The stache

General consensus is always "If an infielder can make the play, it's always their play", and they should call off the pitcher. Once Rowdy called off Woody, he HAS to make that catch. HAS to. ^^ This. It's on Rowdy. He redeemed himself with that nice snag to end the inning. Let's score some runs!

Yeah, he doesn’t run anymore he just limps along with a stiff knee. I can run just fine, if I need to. I can't put any torque on my knee. Different kind of stress.

Man, that was mean and I was fooled. I figured I was behind and you had me excited for a second. Haha, sorry about that.

We sure seem to look at a lot of strike threes.

Oof.

Rowdy is a strong man. That ball went a long way.

Is it more Yelich's back at this point, or is the knee still bothering him somewhat? I know firsthand how much a broken knee can continue to ache after a bad fracture. But he just looks lost up there.

Yelich.

Thank you, Woody!

This Braves lineup is going to be just brutal for a long time. They don't even have Acuna right now.

Agreed. Oh crap, here we go again.

But then how would we score? When Woody is coming to the plate, tell him it's Clayton Kershaw on the mound?

That was a NASTY pitch.

Please don't walk him ahead of Freeman.

Be patient at the plate, guys.

This team just can't ever make things easy. They just can't. Offense finally shows up, and now the pitching is choking.

I honestly don't know why there's even a discussion any further. Unless Corbin Burnes blows his last start, he's the NL Cy Young winner going away, or should be. If the voters pick somebody else, they're uninformed. Max Scherzer and Zack Wheeler have had great seasons. But Burnes has been better. And that's not debatable. The innings thing? That would look great as the justification for Corbin Burnes being robbed of the Cy Young, because of a 2 week stint in COVID protocols that took him out of of 2-3 starts. All these other stats, wins, win-loss %, ERA, ERA+...they are heavily influenced by the team around the pitcher. They're next to useless here. The Cy Young is supposed to go to the best pitcher. How could you possibly determine that unless you eliminate the variables that may skew the statistical metrics considered? Brandon Woodruff's 166 ERA+ is second best in the Majors. He's got a 9-10 record. FIP virtually eliminates the variables that are team defense, and run support. A good pitcher like Woodruff can get crap run support, and even though he's pitched at an elite level, he still has a losing record. Meanwhile, take a guy like Pete Vuckovich, who in 1982 had a 114 ERA+, a 4.03 FIP, a 1.502 WHIP, and his strikeout to walk ratio was almost 1:1. 105 K, 102 BB. Yet, he clearly won the Cy Young because he was 18-6, and his .750 winning percentage was the best in baseball. He won not because of how he pitched, but because he had the Brewers offense behind him, which was by far the best in baseball, scoring 5.47 RPG. The next best team was the California Angels at 5.02. FIP only considers walks, strikeouts, home runs and hit batters. Beyond the rare inside the park home run (statistically negligible where FIP is concerned), and the impact pitch framing has on walks and strikeouts, 99% of FIP is pitcher performance driven. MLB FIP leaders, as of 9/30/31 1. Corbin Burnes, 1.55 2. Zack Wheeler, 2.58 3. Nathan Eovaldi (BOS), 2.78 4. Gerrit Cole (NYY), 2.91 5. Brandon Woodruff, 2.95 6. Max Scherzer, 2.97 If FIP is referred to as expected ERA, the race for the trophy is over. Burnes 1.55 Wheeler 2.58 Scherzer 2.97 Again, why is this even being debated? Get rid of all the other crap, things like WAR which are impacted by wins, win/loss record. ERA, which can skyrocket if your defense stinks. Or, it can be made to look better than the pitcher's actual performance by an elite defense. Take Jim Palmer in the early 1970s. I've seen one group after another debate who the best pitcher of that decadewas. Many argue Palmer. I think it's Tom Seaver. Palmer's had two top 5 finishes in FIP in his career. Among all Hall of Fame starting pitchers with 150 or more starts in the Live Ball Era (1920-present), 47 in total, Palmer ranks 32nd in FIP. 70% of his career innings came in the 1970s. In the decade itself? 90 pitchers had 150 or more starts between 1970 and 1979. Palmer's FIP of 3.29 was 21st of 90 pitchers. Yet, he had the most wins (186), the best ERA (2.58) and second best ERA+ (137) behind Tom Seaver's 138. Clearly, having Mark Belanger at shortstop, Brooks Robinson at third, Davey Johnson then Bobby Grich at second, and Paul Blair in center, five men who combined to win 39 Gold Gloves while in Baltimore, made Palmer look better than he should have. Given the choice, Tom Seaver was by far the more effective pitcher. His 2.65 FIP was the best in the 1970s. He didn't need his defense to do the work for him. Corbin Burnes has been better than Scherzer and Wheeler. I don't care that they have 15 and 14 wins, to Burnes 11. Burnes has had five other starts of 6 or more IP, and 2 or fewer ER allowed, and got a no decision. And his losses? In his four losses, the Brewers got shut out three times. And the fourth game, they scored 1 run. Burnes had a 4.03 ERA in those games, but he pitched better than that number shows. In 22 1/3 IP, he gave up 10 earned runs. But he only walked 4 batters, and gave up 16 hits. And 1 home run. That's a 0.897 WHIP (20 H + BB / 22.3 IP) He struck out 36 batters. That's a 9:1 SO/BB ratio. And he struck out 14.53/9 IP Clearly he pitched at a high level. The rest of the team just stunk. And the Brewers gave him 1 run of support in 4 games.

To put this whole discussion in a historical context, here are the best individual season FIP metrics in the 146 year history of Major League Baseball: 1. Christy Mathewson, 1.287 (1908) 2. Walter Johnson, 1.379 (1910) 3. Pedro Martinez, 1.396 (1999) 4. Ed Walsh, 1.418 (1908) 5. Rube Waddell, 1.506 (1908) 6. Cy Young, 1.522 (1908) 7. Corbin Burnes, 1.559 (2021) The next best Live Ball Era entry 16. Dwight Gooden, 1.685 (1984) Only Pedro Martinez' historically great 1999 season, in the entire Live Ball Era, is better than Corbin Burnes' 2021 season, when pitcher determined outcomes are considered.

Scherzer has had a fantastic season, overall, but for the first 2/3 of his year, he was fairly average. 19 starts, across 111 innings pitched, he gave up 18 home runs while in Washington, and had a 3.60 FIP. Then suddenly, he gets traded to the best team in baseball, and he starts pitching like Cy Young. Scherzer is 7-0 in 10 starts with the Dodgers. That puts him to 15-4, with a 2.28 ERA, 232 K and 36 BB in 174 IP. He leads the Majors in ERA, WHIP, and H/9 IP. Burnes is 11-4 wih a 2.29 ERA, with 230 K and 33 BB in 165 IP. He leads the Majors in ERA+ (186), HR/9 IP (0.3), K/9 IP (12.5), K/BB (6.97), and most important to me, FIP (1.56). Scherzer's 2.86 FIP, held up against Burnes 1.56, is the story, to me. Burnes has been more responsible for his own success. 21 home runs given up by Scherzer, to 6 by Burnes, should be the ball game. WAR? Baseball Reference 5.5 for Scherzer, 5.9 for Burnes. Fangraphs 5.5 for Scherzer, 7.6 for Burnes. Baseball Prospectus (WARP) 4.6 for Scherzer, 5.1 for Burnes. Baseball Prospectus' CFIP (contextualized FIP, 100 is average, lower is better, higheris worse) Burnes 55 Scherzer 76 Baseball Prospectus DRA- (deserved run average -; 100 is average, the lower the score, the better). Burnes 59 Scherzer 70 Burnes is 41% better than league average at preventing runs from scoring; Scherzer is 30% better. To put that in perspective, the best pitcher in baseball in DRA- is Jacob de Grom at 54. But he only made 15 starts to Burnes' 26, and will not qualify for the ERA title. Burnes, across a whole season, has pitched at a level comparable to Jacob de Grom where run prevention is concerned. I don't think any of us disagree that de Grom would have won it, had he pitched an entire season, or at the least, would have been a finalist. We can't know how he would have performed with 10+ more starts. One bad start could have skewed his figures. As of right now, Corbin Burnes should win the Cy Young.

Fifty years of precedence. Sometimes, a bump is simply a bump, and nothing more. Sometimes, a bump is cause for panic. We're somewhere in the middle. This is still a very good team. As of five days ago, Baseball Reference had the Brewers at 17.2% chance to win the World Series. That was better than any team. Great. But a good, possibly great team still has to get to the finish line. If you're winning a marathon, you don't start to half ass it, and jog with the finish line in sight. Nothing in baseball is a given. Nothing. And if other teams see blood in the water, that makes the Brewers vulnerable. The Brewers have choked, time and time again. This team is not the teams of the past. New players, for the most part, new coaches. But none of that matters. The perception is that the Milwaukee Brewers are a loser franchise. And until we do something definitive to break that perception, a five game losing streak like this one we're about to have, at the very end of the season, just reinforces that mindset. And then the most dangerous thing happens. The players on the Brewers now let that enter into the back of their minds. We had a 5-1 lead heading into the 7th inning. We just lost 8-5. Something is very rotten in Denmark. And pointing to how "the division is all but secure" doesn't mitigate that realization. We have nine games left. Six against really tough opponents, and the other three against precisely the kind of team that the Brewers struggle against. We should beat up on inferior teams, but too often, against Chicago after they've sold off their best hitters, against Minnesota...we just flounder. The Milwaukee Brewers need to make a statement against the Mets. And we shouldn't be in this freaking position.

I'd still like to know why Counsell pulled Houser? He had thrown only 81 pitches, and was cruising. Over his last 8 starts, Hauser has had a 2.22 ERA. Why pull him and put in relievers that have been struggling to find the strike zone, of late? That makes no sense to me. If Williams is healthy, put Houser out one more inning. Put Williams in for the 8th, Hader to slam the door shut. We avoid the sweep, and head into the three games against New York with a much needed positive in our pocket.

Yeah, we're a bunch of weenies. This team has never collapsed before. What the heck are we thinking? And what, exactly, in this team right now shows you they are even remotely capable of "winning it"? We can't score runs. Our bullpen is floundering. Our "superstar" is hitting .181 in the month of September, OPSing a paltry .475. The Brewers have hit a very real mental block. The Cardinals are laughing at us, and they still have us for three at Busch. The Dodgers are licking their chops. If we don't come back here, that's 5 in a row we've lost. 6 of the last 9 come against the Cardinals and Dodgers in their houses. We could very easily go 3-11 to close the season. And you expect the team to just magically shake that off? I want this team to get their heads back in it. Right now, however, they show no signs that they're a team to be reckoned with in the playoffs.

The wheels have come off.

Yelich in the month of September. 13 for 72 (.181 AVG), 3 doubles. His slash line: .222 SLG/.253 OBP/.475 OPS Yeah, he totally deserves to be batting third in the lineup.

Respectfully, I'd rather they enter the post season playing like a team possessed, and scaring the crap out of other National League teams, instead of morphing into the Keystone Cops.