Though Ryan Braun was named to the NL All-Star squad yesterday along with teammate Prince Fielder, dropping 3 of 4 to the Cubs over the weekend has the Milwaukee outfielder critiquing GM Doug Melvin thru the media. From the Journal-Sentinel’s Anthony Witrado :

“We’re at the point right now where it would be important for us to go out there and acquire somebody,” Braun said.

“I know (Melvin) is trying to make our ballclub better. I know he recognizes the importance of making a move and making it soon, but at the same time I think everybody’s recognized there’s a lot of teams that are still in the race.

“It’s always important to have some momentum going into the second half and to show everybody that we’re for real so we can go out there and make a move and improve our ballclub,” Braun said. “We want to be headed in the right direction, not the wrong direction to go out and do that.”

The preference in a trade would obviously be starting pitching, and Braun let that be known by basically calling out the rotation after it went 1-2 with a 7.29 earned run average in the four games against the Cubs.

“They threw the ball a lot better than our starters did,” Braun said, referring to the Cubs. “They certainly swung the bats better than we did as well. Clearly, they were the better team.”