Brewers (Harrison) vs Cubs (Cabrera): 5/20/26, 6:40pm

[willie key]

15 minutes ago, HarryDoyle said:

So, can someone explain to me why, with 30% of the season done, a team that had Chourio, Vaughn and Yelich all miss at least one month to injury and Priester all season and a third of our lineup that can't hit their way out of a paper bag is in first place ahead of a team that has two separate 10 game winning streaks and twice the payroll?

Bunts

[wallus]

26 minutes ago, HarryDoyle said:

So, can someone explain to me why, with 30% of the season done, a team that had Chourio, Vaughn and Yelich all miss at least one month to injury and Priester all season and a third of our lineup that can't hit their way out of a paper bag is in first place ahead of a team that has two separate 10 game winning streaks and twice the payroll?

If you'd ask fans of other teams, Devil Magic

[BruisedCrew]

3 hours ago, markedman5 said:

Another start for Gasser and giving Miz an extra day apparently 

 

I’m bummed, though I anticipated that the Brewers would do this with the off day tomorrow and the Cardinals coming up on Monday. 

We’re going to the game Sunday and I was hoping to see Misiorowski for the first time. Instead we get a matchup between Sproat and Yamamoto, who hurled the complete game against the Brewers in the playoffs. 

Maybe the Brewers can repeat the game from last July (a game we were at) when they knocked him out in the first inning. 

[markedman5]

 

[adambr2]

1 hour ago, HarryDoyle said:

So, can someone explain to me why, with 30% of the season done, a team that had Chourio, Vaughn and Yelich all miss at least one month to injury and Priester all season and a third of our lineup that can't hit their way out of a paper bag is in first place ahead of a team that has two separate 10 game winning streaks and twice the payroll?

I’ll be fair here and note that the Cubs have had their fair share of injuries, particularly in the pitching department.

Cade Horton was the really big one.

[sveumrules]

1 hour ago, HarryDoyle said:

So, can someone explain to me why, with 30% of the season done, a team that had Chourio, Vaughn and Yelich all miss at least one month to injury and Priester all season and a third of our lineup that can't hit their way out of a paper bag is in first place ahead of a team that has two separate 10 game winning streaks and twice the payroll?

Pitching, mostly.

Brewers have allowed the 3rd fewest runs per game at 3.52 versus the Cubs being much closer to average at 4.35 RA/G (13th).

For all the holes in the lineup, the Brewers (5.04 R/G) have also scored at the same pace as the more well rounded Cubs lineup (5.02 R/G).

[owbc]

42 minutes ago, BruisedCrew said:

I’m bummed, though I anticipated that the Brewers would do this with the off day tomorrow and the Cardinals coming up on Monday. 

We’re going to the game Sunday and I was hoping to see Misiorowski for the first time. Instead we get a matchup between Sproat and Yamamoto, who hurled the complete game against the Brewers in the playoffs. 

Maybe the Brewers can repeat the game from last July (a game we were at) when they knocked him out in the first inning. 

I'm in WI this weekend and had been deciding between going to Sunday/Monday game. Ended up buying tickets for Monday because they were like 1/3 the price of Sunday 

[BruisedCrew]

Interestingly, Chourio and Vaughn returned to the roster on May 4.

Up to that date the Brewers had scored 172 runs in 33 games (5,212 RPG).

In the 13 games since then they have scored 60 runs or 4.61 RPG.

[BruisedCrew]

5 minutes ago, owbc said:

I'm in WI this weekend and had been deciding between going to Sunday/Monday game. Ended up buying tickets for Monday because they were like 1/3 the price of Sunday 

We have the weekend 12 pack so we have the dates set in advance.

This will be our fourth game this year. Harrison started all of the other three.

[cragi]

10 minutes ago, BruisedCrew said:

Interestingly, Chourio and Vaughn returned to the roster on May 4.

Up to that date the Brewers had scored 172 runs in 33 games (5,212 RPG).

In the 13 games since then they have scored 60 runs or 4.61 RPG.

in other words, they faced they Yankees, Padres and Cubs pitching. Really its the weak players that have struggled even more during this stretch.

[HarryDoyle]

1 hour ago, HarryDoyle said:

So, can someone explain to me why, with 30% of the season done, a team that had Chourio, Vaughn and Yelich all miss at least one month to injury and Priester all season and a third of our lineup that can't hit their way out of a paper bag is in first place ahead of a team that has two separate 10 game winning streaks and twice the payroll?

And I totally forgot about Woodruff.

[Fear The Chorizo]

39 minutes ago, adambr2 said:

I’ll be fair here and note that the Cubs have had their fair share of injuries, particularly in the pitching department.

Cade Horton was the really big one.

To also be fair, missing Koenig, not having Priester thus far, and having a sort of shell of Woodruff to start the year, plus seeing one of their other primary late inning leftys in Zerba blow out his elbow (likely another WBC casualty) on top of aforementioned issues with Chourio, Vaughn, and Yelich more than equal any injuries the Cubs have sustained thus far.

Cade Horton's injury could be seen 10 miles away coming into this year after how much he pitched for the Cubs last season compared to prior years.  Same song and dance for Steele tearing his elbow early last season after being ridden to hard in 2024.

To me, the reason the Brewers are better than the Cubs despite those long winning streaks in the W/L column is depth.  The Brewers, despite the low payroll compared to the Northsiders, have an unbelievable amount of depth in their organization.  The Cubs are taking an all hands on deck approach to their pitching staff after losing Horton and Steele having a setback - meanwhile the Brewers have also missed two of their 5 perceived opening day rotation options and still have the luxury of shuttling Crow and Gasser between AAA and Milwaukee to give their other young starters an extra day here and there to manage their workload so they're not as burned out down the stretch.

[Underachiever]

3 minutes ago, HarryDoyle said:

And I totally forgot about Woodruff.

Fleecing the Red Sox certainly helped.

[liveforoctober]

14 minutes ago, Underachiever said:

Fleecing the Red Sox certainly helped.

It looks like the Red Sox will be sellers at the deadline and I'm not too interested in obtaining any pieces from them this summer per se.. but what I am interested in is who they acquire via trade prospect wise AND/OR who they call up to fill their rotation in August and September ... Because that will determine who wins 16 games for us next year.

[AKCheesehead]

2 hours ago, HarryDoyle said:

So, can someone explain to me why, with 30% of the season done, a team that had Chourio, Vaughn and Yelich all miss at least one month to injury and Priester all season and a third of our lineup that can't hit their way out of a paper bag is in first place ahead of a team that has two separate 10 game winning streaks and twice the payroll?

It's very simple, really.  The Milwaukee Brewers are friggin' awesome.  Have been for years. 

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

8 hours ago, sveumrules said:

After 46 games last year the Brewers were 21 W - 25 L sitting six games out of first place with a -10 run differential.

Since then, the Brewers 104 W - 58 L record is the best in baseball with the Yankees in 2nd at 98 W - 69 L, while the Cubs and Dodgers are tied for the next spots at 94 W - 71 L.

Over these past 162 games here are some of the Brewers ranks...

POSITION PLAYERS
845 R (1st) | .263 AVG (1st) | .340 OBP (1st) | .145 ISO (25th)
111 wRC+ (2nd) | +10.7 BsR (1st) | 19.8 K% (3rd) | 0.49 BB/K (1st)
6.9 Barrel% (28th) | 39.2 HardHit% (23rd) | .329 wOBA (2nd)

PITCHERS
593 R (1st) | 3.33 ERA (1st) | 3.55 xERA (1st) | 3.61 FIP (1st)
25.3 K% (1st) | 0.94 HR9 (1st) | .223 AVG (2nd) | 1.19 WHIP (2nd)
76.0 LOB% (2nd) | -0.28 ERA/FIP (5th) | 37.9 HardHit% (1st)

Great post.

And there's a story about speed and slugging being overvalued, too. It's a cliche to talk about Moneyball, but the Brewers really are playing a different game than most of the rest of the league. It's a little harder to see, a little more on the margins, but a lot of fast guys who understand the strike zone and put the ball in play can be a great offensive recipe, even without exit velocity and barrels. 

On the pitching side, I really think it's finding "piggy-back" guys. A lot of starters whose stuff plays up when they only have to throw 4 or 5 innings, and then you bring another guy like that in, only he can do 2 innings. Somewhere along the way, baseball started training everybody to either throw 7 innings or 1, and the Brewers figured out that you can condition players to do the median and pull from a larger population since pretty much every pitcher has spent most of his career trying to get 6+ outs. 

[Bulldogboy]

Vaughn out again is a bit frustrating. I think he's a big bat that needs to play. Love what Bauers has done but man give Frelick a day off if Chourio can't cover center. If it's a strict right left platoon at first that disappointing. 

[willie key]

1 hour ago, Cool Hand Lucroy said:

Great post.

And there's a story about speed and slugging being overvalued, too. It's a cliche to talk about Moneyball, but the Brewers really are playing a different game than most of the rest of the league. It's a little harder to see, a little more on the margins, but a lot of fast guys who understand the strike zone and put the ball in play can be a great offensive recipe, even without exit velocity and barrels. 

On the pitching side, I really think it's finding "piggy-back" guys. A lot of starters whose stuff plays up when they only have to throw 4 or 5 innings, and then you bring another guy like that in, only he can do 2 innings. Somewhere along the way, baseball started training everybody to either throw 7 innings or 1, and the Brewers figured out that you can condition players to do the median and pull from a larger population since pretty much every pitcher has spent most of his career trying to get 6+ outs. 

Playing like the 1919 white Sox.   The. More things change the more they stay the same 

[Underachiever]

Play this one like a game 7. All hands on deck! Sweep the Cubs!

[Underachiever]

Come on Hamilton. Javy Baez would have tagged him out.

[HarryDoyle]

Put a little more mustard on that throw.

[Underachiever]

1 minute ago, Underachiever said:

Come on Hamilton. Javy Baez would have tagged him out.

I meant to say Javy Baez would have been proud.

[yfinn6]

I thought he was out but was surprised they overturned it. 

[HarryDoyle]

Mitchell got enough mustard on it, I guess.

[yfinn6]

Had they lost that challenge I would have been pretty annoyed.