Brewers are mediocre vs. everyone but Pittsburgh?

[RU Rah Rah]

This is hardly a news flash, and I'm sure that you could make a similar point about other teams, but I have been wondering about the exact numbers over the past few years:

 

2009: 5-0 vs. Pitt., 41-44 vs. everyone else

2008: 14-1 vs. Pitt., 76-71 vs. everyone else

2007: 10-6 vs. Pitt., 73-73 vs. everyone else

 

I guess this (2 games over .500 over the past 3 seasons against everyone but Pittsburgh) shows the importance of thoroughly mopping up on inferior teams. It also bodes well for the remaining part of the schedule, which will feature the Pirates many times.

 

But maybe the pendulum is due to swing in the other direction? It wasn't too long ago that Pittsburgh gave the Brewers fits, especially at PNC.

[ClubLevel]

Like you said, you could make the same point with any team by taking away the games against the team they play the best against. With the Brewers, it just so happens to be the same opponent year after year.

 

Find the team they do the worst against, and their record against everyone else will look very impressive, so it works both ways.

[JoeHova]

I was thinking about this the other day. Still, given how terrible the Brewers were from 1993-2004, even mediocre is a significant improvement.

[Oldcity]

Also, 76-71 against everyone but Pittsburgh in 2008 is actually quite good.

[endaround]

The were 13-5 vs Houston in 2007 (yep 18 games) and 10-5 vs St. Louis last year. You can always pick out something like that (3-0 vs Cle this year, 4-2 vs Houston).

[Invader3K]

Maybe it just points to the fact that the Pirates are a horrible franchise who should probably be a candidate for contraction.

 

It's hard to believe that the Brewers and Pirates used to run neck and neck for worst franchise in the NL. That seems like almost a decade ago, thankfully.

[RU Rah Rah]

I guess what scares me about it is that the degree of success seems so aberrant. Yes, the Brewers are better than the Pirates, but to the tune of 19-1 over the past two seasons? As a point of comparison, the Phillies (a better team than the Brewers) have gone 22-8 vs. the Nationals (a worse team than the Pirates) over the past two years.

[UeckerAddict]

As long as our dominance over the Pirates continues over the next few days, I'll wait until Thursday to fret over our mediocrity. But seriously, we should be much better than mediocre against the Nationals, D-Backs, Padres, and hopefully Reds/stros over the next two months.

[joepepsi]

Last year the Orioles lost 93 games. They went 3-15 against the Rays, 6-12 each against the Red Sox and Blue Jays. Throw those series' out and they 53-54.

 

Each year there are a couple good teams and a couple bad teams; everybody else is remarkably close. It's not unusual that the only difference between the best team and the mediocre is the rate at which the best teams beat up on one or two other teams.

[RU Rah Rah]

Last year the Orioles lost 93 games. They went 3-15 against the Rays, 6-12 each against the Red Sox and Blue Jays. Throw those series' out and they 53-54.

I am not sure that's apples-to-apples. I was highlighting the apparent importance of the Brewers' aberrant performance against a single team.

[joepepsi]

My point is it's not unusual for bad teams to get walloped in season series' by good teams. The Pirates were 5-18 versus the Cubs and Brewers in 2008. Against everyone else they were relatively competitive.