Brewers (Myers) vs Cubs (Assad): 7/22/24, 7:10pm

[LouisEly]

4 minutes ago, adambr2 said:

A hanger right down the middle and Yelich just whiffs. 

There's absolutely nothing special about anything the Cubs are doing tonight. This is all us. 

I disagree with your definition of a "hanger".  That pitch started well above the zone and dropped into it.  He set it up perfectly earlier in the AB with fastballs at the top of the zone.

It was a really good sequence executed perfectly by Leiter.

[RobertCrawley]

The ump should toss that little batboy of a manager.

[Jopal78]

3 minutes ago, Bulldogboy said:

What Murphy did to his team with the Contreras first 60 games is a fireable offense. 

Oh yeah?

[RobertCrawley]

Thank you, Willy!

[LouisEly]

Cards lost, so no real damage tonight if they can't pull it out.

[BruisedCrew]

3 minutes ago, LouisEly said:

Cards lost, so no real damage tonight if they can't pull it out.

False. This isn’t a two team race.

[RobertCrawley]

5 minutes ago, LouisEly said:

Cards lost, so no real damage tonight if they can't pull it out.

Definitely softens the pain.

[LouisEly]

3 minutes ago, BruisedCrew said:

False. This isn’t a two team race.

Since the beginning of June, the Pirates are 24-18.  The Brewers are 23-19.  They've gained a net one game in the standings over the last 52 days.

It's really, really hard to make up six games in the standings this late in the season. 

[RobertCrawley]

Ok, William. Square one up.

[Brian]

12 minutes ago, LouisEly said:

Since the beginning of June, the Pirates are 24-18.  The Brewers are 23-19.  They've gained a net one game in the standings over the last 52 days.

It's really, really hard to make up six games in the standings this late in the season. 

Not if the Brewers hit a losing streak it isn't. 

[yfinn6]

Deserved that L. 

[RobertCrawley]

Crap.

[kevinisaname]

Sloppy game. Get 'em tomorrow.

[LouisEly]

2 minutes ago, Brian said:

Not if the Brewers hit a loosing streak it isn't. 

They had three 3-game losing streaks during that stretch.

And it's "losing".

[Bulldogboy]

25 minutes ago, Bulldogboy said:

What Murphy did to his team with the Contreras first 60 games is a fireable offense. 

I repeat. That last ab was sad to watch.

[Brian]

21 minutes ago, Bulldogboy said:

I repeat. That last ab was sad to watch.

And 10 men left on base tonight. 

[Jim French Stepstool]

Most frustrating thing to me was that if we make our pitches to Miguel Amaya---Miguel Amaya, for crying out loud---You could make a very sound argument they only score one run & we're still playing. Other than that, Myers pitched well, but he didn't play well. The balk, the extra out on the throwing error cost him big time. Yeah, we didn't get the big hit, didn't make them pay for the walks. That sucks, but it happens, to all teams. They had the timely hit to go up 1-0 and other than that the quality of ABs was pretty much a wash. But we compounded it tonight with mistakes we don't usually make. Gave them two.

I'm really intrigued by what moves this team makes in the days to come. Not even talking about trades, although that could happen. Couple logjams on the horizon.

I have to say I'm impressed--and really surprised--with the plate discipline Mitchell has shown since coming back. And now the ball is starting to jump off his bat w/some authority. He's showing signs that he might--MIGHT--be an X factor.

[BruisedCrew]

36 minutes ago, LouisEly said:

Since the beginning of June, the Pirates are 24-18.  The Brewers are 23-19.  They've gained a net one game in the standings over the last 52 days.

It's really, really hard to make up six games in the standings this late in the season. 

I guess the fact that I have lived through several seasons in which the Brewers led the division after the All Star Break and surrendered more than 6 games in the standings the rest of the way has made me think it isn’t THAT hard. 

As recently as 2022 the Brewers led the division by 4 games on July 30  and within 3 weeks they were 5 games behind and never got closer the rest of the way. So, I’m not going to apologize for declining to write teams off in mid July.

Since July 1, the Pirates have erased 4 games off a 10 game deficit, so I’m not writing them off yet either. 

[Jim French Stepstool]

1 hour ago, folly412 said:

And a run lost to Hoskins being too slow to run the bases when he does manage to get on.

I thought that was really poor play-by-play from----it was Levering, right? He said something to the effect that any other runner scores from second on that hit. Yeah, if you just take off w/o showing any concern as to whether the 1B catches the ball, anyone else probably scores. It was close enough to Busch that you HAVE to freeze. The fact it was Hoskins made it academic, but I'm not sure someone else scores either, unless he just takes off on contact. Then, if it's caught we can add that players' name to the list of guys who should be fired/DFA'd.😄

Levering seemed to discount the factor of the ball being relatively close to Busch, which I thought was lousy announcing.

[Jim French Stepstool]

1 hour ago, kevinisaname said:

He smoked that ball, just hit it right at the third baseman. I'm more upset about Turang's AB.

Yeah. That's a sharply hit 2-run single if it's more in the hole, or the 3B is hugging the line. Turang's was worse b/c it came w/one out, and you don't necessarily need a hit to drive in a run. Even then, he hits a grounder more-or-less right at the INF, which has happened approximately 917 times in that situation this year.

And then they get four INF hits against us today. it happens.

[Jim French Stepstool]

1 hour ago, yourout said:

I am officially worried about turang right now. That bat is becoming a bigger and bigger problem

He's in a slump, definitely. I'm reminded of last year, when he hit a HR or two early on & stopped looking like the player he needs to be. I don't think that's the issue now, as he still seems to be trying to spray the ball, but his swing might be getting a little long.

One thing I reject is people constantly wanting to move people around in the batting order. He's a leadoff hitter, and IMO the best one on the team. He needs to figure it out. Bouncing people up & down in the order like it's a Chinese fire drill, I don't think that's the answer.

Maybe we should try the batting order that scored 25 runs the last three games?

[adambr2]

1 hour ago, LouisEly said:

Since the beginning of June, the Pirates are 24-18.  The Brewers are 23-19.  They've gained a net one game in the standings over the last 52 days.

It's really, really hard to make up six games in the standings this late in the season. 

The Cardinals made 10 games up on us just two years ago just after August 1st. We went into the trade deadline 3 games up and ended up losing the division by 7 games.

Far too much season left to suggest the Pirates are too far down to catch up. 

[Jim French Stepstool]

1 hour ago, LouisEly said:

Since the beginning of June, the Pirates are 24-18.  The Brewers are 23-19.  They've gained a net one game in the standings over the last 52 days.

It's really, really hard to make up six games in the standings this late in the season. 

I think they have more than enough time to crawl into the race, I just don't know if they'll score enough runs to support a really nice rotation & good 9th-inning guy. They play in an unforgiving ballpark if you aren't hitting, too.

We lived through the "rely on production in the middle-of-the-order from Rowdy Tellez" thing. If they make a run, it'll most likely be from winning a lot of games in the fashion that they won tonight.

[Scooterfletcher]

We really need to get Kikuchi and Bassit in our rotation from Toronto in a trade of Canadian and top prospect Tyler Black.  Bassit is controlled next year anyway and Kikuchi if he does well as I’d expect, should be resignable.  Whatever minor parts have to go both ways is fine but I’m cool giving up the potential all star bat of black for these two that make us incredibly more of a threat.

[Jopal78]

25 minutes ago, adambr2 said:

The Cardinals made 10 games up on us just two years ago just after August 1st. We went into the trade deadline 3 games up and ended up losing the division by 7 games.

Far too much season left to suggest the Pirates are too far down to catch up. 

The Pirates are 8-3 in games started by Paul Skenes  and are just 2 games over .500.
Meanwhile, Skenes threw 128 total innings last year. The most he had ever thrown. Right now he’s at 93 total innings.  They’ll move him to the pen or shut him down for the year before September.