Game Thread (9/04/2022): Brewers (Alexander) at Diamondbacks (Gallen) - 3:10 PM CDT

[willie key]

I love when the brewers are suppose to have a schedule advantage in a series and they lose ground in the standings

this is a garbage team.    Come back next year and show up Milwaukee 

[BruisedCrew]

I didn’t have the “pleasure” of seeing any of this game after about the second inning because we had family over. But this game and this series offer more examples of what we would likely see if the Brewers did make the playoffs and had to face the best pitchers on the best teams instead of the guys they usually face on the bottom feeding teams that make up a significant part of their schedule. 

 

[HarryDoyle]

Even the most hopelessly optimistic about this team have to admit they are not very good and will probably end up finishing .500 at best.

[Austin Tatious]

You can’t win with this dysfunctional offensive lineup.  

[yourout]

38-43 over last 81.

[Brewcrew82]

2 hours ago, willie key said:

I love when the brewers are suppose to have a schedule advantage in a series and they lose ground in the standings

this is a garbage team.    Come back next year and show up Milwaukee 

They actually gained ground on the Phillies...

[BruisedCrew]

30 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

They actually gained ground on the Phillies...

Coming in to the DBacks series the Brewers were 3.5 games behind the Padres and 4.0 games behind the Phillies (recognizing the tie breaker). 
 

Four games later the Brewers are 3.5 games behind the Phillies and 4.0 games behind the Padres. So, four games are off the Brewers schedule and they are mired in place and squandered an opportunity to move up.
 

Going 5-5 against the Pirates, Cubs, and DBacks is a failure and provides no evidence that the team is poised to mount a charge. Craigtember looks just like CraigJune, CraigJuly, and CraigAugust. Mediocre at best. 

[Brewcrew82]

2 minutes ago, BruisedCrew said:

Coming in to the DBacks series the Brewers were 3.5 games behind the Padres and 4.0 games behind the Phillies (recognizing the tie breaker). 
 

Four games later the Brewers are 3.5 games behind the Phillies and 4.0 games behind the Padres. So, four games are off the Brewers schedule and they are mired in place and squandered an opportunity to move up.
 

Going 5-5 against the Pirates, Cubs, and DBacks is a failure and provides no evidence that the team is poised to mount a charge. Craigtember looks just like CraigJune, CraigJuly, and CraigAugust. Mediocre at best. 

Yes, this weekend was a failure. But their competition didn't do much either, which is how they still find themselves in it. 

[brewmann04]

They will get destroyed playing the Yankees and Mets on the schedule they will not be able to make up ground playing the way they are. Just poor team 

[Brewcrew82]

1 minute ago, brewmann04 said:

They will get destroyed playing the Yankees and Mets on the schedule they will not be able to make up ground playing the way they are. Just poor team 

Yankees have been just as bad as us recently. 

[brewmann04]

The will kill us you watch. No way are the Brewers winning either series 

[Brewcrew82]

5 minutes ago, brewmann04 said:

The will kill us you watch. No way are the Brewers winning either series 

They may. But I will gladly cheer on my team and will continue to hold out hope for them. 

[HarryDoyle]

1 hour ago, yourout said:

38-43 over last 81.

Pretty pathetic considering some people proclaimed them the best Brewers team ever after their record breaking 50 game start. Against a pillow soft schedule featuring teams they now can't beat. Wonder what happened.

[Pugger]

2 hours ago, Brewcrew82 said:

They actually gained ground on the Phillies...

I think the Padres lost so there's that too.  

[BruisedCrew]

8 hours ago, Brewcrew82 said:

Yankees have been just as bad as us recently. 

Any comparison between the Brewers and the Yankees or any other team that looks just at won-loss record or any other statistic without taking into account the strength of schedule is somewhere between misleading and meaningless. 
 

With the schedules being heavily weighted with intradivisional games (76 of 162 games) the records and stats of teams in the weakest divisions (the NL and AL Central) are inevitably padded by these weaker schedules. 
 

The Brewers record against the NL Central is pathetic considering the weakness of 3 of the 4 other teams, and is the reason they are in the position they are. 
 

And yes, I realize the Brewers have a record of 10-3 against the teams in the AL East, but I think it’s safe to say that they wouldn’t keep winning at anything close to that pace if they played those teams 19 times each.

Isolated series are often a case of not just who you play but when you play them, including things like SP matchups, what injuries a team has, etc.  Those factors flush out over the course of more games, and, as the season moves into September, teams’ true character have been pretty clearly revealed.

If I added the numbers correctly, the 5 teams in the AL East are an aggregate 64 games over .500 and the teams in the NL Central are 48 games under. I think that’s a pretty stark indication of the relative strength of the divisions. 

Of course, this doesn’t tell us much about what will happen in a 3 game series between the two teams, but I’m not taking much consolation that the Yankees record over the last couple of months is as unimpressive as the Brewers. The Yankees are going to be in the playoffs, probably getting a bye into the ALDS and with home field advantage, while the Brewers are at best going to be squeaking into one of the final wild card positions.