2012-07-16 Cardinals (Lynn) at Brewers (Fiers), 7:10 PM CDT [Brewers lose, 3-2]

[adambr2]

Let's not kid ourselves. Someone in the front row sneezes, Holliday is a billionth of a second later on that fastball, and it goes straight to Hart. Game over. It's not like Axford got shelled. He literally could not throw a strike. It's fixable.

 

Turnbow lost the ability to throw a strike in early 2008, and by the end of the year he couldn't even get a job in the minors. Inability to throw strikes is not always "fixable".

[markedman5]

Yeah I was wondering the same thing. Every outing is the same....He comes in trying to establish his fastball.....usually falsl behind anyway.....mixes a few curves and never even tries to throw a slider.

 

He is behind literally every hitter......nobody can pitch like that.

 

I don't like Axford's curve ball at all even though it's better than it was... I'm not sure what's up him not using his slider, but that's still his second best pitch. He's only thrown it on 7.1% of his pitches so far this season after throwing it 16% in 2010 and 13.3% in 2011.

[GormanHarvey]

Ax pitched bad but it his outs were bad and the hits were good. I'm sorry but our 3B is a terrible defender and the other two were bloops. Now, if Ax could actually strike anyone out he wouldnt have to rely on luck and defense but it's still annoying.

 

That said, I have no problem replacing him as the closer but does it really matter? Krod will be the closer and Loe the set up man. How exciting!

 

I'm not sure any 3rd baseman in baseball gets an out on the Furcal play if positioned where Ramirez was. He's actually been adequate defensively this year IMO

[brewmann04]

AR even if fielded that clean would not have thrown out Furcal. AX control most of the season has not been on for whatever reason. This is another gut loss and realize this team should sell and add some prospects.

[The stache]

I am just livid right now.

[FullMetalCardigan]

I'd rather just have crappy starters any day than a terrible bullpen. Sick of our guts being ripped out by that stupid Canadian.

Come on, man. It's one thing to be upset by his poor pitching, but you don't have to resort to personal attacks.

 

Agreed. Obviously there's blood in the water and people are posting angry. John is as standup as a guy as there is and probably feels worse about this than anyone.

 

But right now he's a 1 pitch pitcher and he can't even throw the fastball reliably for strikes. If the Brewers don't have a complete yard sale after this, KRod has to be the new closer moving forward.

[derflotr]

Let's not kid ourselves. Someone in the front row sneezes, Holliday is a billionth of a second later on that fastball, and it goes straight to Hart. Game over. It's not like Axford got shelled. He literally could not throw a strike. It's fixable.

 

Turnbow lost the ability to throw a strike in early 2008, and by the end of the year he couldn't even get a job in the minors. Inability to throw strikes is not always "fixable".

Because every reliever that's incredible for one season and struggles with their control for a while in the next ends up in a cataclysmic self-destructive free-for-all. Hey - 2/2, right?

 

Clearly the logical action to take in this post-game frenzy is to dump him completely, because his career is most definitely over. Because he's Derrick Turnbow.

[brewmann04]

Everytime he steps on the Mound you have a feeling how is the save going to be blown.

[markedman5]

Sounds like they are considering a change in closers. Certainly RRR didn't give Ax a vote of confidence.

 

Ax just said "It was the most awful outing I've had all year. I didn't have anything. Couldn't command the fastball or throw the curve for strikes and then when I finally did it was too late...then I threw one for a strike when I shouldn't have"

[adambr2]

Let's not kid ourselves. Someone in the front row sneezes, Holliday is a billionth of a second later on that fastball, and it goes straight to Hart. Game over. It's not like Axford got shelled. He literally could not throw a strike. It's fixable.

 

Turnbow lost the ability to throw a strike in early 2008, and by the end of the year he couldn't even get a job in the minors. Inability to throw strikes is not always "fixable".

Because every reliever that's incredible for one season and struggles with their control for a while in the next ends up in a cataclysmic self-destructive free-for-all. Hey - 2/2, right?

 

Clearly the logical action to take in this post-game frenzy is to dump him completely, because his career is most definitely over. Because he's Derrick Turnbow.

 

He's not, but I just get a kick out of people acting like the comparables are ridiculous. Both were hard-throwing control-challenged pitchers who came out of nowhere to be dominant closers. Turnbow suddenly lost the ability to throw strikes and was never the same again. Axford has lost the ability to throw strikes.

 

It's no certainly that Axford's career will follow the same path, but to act like their are no comparisons is simply choosing to remain ignorant to it.

 

No one said to dump him completely, but there's a lot more to his troubles than bad luck or bad timing. It's not like he was getting shelled? Hell, he was lucky he only gave up 3, he had two hard outs hit to the warning track. And leadoff walks have just plagued him.

[brewmann04]

It weird if AX did not have any control would it been ok if he told someone that he just didn't have it. That way the Crew could have another arm up in the pen.

[Marc Newfield of Dreams]

I'd rather just have crappy starters any day than a terrible bullpen. Sick of our guts being ripped out by that stupid Canadian.

Come on, man. It's one thing to be upset by his poor pitching, but you don't have to resort to personal attacks.

 

Deport Axford!

[brewmann04]

why not just remove Ax for now the Brewers did it to Hoffman.

[Mike2k33]

Now, if Ax could actually strike anyone out he wouldnt have to rely on luck and defense but it's still annoying.

 

Funny, that's the only thing he has been doing somewhat well lately. 19Ks in his last 14 IP coming into the night. It's the 11 ER, 5 HRs and 7 BBs in that same time period that's the real issue.

[rluzinski]

Really, the season was over before this game. Fiers once again dominating is probably what we should be focusing on. I'll take a prearby potential #2-#3 starting pitcher. That is worth tens of millions of dollars.

 

The blown win also takes some heat off of Melvin with regard to holding on to the slim catches of a post season birth. Time for the fans and Melvin to be thinking 2013.

[davego]

This is a good point. While losing stinks, this might free DM from any flickering hope and begin to seriously look to move who he can.

[TURBO]

Pinning all our hopes on one game, or the 9 games after the all star break is silly to me.

 

This team has shown no signs of being able to get on that hot streak that we have all been hoping for all season long. We should have known weeks ago this wasn't going to happen.

 

Melvin should have been burning up the phones the past week.

 

We can't replace our entire bullpen, and until that happens, we are going to be left out of any wild card chase, and can't even begin to think we are in the NL Central division title race.

 

Depressing as it is, we are done for 2012, it is 2013 any beyond that we are going to have to worry about.

[brewmann04]

AMEN to THAT 100 % correct

[scuttlebutts]

Took them long enough to throw Burkman (sp).

[scuttlebutts]

Parra? NO!

[scuttlebutts]

Parra? NO!

[scuttlebutts]

Took them long enough to throw Burkman (sp).