Brewers (Myers) vs Cardinals (Gibson): 8/21/24, 6:45pm

[adambr2]

1 minute ago, BCF said:

Just because you can’t find the strike zone doesn’t mean you’re “overworked” some days you just don’t have control 

But he is overworked. He's pitched in 5 games in the last week. He's averaged over 16 pitches per outing. He is still just a month removed from returning from a major injury. I don't know how you could not think that all of those things aren't likely contributing factors to him not being able to find the strike zone by the 5th outing in a short time frame. 

[BCF]

Just now, TURBO said:

 

How is this missing badly? 3/4 are near the zone 

[BCF]

This is missing badly? 

[Brian]

Don't worry about the loss today.  It is already tomorrow in Australia. 😀

[willie key]

He hit one guy.    And was centimeters away from hitting two others.   I must be taking crazy pills

[Jim French Stepstool]

So, everyone knows there was little for Murphy to complain about re the ball/strike calls in the home 9th. Except there kinda was. I don't know how the NBA operates, but anyone who's seen a college hoops game sees sequences where the refs start to swallow the whistles late, if the game isn't close. That's kinda what we saw tonight. Williams was flat-out poor, but what should've fueled Murphys' ire was the "get the game over with" strike zone in the sequence before that, particularly the strike three call to Sanchez. Now, a hit batsman, a base hit from a guy hitting .130, golly gee, I better start umpiring the game seriously again. If Murphy wants to get pissed, THAT'S what he should've been pissed at.

No hits, but I thought Hoskins put up some real impressive at-bats laying off the breaking balls after falling behind in the count. Too bad he saved his worst one for last. In extras, leaving the ghost at 2B after the 1st out of the inning. I hate that with a passion. 

Funny how one thing can turn events. The 10-pitch AB & walk to Arenado, I thought Myers wasn't himself from that point on. Same with Williams after he hit Contreras.

Probably the worst thing about tonite, even more than losing, was seeing Mitchell & Black appear to be way, way too small for the moment in about 4 ABs between the two. Perkins as an option will be quite welcome.

[adambr2]

3 minutes ago, BCF said:

He didn’t miss badly. He was near the edge of the zone on a lot of pitches and wasn’t getting the call. 

He didn't throw a single strike to Pham or Carpenter. He had one pitch in each AB that was even close. He had completely lost it. It had nothing to do with the calls he was getting. He didn't get a close call to Nootbar and then got a call on Goldschmidt or it would have been 4 walks in a row. 

He did not get incorrectly squeezed on one ball call the entire inning. Not one. The umpire was a complete non factor to Devin's inning other than gifting him Strike 3 to Goldschmidt.

[BCF]

2 minutes ago, willie key said:

He hit one guy.    And was centimeters away from hitting two others.   I must be taking crazy pills

Yeah a couple pitches but overall he was near the zone. Like he tried getting too cute and paint the edges 

[BCF]

1 minute ago, adambr2 said:

He didn't throw a single strike to Pham or Carpenter. He had one pitch in each AB that was even close. He had completely lost it. It had nothing to do with the calls he was getting. He didn't get a close call to Nootbar and then got a call on Goldschmidt or it would have been 4 walks in a row. 

He did not get incorrectly squeezed on one ball call the entire inning. Not one. The umpire was a complete non factor to Devin's inning other than gifting him Strike 3 to Goldschmidt.

Yes and the first batter he hit and the 4 pitches he wasn’t in the strike zone. Was it fatigue or just that he didn’t have his best stuff? Sometimes you don’t have control that’s how it goes but you battle through it

[Samurai Bucky]

15 minutes ago, sobomp3 said:

I guarantee 90+ percent of Brewer fans were thinking “get him out of there!” after walking in the 5th run. I know I was. I don’t understand arguing this to death. Murphy blew this one. It’s really ok to admit it. 

Mrs. Samurai threw her hat.  That is why I love her!!!!  ❤️

Me... I just shook my head and was trying to think what Murphy was thinking.  There is the balance of telling your star closer what his limits are, and having Williams experience his limits kinetically.

Maybe next time, Williams will be a little more forthcoming.  On the other hand, Murphy can use this as a learning experience for both of them -- "Dude... you walked the bases loaded again.  You don't have it.  Let's get our other closer out there since we have another damn good one."

[willie key]

1 minute ago, BCF said:

Yeah a couple pitches but overall he was near the zone. Like he tried getting too cute and paint the edges 

Ok.   I get it now.   This isn’t a real poster.     I got fooled

 

see eveyone tomorrow.    Thank god we have a huge lead.    We can get over it quick

 

hopefully Murphy kids were there as shields for the press conference tonight

[adambr2]

5 minutes ago, BCF said:

This is missing badly? 

Uh, yeah? One of those pitches is even close to being a strike. The others are missing by plenty.  There wasn't a single strike thrown in either of the last two ABs. Are we really arguing that Devin wasn't that erratic because his pitches were only missing by 5-6 inches rather than 1-2 feet? 

He didn't have it. I don't understand why you're so determined to argue otherwise. 

[adambr2]

4 minutes ago, BCF said:

Yes and the first batter he hit and the 4 pitches he wasn’t in the strike zone. Was it fatigue or just that he didn’t have his best stuff? Sometimes you don’t have control that’s how it goes but you battle through it

I thought he did a great job of battling through last night. 

I thought tonight the fatigue was showing and it was a great example of going to the well one too many times. 

[adambr2]

 

 

Devin was very PC about it, but yeah, he was gassed.

Murphy admitted he pulled Devin too late, so I'm glad to see some degree of accountability.

[thebruce44]

53 minutes ago, sobomp3 said:

I guarantee 90+ percent of Brewer fans were thinking “get him out of there!” after walking in the 5th run. I know I was. I don’t understand arguing this to death. Murphy blew this one. It’s really ok to admit it. 

I'm probably in the minority here, but I don't mind Murphy's approach here. Give the guys enough rope to hang themselves.

I'm not a lip reader, but he clearly mouthed to Devin from the dugout "you got this." Devin wanted to stay in. When he took him out he said "good job" and not in a sarcastic way.

I think he trusts his vets. Devin, and of course Megill, need to recalibrate to their current abilities. But I don't mind the trust your guys approach, even when they fail. Bonus points for getting thrown out after.

I think this team is going to have some good conversations in the coming days.

[sobomp3]

1 hour ago, willie key said:

Ok.   I get it now.   This isn’t a real poster.     I got fooled

 

see eveyone tomorrow.    Thank god we have a huge lead.    We can get over it quick

 

hopefully Murphy kids were there as shields for the press conference tonight

Yep, even BF isn’t immune from Russian Trolls, it seems. 

[BruisedCrew]

My two cents on the Williams situation without too much second guessing is that I was surprised to see him warming up in the top,of the 9th.

I thought that with a big lead in the division there would be no reason to push Willams into another game right after the number of high stress pitches he threw the night before. 

It seemed like a good opportunity to give Megill a shot at closing. 

I also think that after the high stress save on Tuesday Murphy should have been quicker with the hook than he might usually be once it was obvious that his command was significantly off. 
 

But my bigger, more concerning, thought of the night was what a PP has mentioned. That is that Mitchell and Black are proving to be complete dead spots in the batting order. Their almost automatic outs were not as much of a problem last night because others stepped up. But it’s looking like the Brewers might regret not making a Canha type pickup at the deadline. 

It doesn’t help that Frelick is only slightly better. 

[Brian]

7 hours ago, willie key said:

Ok.   I get it now.   This isn’t a real poster.     I got fooled

 

see eveyone tomorrow.    Thank god we have a huge lead.    We can get over it quick

 

hopefully Murphy kids were there as shields for the press conference tonight

Mitchell & especially Black are under preforming and Murphy said he should have pulled Williams sooner but we used 6 pitchers and didn't want to burn a 7th, which I agree with 100% but Megill got slapped with the loss and not Williams, We just had a clunker in the 9th and 10th inning. 

[yourout]

Going to pour a little gas on the fire. 

I'm coining a new term for last night's game 

It was a PMS game. 

Pat Murphy Special.

 

[yourout]

5 minutes ago, Brian said:

Mitchell & especially Black are under preforming and Murphy said he should have pulled Williams sooner but we used 6 pitchers and didn't want to burn a 7th, which I agree with 100% but Megill got slapped with the loss and not Williams, We just had a clunker in the 9th and 10th inning. 

Both are sporting Keston like k rates.

Mitchell has 23 strikeouts in his last 47 at bats.

Black has 14 strikeouts in 39 bats.

[Brian]

Except Keston's Sample size was 234 at bats not less than 47 at bats.

[BruisedCrew]

1 hour ago, Brian said:

Except Keston's Sample size was 234 at bats not less than 47 at bats.

Absolutely true, but my concern with Black, and Mitchell (and to some extent Frelick) is that the playoffs are coming in 6 weeks and having too many holes like that in the lineup is going to make it hard to score against the best pitchers on playoff caliber teams. 

[BCF]

Devin Williams: "I didn't have command of either pitch today. I was able to make it work for a little bit there and then those last two hitters, I couldn't throw a strike to save my life."

[Playing Catch]

Win/Loss doesn't matter that much in the grand scheme of things, the decisions made could've ended up being fine if Devin gets one grounder for a double-play.

With that said, it seems to happen all of the time...

Using the DEV(in)CON scale:

DEV(in)CON 5: Fatigued star closer gets asked to close out another game.
DEV(in)CON 4: Said closer's command just a smidge off, HBP followed by a sharp double

Event: Manager's undies bunch, says to self, "He's our indomitable closer, it's his game no matter what."
Event: Closer shows signs with a K. Manager feels better

DEV(in)CON 3: Long AB, leads to walk, fatigued closer now at 17 pitches. Fans' undies bunch.

Event : Star closer gets another K. Two down. 23 pitches. Just. One. More. Pitch/Out. Still a two-run game.

DEV(in)CON 2: Star closer gassed. 4 pitch walk. Run scores. 27 pitches. One run game. Now or never.
DEV(in)CON 1: 8th consecutive ball. Disaster imminent.

I disagreed with Murphy's decisions. I feel like Megill, being fresh, needed to be ready to go in at DEV(in)CON 3. Not just for Devin's sake, but for Megill's. It isn't fair for him to have to clean up the mess left over by Devin on his first appearance back.

If accurate, I still disagree, but I think the only two explanations are (1) Murphy screwed up. Didn't have Megill ready in time, or (2) Murphy wanted to challenge Devin. He needs to know if Devin has "it" to go on when fatigued, or have to go long in the playoffs. I suspect that Murphy won't challenge Devin the same way going forward.

[tmwiese55]

So pretty much every guy in the BP had issues the last two days.  Good thing there is a guy in AAA who throws 99 with a big movement and big slider who's sported low 3s ERAs the last two years who can come up when needed