Pirates at Brewers; Tuesday, August 12 @ 6:40 p.m.: Freddy Peralta (3.03 ERA, 3.85 FIP) vs. Paul Skenes (1.94 ERA, 2.32 FIP)

[treego14]

[treego14]

We will give it our all against Paul and will not fall!

Freddy will take the rubber against a team that is not known to have a landlubber!

The only hits they will manage will simply be a "nubber!"

[Brian]

Brewers don't care anymore if there called the worst best team ever. 

[Frisbee Slider]

Skenes threw 160.1 IP between minors and majors in 2024. He is only 16.1 IP away from matching that total this season.

The last time Milwaukee faced Skenes, he was pulled after 78 pitches and 4 IP. Brewers won 4-2.

Since that start on June 25, Skenes allowed zero runs in 5 of his 7 starts.

All that to say, maybe Pittsburgh limits his innings today? 🙂🤷‍♂️

[wibadgers23]

Skenes has put up some ridiculous numbers lately but hasn't been going more than 6 innings so hopefully we get good Freddy today and we can get into their bullpen and do some damage.

[sveumrules]

Yeah, first 16 starts Skenes averaged 6.4 IP and 98.7 pitches.

Over his last eight starts (beginning with the aforementioned game against the Brewers) he has averaged 5.3 IP and 87.3 pitches per start.

Pirates are also just 12 W - 12 L in his starts this year, largely on account of only scoring 3.6 runs per game with Skenes on the mound.

[RobertCrawley]

I hope we can get one or two off Skenes today, but he's been very good lately. If we can work some long counts and up his pitch count, we could do some damage later in the game against that pen.

[LouisEly]

Today will be the 8th time that the Brewers have played the Pirates this season.  It will be the 3rd time in 8 games that the Brewers have faced Skenes.

Among the top three pitchers in fWAR (Skubal, Skenes, Crochet), the Brewers will have played their teams a combined total of 14 games and have faced one of those three in five of the 14 games.

So far the Brewers are 2-2 in games started by those pitchers, with one of those losses coming when the Brewers gave up a lead in the bottom of the 10th.  The other loss was a combined pitching effort by Tyler Alexander and Elvin Rodriguez.

[Zad Fnark]

I'm a bit uneasy about this one.  Skenes is Skenes and we know he's good.

Fortunately, Mis just completely blew them away last time.

Hopefully good Freddy shows up tonight.

[formerlybis]

11 minutes ago, Zad Fnark said:

I'm a bit uneasy about this one. 

I mean, how can you be uneasy about any game any more? Only half-joking - despite the Skenes factor, I kinda do have the feeling the Brewers are more likely to win tonight

[Brian]

25 minutes ago, formerlybis said:

I mean, how can you be uneasy about any game any more? Only half-joking - despite the Skenes factor, I kinda do have the feeling the Brewers are more likely to win tonight

I believe so also especially since Pittsburgh only averages 3 1/2 runs per game and Skenes is done after his Avg. 6 inning outing. 

[liveforoctober]

The crowd is going to be electric. Hopefully we can make Skenes hear us.

[SRB]

Skenes is a bum. I'm predicting 5 ER off him today and he gets pulled in the third.

[Playing Catch]

I think it depends on 2-strike counts. Do the Brewers take strikes on the edges? Do they lace shots down the line? Do they butcher-boy Skenes and co. into chucking fielded groundballs into right field?

The Crew are pretty committed to sacrificing their quality of contact for ANY contact on 2-strike strikes. That could be Skene's kryptonite(?)

Gotta turn him from a FIP pitcher to an infielder, because the Crew aren't hitting any dingers with Skenes' HR/FB rate.

[Bulldogboy]

Espn release a ranking of top 50 players in baseball. Brewers are one of three teams in nl without anyone on the list. Unbelievable. What does this say? Murphy a magician? Seems impossible but at least this year it's true.

[Brian]

2 minutes ago, Bulldogboy said:

Espn release a ranking of top 50 players in baseball. Brewers are one of three teams in nl without anyone on the list. Unbelievable. What does this say? Murphy a magician? Seems impossible but at least this year it's true.

Or ESPN favors the big market teams for ratings. 

[thebruce44]

I can't wait to see everyone trying to see as many pitches as possible against Skenes. Let's get some deep counts.

[rluzinski]

52 minutes ago, Brian said:

Or ESPN favors the big market teams for ratings. 

I have no idea how ESPN compiles that list but I do not think it is outrageous that the Brewers do not have a player in the top 50.  Just looking at fWAR for pitchers, the top Brewer is Freddy at 29th (2.3 WAR). For position players, Contreras is at 40th (3.0 WAR).  Overall, there are 55 players with an fWAR of 3.0 or higher.

The team as a whole has excellent metrics all over the place, but it is because have just been solid from top to almost bottom.

[LouisEly]

1 hour ago, rluzinski said:

I have no idea how ESPN compiles that list but I do not think it is outrageous that the Brewers do not have a player in the top 50.  Just looking at fWAR for pitchers, the top Brewer is Freddy at 29th (2.3 WAR). For position players, Contreras is at 40th (3.0 WAR).  Overall, there are 55 players with an fWAR of 3.0 or higher.

The team as a whole has excellent metrics all over the place, but it is because have just been solid from top to almost bottom.

This team is the epitome of "whole is greater than the sum of the parts".

I'll bet if you looked at the bottom you'd find very few Brewers, with the possible exception of Ortiz, but even he has 10 guys below him (including IK-F, who a number of people wanted to trade for).

[OldHeidelberg]

I am sure maybe ESPN thought about sticking Peralta or Turang in at the end of the list to fit the best team in somewhere. But it's more interesting that they don't have a top 50 player. We have some young guys who will rise fast in the next couple of years. 

[yourout]

Brewers are kind of a case study on which is better. 

A lineup with three great hitters and six average to poor versus a lineup with 9 good hitters but none great.

[Playing Catch]

The organization seems to believe in positional redundancy as to avoid fielding replacement level players (and coaches/front office, too).

[tomoohka]

What a marquee match-up. I can't wait to get home. 

[SRB]

It's not totally egregious because we are a balanced team rather than one built around a superstar, but not including Contreras is pretty egregious. He's in the top 10 for positional player fWAR over the last three seasons, and even in this "down" year he's going to be a 4 WAR player by the end of it.

[dlk9s]

Skenes has a losing record. He sucks. Easy win.