Schoop doesn't appear to be capable of pulling a low-90's fastball. That's a trait of a 37-year old, not a 27-year old. Perhaps he had a big year when there wasn't much scouting on him or respect for him, and he's really never been that good.
Ryu is better against righties than against lefties. Hopefully it means Shaw will replace Perez. Arcia should start every game the rest of the postseason.
Today’s forecast is for mild and wet weather and tomorrow is for cold and rainy (even some snowflakes) weather. This could potentially impact Colorado’s advantage in starting pitching if there are lengthy delays. It will be interesting to see the umpires’ tolerance for playing through wet conditions. Obviously the Brewers have negative experiences in this area.
I left Wisconsin in the late 1990’s. There was zero interest in the Brewers then, except from diehards. Returning for a weekend to watch the Badger football game, it’s just incredible to be in Madison and witness overflow crowds in sports bars wearing Brewer gear and being glued to the set and cheering during weekday afternoon Brewer playoff games. Not being emersed in the Wisconsin sports scene every day, I can’t believe how interest in this team has changed over 20 years. And I appreciate that it didn’t happen by accident. Attanasio, Melvin, and Stearns deserve as much credit as Alvarez does in Madison and Harlan/Wolf do in Green Bay. It’s just so awesome to have people excited about baseball in Wisconsin.
Bill Simmons summed it up best. We enjoy “having watched” our favorite team play big games but not the exercise of watching them. It’s especially the case if your team hasn’t won a championship before. Whatever you felt as a Packer fan in 2014 (and I felt a similar way), it would have felt 10 times worse being a Viking fan. The Brewers are kind of like the Vikings, so we’re feeling that “10 times more stress” right now - like the Red Sox fans felt pre-2004 and Cubs fans felt pre-2016. Enjoy the ride, but it’s ok to step away at times if your feeling is over the top. You can always watch the highlights.
Ideally, Knebel, Hader, and Jeffress would have each thrown one clean inning. Instead, Knebel got 5 outs, Hader 4 outs, and obviously Jeffress’ inning was not clean. I’d expect this would slightly lessen their availability and/or effectiveness today from what it would be if they had clean, single innings.
Game 2, NLDS: Definitely unavailable: Woodruff, Burnes Limited to a few batters, at most: Knebel, Hader, Jeffress, Soria Available: Guerra Available, depending on who is starting game 3: Gio, Miley, Peralta
I dislike Schoop’s approach. He doesn’t get around on an average, early in the count fastball, and then he gets ahead in the count and swings at a pitch on the low, outside corner. Yuni-esque.
If each of the five games is tied after 5 innings, could Soria, Knebel, Hader, and Jeffress each pitch one inning in all 5 games, given there are two days off? This would mean the only real decision making is how to get through the first five innings.
A staff of Anderson, Barnes, Cedeno, Davies, Jennings, Lyles, and T Williams would be a pretty good foundation of a MLB pitching staff. None of these guys are on the NLDS roster.