Brewers (Burnes!) vs Cardinals (Liberatore): 5/17/23, 6:45pm

[mtsportsfan]

5 minutes ago, Jim French Stepstool said:

...........and went 3-3.

Look, I'm not defending the lack of offense. Just saying what we saw in the middle game of this series is the type of wins we're often going to have to turn in to be successful. 

Absolutely ! But if we had any semblance of a consistent offense we could have been 4-2 ! Its just alarming how weak our hitting is . it is a long season and things can change but we have seen this movie before !

[yourout]

Scoring one run or less in a quarter of your games is not a very good way to win a lot of ball games

[BruisedCrew]

8 minutes ago, Jim French Stepstool said:

...........and went 3-3.

Look, I'm not defending the lack of offense. Just saying what we saw in the middle game of this series is the type of wins we're often going to have to turn in to be successful. 

If that’s how they have to win they won’t be successful often enough.

To put this in context, the first 3 games against the Cardinals came right after the Mets series at a time when the Brewers were hitting. They were able to win 2 games by scoring  4 and 6 runs.

The offense from that early part of the season is long gone. Recently it’s been back to the home run or nothing offense because they have too many big holes in the lineup to string together hits. 

[mtsportsfan]

6 minutes ago, wiguy94 said:

Are you like secretly a Cardinals fan? You seem to go out of your way to praise them quite a bit here especially when they are 3-3 against us on the season. 

Cardinals SP aren't supposedly horrible. They are horrible. Their SP have a 5.15 ERA this season which is the definition of horrible. 

But yet we struggle to score on them ! I hate the cardinals but you have to admire the organization ! 

[BruisedCrew]

7 minutes ago, wiguy94 said:

Are you like secretly a Cardinals fan? You seem to go out of your way to praise them quite a bit here especially when they are 3-3 against us on the season. 

Cardinals SP aren't supposedly horrible. They are horrible. Their SP have a 5.15 ERA this season which is the definition of horrible. 

No, I am a die hard Cardinal hater.

My point is that the fact that the Brewers offense can’t do squat against pitchers that everyone else cuffs around should tell us something about that offense. 

[Jim French Stepstool]

2 minutes ago, mtsportsfan said:

Absolutely ! But if we had any semblance of a consistent offense we could have been 4-2 ! Its just alarming how weak our hitting is . it is a long season and things can change but we have seen this movie before !

No doubt. This is one inconsistent offense. And if you want to really accomplish anything big in this game solo HRs ain't gonna get it done.

I think we see Miller getting more regular PT since he's shown some versatility. I think from the neck up, Winkers' ABs have been better than the results. Maybe Yelich can stay healthy. Turang is going to be a "consistency" guy once he settles in. I think those are the areas where we need to hang some hope.

[BruisedCrew]

I don’t think the offense is inconsistent. 

It is simply not very good. 

[markedman5]

CC just said the play by Donovan running on the grass is perfectly legal……said it was a good play on his part.

[Jim French Stepstool]

28 minutes ago, BruisedCrew said:

If that’s how they have to win they won’t be successful often enough.

To put this in context, the first 3 games against the Cardinals came right after the Mets series at a time when the Brewers were hitting. They were able to win 2 games by scoring  4 and 6 runs.

The offense from that early part of the season is long gone. Recently it’s been back to the home run or nothing offense because they have too many big holes in the lineup to string together hits. 

Notice I said "often". No, you can't expect to win 2-1 or 3-2 every night. But they're built on the rotation & run prevention. Those areas getting closer to their water level (not to mention healthy) are just as important IMO.

How do you know the offense from the early part of the season is long gone? No one thought it was permanent, but they'll never get on a hot streak again? Dang, that's depressing.🤢

[TURBO]

This offense is very consistent, consistently bad.

It is what it is, and fooling ourselves into thinking anything else is just crazy.

 

[Jopal78]

31 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

Flexor strain, which he is currently on the 60 day IL for, is almost always a precursor to TJ. Again, only 2 pitchers in history have even returned to MLB from a 3rd TJ surgery, and they were both relievers. 

Like Adrian Houser who had a flexor strain in July of ‘22; and Topa in ‘21. Don’t remember them having TJ surgery. oh well, can’t argue with someone who offers guesses as facts!

[Jim French Stepstool]

16 minutes ago, BruisedCrew said:

I don’t think the offense is inconsistent. 

It is simply not very good. 

The offense collectively isn't very good. Due to individual inconsistency.

Can that be corrected/improved upon? That depends on which individuals you're talking about.

[hawing]

In my sometimes-relentless search for the silver lining...at least I don't have to see this opponent again until September. 😐

[BruisedCrew]

9 hours ago, Jim French Stepstool said:

The offense collectively isn't very good. Due to individual inconsistency.

Can that be corrected/improved upon? That depends on which individuals you're talking about.

Just like the collective offense, I think the problem with the players is not that they are inconsistent, but that too many of them are simply not very good hitters or are completely unproven.

How many players do the Brewers have in their everyday lineup that have an established record of good, consistent production over the last couple of seasons? 

Counting on players who have never been productive hitters in MLB, or who have shown significant decline from past productive seasons, runs a significant risk of failure. And, over the last month or so, the Brewers offense has been a dismal failure to the point of being the one of the worst in the NL.
 

 

[BruisedCrew]

14 hours ago, Brewcrew82 said:

2 runs that wouldn't have counted had the umpire called Donovan out of the basepath or Rowdy made the throw. Several of those baserunners were off of infield hits, too. 

It was a fine start. Probably the best he's looked since the Arizona start. Offense is the one that didn't do its job. 

The umpire calling Donovan out for being out of the base path on that play would have been totally wrong. A runner can only be called out for being out of the base path if it is done to avoid a tag. 
 

Tellez could have made the throw to the outfield side  of the bag but chose not to. 

[Jim French Stepstool]

3 hours ago, BruisedCrew said:

Just like the collective offense, I think the problem with the players is not that they are inconsistent, but that too many of them are simply not very good hitters or are completely unproven.

How many players do the Brewers have in their everyday lineup that have an established record of good, consistent production over the last couple of seasons?
 

 

A handful of seasons ago, they (IMO) re-committed to building an organization based on not only pitching, but position player depth throughout the minor-league levels. That's just starting to emerge at the major league level now. So yeah, by definition everyone that fits that category is "completely unproven" and doesn't have an established record of production "over the last couple of seasons". Three are here now. One is overmatched at the plate due to injury causing him to be up a little before his time. Another is injured himself. Of the rest, Contreras is fine but has never had more on his plate than he has right now, and it's showing. I believe Winker needs to get further removed from the health issues before a verdict is issued. Anderson is an ancillary guy & not a bad one because, along with his helmet & bat, he usually takes his brain to the plate with him. A couple others have had their inconsistency well documented.

End of the day, they'll have stretches where they score runs. Consistently? No. But those are the stretches where you have the opportunity to win 6 of 7, or whatever. The rest of the time, you try to break even. That's what the run prevention can do for you, and why they emphasize it so much. The games vs St.L are a microcosm of that. You documented their lack of offense in roughly half of those games (I actually thought their quality of ABs in the Tuesday win was as bad as any other game in the series). Yet they went 3-3.

You want a lineup that looks like that of other teams? The biggest culprit there IMO is Yelichs' slide & Hiura falling off the planet. That was supposed to be your 2 & 3 hitters, or 3 & 4.

[Brewcrew82]

13 hours ago, Jopal78 said:

Like Adrian Houser who had a flexor strain in July of ‘22; and Topa in ‘21. Don’t remember them having TJ surgery. oh well, can’t argue with someone who offers guesses as facts!

Or Jordan Montgomery, Chris Sale, Walker Buehler, Garrett Crochet, Tyler Glasnow, etc. in recent years

And then Jeffrey Springs, Robbie Ray, Tyler Mahle, Kris Bubic in the last month alone....

And this, "In my experience, flexor strains led to Tommy John more than they didn't."

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/samson-why-sale-may-eventually-need-tommy-john-surgery-to-fix-elbow-issue/

Also this, https://www.drahmadsportsmedicine.com/forearm-muscle-strains-alarming-relationship-ucl-injuries/

And then this, "Rasmussen...was placed on the 60 day IL the next day with a right flexor tendon strain. Tampa Bay hasn't officially announced he will undergo Tommy John surgery, but that is the only direction this is heading, according to our panel of doctors" https://www.fanduel.com/theduel/posts/drew-rasmussen-join-growing-list-of-pitchers-out-for-season-after-tommy-john-surgery-01h0djz3vjft

Can't argue with a bloviator...