanted to give the edge to the Brewers, that's because nobody likes Chicago. There you go. That's what I gotta say to that, Mr. Paul Sullivan at the Chicago Tribune. That article, if you guys want to read it, you can go through the whole thing. I just read bits and pieces here off to you guys, and I'm I'm at whatever. Whatever. Brewer fans, dislike for Craig Council. You'll never understand it because you don't, you don't, you don't, you're not there. You're not watching the videos from the past where Craig's telling you all this stuff about his love for the city and everything like that. And then you have to watch him go put a Cubs uniform on or Cubs shirt on. That makes you feel good about him. And he went to your rival right after leaving you. That made you feel good about him. It's not that Brewer fans don't love Pat Murphy because at the end of the day, we'd love rather have Pat Murphy. The way that it's gone. It's the way that it ended with Craig and he walked out the door. That's what irritates him. Plus, at this point, it's just, I mean, it's just second nature. It's just second nature. Anything that happens with the Cubs, we dislike it. That's just where I'm at. I just dislike it. If it happens with the Cubs, I dislike it. I'll boot anybody from the Cubs. I don't care if it's Craig Council and Nico Horner, I'll boo them all. I don't like Anthony Rizzle, and I don't like Chris Bryant because of it there. So yeah, I'm I'm that's where I'm kind of at with the whole thing right now. So if you guys want to read that, make sure you check it out from Paul Sullivan there. So I want to jump over and I want to look at the Badgers this last weekend here. They had the game against Michigan. They lost to 24-10. And the Badgers, I gotta say, they had the best opening drive of the entire season. Or actually, I you know what? I'm gonna go crazy here. They had the best opening drive of the entire Luke Fickle era in that game against Michigan. I don't know if it's because they blitzed him and Michigan didn't know what was going on. They threw Hunter Simmons out there and it just threw him for a loop. I don't know what it was. But the Wisconsin Badgers had everything cooking on that opening drive. And you know what irritated me the most? So you go down the field, you walk down the field in the opening drive, you go, I believe it was 75, 12 plays, 75 yards, walk down the field, opening drive, six minutes, 50 seconds, and score. And then Michigan came back, they scored a touchdown themselves. But then on the very next drive, Danny O'Neill comes into the game. And I'm thinking to myself, why is Danny O'Neill in the game? You just orchestrated your best drive of your entire coaching career in Madison. In my opinion. I'm pretty sure it was. And you decide to pull the guy out that orchestrated that drive and throw in the quarterback that you had before. Why? Why mess with it right then? Now, do I think it was gonna make a big, like this big old difference in the world? Maybe not, I don't know. But everything was working off that opening drive. Why not stick with it? We watched Hunter Simmons make some good throws throughout the day, and I thought honestly, him being out there threw this Michigan defense for a loop to start it. They they were conf not confused, but it was a different kind of look. The first 12 plays, scripted plays, were fantastic. They had Michigan on their toes, on their heels, should I say. So I kind of loved what I saw from the Badgers there to start that game. And then they brought in Danny O'Neill, and I was like, why? I would get if Hunter Simmons was struggling. He wasn't struggling right off the bat. And then from there, it just, I mean, they scored that opening drive touchdown, and then from there it just went downhill. And there was definitely, I mean, there was the missed pass interference call that they had on that deep shot he took down the sideline. There was that issue there. There's a couple different issues that I had with this game. One of the biggest ones that I had, and this is where a lot of Badger fans were sitting coming off of this game, was the the lack of, I don't want to say the lack of, but he didn't Luke Fickle didn't use his timeouts in the second half. And the question was, why? Why didn't he use his timeouts in the second half? You can't take them home with you. And they kind of made it seem that if he would have got they would have got the stop on third down late in the game there, he would have used them as it was running down the two-minute warning, but he didn't. My question is, at the end of the day, I don't know if because I know a lot of fans are upset about this one. I don't know that even if you use the timeouts, you get the ball back, whatever. I don't know if it's going to actually like you're gonna you're not I don't know if you're gonna win this game. We've seen crazy things happen in college football, so I'm not saying it was impossible. But at least make it seem like you thought so. At least practice like you think you have a shot. I don't understand why he's done this times before where he he saves these timeouts, middle Tennessee. I believe he didn't use any timeouts in the first half or something like that. Why? Why if you got him, use them. There's something you don't like, you don't like when you see it, you don't like a play call, whatever, call timeout, reset it. Whatever it is, I I just don't understand why we're even talking about because I don't I don't even care if it was a did he have a brain fart, forgot what it what time, you know, the time, whatever. I I don't care. At the end of the day, this badger team, it just seems dysfunctional. And it starts with him because it just seems dysfunctional, like he's not even mentally in the game. How are you supposed to rally the troops and get players into the game when you're not mentally into the game? That's my biggest question. I mean, it yeah, you just had over two minutes and you probably weren't gonna win that game, but act like you're the head coach of this football team. And that's where I think my biggest problem on the day was in a game where, and this is where I had the question earlier. Somebody asked me. They said, are we really at the point of this bat or of being badger fans? Are we really at the point where now we're looking at this and saying this was a good loss because they didn't get blown out? Are we at that point? Yes, yes, we are. That's where we're at. I mean, honestly, that's where we're at. A 24-10 loss at Ann Arbor and in Michigan, and you held close there in the first half, 10 to 7, and then it kind of went south on you. That's it looked better. There was there were moments, and that's where it's this game. There were things you look back at and you say, I kind of like that. There was a few plays by the defensive line where they got to Bryce Underwood, they kind of rattled him in the backfield there. They slowed the outside the run game, that first drive that Michigan had, they busted off that huge one there. I believe it was Haynes that had the big one for 43 yards. They busted off that big one. They gave him 175 on the game. But that a lot of that was on that first drive. That first driveway drive there for him. Otherwise, the run defense, it settled into this one. And the rest of the game looked pretty good. Outside of that first run, you look at it's like a what, 130, 125, something like that. I mean, I'm not exact math there, but the run defense looked good. I mean, again, the run defense came in in this game looking good. They looked good after that first drive. And then, like I said, I mean, the offense, the Hunter Simmons had moments where he looked okay. The offensive line looked better with Heinzen in there in the uh in the center spot instead of they moved Kadonko over, they brought uh Heinzen in, and he ended up playing in the in the center spot, Davis Heinz in there. So he made his first career start there in the center, and switching positions there. The offensive line continues to move, but maybe, just maybe after watching this game, they found a combo that looks like it might work. There's a lot you can take away from this and say, Well, I like that. I like the look of that. And there's a lot of bad, which I think the worst part of the entire thing was looking at this team and saying, Yeah, this is where we're at. We're at the point where a 24 to 10 loss looks good because you only lost 24 to 10 at Michigan. So, I mean, you lost by 14 at this point. You got Iowa coming up here. It's homecoming. You got Iowa, six o'clock game. This Iowa game. What does it feel like? You know what it's it's almost like this Iowa game to me. Is the it's the one chance for this badger team to salvage something of this season. That's what I gotta say to it. This Iowa game feels like this is the one chance for this badger team to salvage something yet. Because I look at this game. After this, they play Ohio State, they play Oregon, they have Indiana left, they have Illinois, they have Washington, who's a decent team, they have Minnesota. If you lose to Iowa, the season's basically kiosh. Because you have Ohio State, Oregon, Washington, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota. Doesn't even matter if you pull up one of them upsets, you still end up with five wins. This Iowa game at home against an Iowa team who you don't know who's gonna be starting at quarterback. They've had their struggles. The defense is still good, but they're still, I mean, Iowa. Iowa is what Iowa has been. This is a game where Wisconsin, if they come into this one fired up, the guys come to play, maybe they can pull this one off, but it feels like this game coming up is their one chance to salvage something of this season, in my opinion. So that's kind of where I'm looking with this one. I was asked the question: did the close loss to Michigan move the needle into feeling better about this team and feeling better about fickle? No. No, not at all. It moved the needle for the team. I think there's a lot of potential. I as I've said before, I think there's a ton of potential on this team. Did it move the needle for fickle? No. I don't count a 14-point loss to Michigan as a move the needle kind of move. Just because you lost a close game to a ranked team, he's done that before. The close loss to Oregon, the close loss to Penn State. He's had easy, he hasn't beat a ranked team. He's had close losses before. It doesn't make me feel better. So, yeah, that's kind of where I'm at with this Badger team. So they got Iowa coming up, six o'clock game coming up, FS1 on Saturday there. So it should be some good stuff there. That'll be if the Brewers do have to go to a game five, it'll be after the Brewer game. After the Brewers win that series against the Cubs, you can watch the Badgers take on Iowa there. So we're gonna come back here. We're gonna wrap up hour number one, we're gonna look ahead to our number two. We got tons of stuff to get to. Yet today here on the show, we'll be right back here on Wisconsin Sports on the Good. Wisconsin Sports on the Go with Trage. I'm your host, Trage. As we wrap up hour number one here and look ahead to our number two here on the show tonight. I hope you guys are enjoying your Wednesday. And this next segment here is brought to you by Foreman's Hardware. They offer you everything from home essentials to farm supplies, house to farm, grills to drills, Foreman's hardware has got you covered. Visit today in Loyal Kobe or Metford, Wisconsin. Tell them I sent you, tell them trade sent you, get 5% off all your purchases down there. So this little next segment here, the fan zone, brought to you by Marshfield Motor Speedway, the half mile paved track, just three miles west of Marshfield on County Road H. Find upcoming events and races at marshfieldspeedway.com. That is marshfieldspeedway.com. This next little segment here, the fan zone, we are going to this is where I answer questions from the fans. And if you want to be involved, message me across social media. Otherwise, check us out 715-990-4914. You can text in your question to the fan zone. This is one that came in. If the Brewers don't make the World Series, is the season a bust? And I got this question last week there. And my mistake, I didn't get to answer it in that. I said last week I'd answer it in the next segment. I completely spaced. I get all out of out of sorts sometimes. No. No. Because, like we've said, and everybody knows, this team is playing with house money. If they go game seven of the NLCS against the Dodgers or the Phillies, if the Phillies make it out of the series, if they go game seven of that and they end up losing on a Shoey Otani walk-off home run or something. Something crazy. I know, knock on what it doesn't happen. I'm not going to call this season a bust. I want to say they ran into a good team and lost. It's the way that it ends. If you go seven games against the Dodgers, the heartbreak's gonna be for real again. Like 100%, you know, because we watched it once before. So the heartbreak's gonna be for real. But I'm not gonna sit here and say, oh, well, that that season's a bust because they lost game seven of the NLCS. No. No. Now is it gonna suck? Yeah, 100%. Am I gonna be upset with it? You're dang right I'm gonna be. Am I going to call it a bust though? No. Now they gotta win the series with the Cubs first. That's 100%. And I they should. Should keyword there should. But outside of that, I mean, you go NLCS game time. If you go get swept in the NLCS, okay. Now, yeah, it's a bust. Now it's like it's oh yeah, you got there again, but you weren't able to get over the hump. So then all those people are gonna come out of the woodworks and say, you should have been able to win it. Why couldn't you do it? Blah, blah, blah. You got those people. So it's not a bust in my book if you are able to push a game set or push it in the NLCS, get past the NLDS here, push in the NLCS, or you get to the World Series and you lose the World Series. Okay, now it's not a bust if you make it to the World Series to lose it. It's just it sucks. It really does getting to the World Series there and losing it. So I can, yes, that's where I'd be at that one. Better acquisition, Priester of Bond. I think I answered that one last week. I'm pretty darn sure I answered that one last week there. I would say probably probably Quinn Priester. I'd say probably Quinn Priester, just because the uh what he's given to this pitching staff this season here. So I would probably say Quinn Priester there. I had a random one. Is that is there anything lazier than not putting a toilet paper roll back on the roller and just setting it on top of the roller? No, not really. I don't know. I my biggest thing is well, not my biggest thing, but I the only thing that I do is I put it on backwards, according to my wife. So I don't put it on the right. I did not know you could put it on backwards. I put it on backwards, I guess. So that's my biggest problem, I guess, when it comes to that. So yeah, that's where I'd kind of be with that. But yeah, so we those are some of the questions I had that came in there. Make sure you guys, if you want to be involved in the fan zone, hit me up across social media. You can send me your questions, comments, anything like that. I'd love to hear your feedback of the show. I'd love to hear your feedback of the show. If anybody has feedback of the show, I'd love to hear it across social media. Make sure you message me there. You can also text me, 715-990-4914. That is 715 990 4914. I'd love to hear your guys' opinions, everything like that at any point in the show here tonight. We're gonna come back here. Hour number two is gonna come at you. We're gonna talk Packers with Ummer here when we come back from the break. We got Packer talk to get to, we got some NFL talk, we got a whole bunch of stuff to get to in hour number two. We'll be back here after this quick commercial break.