Tim_Unroe_Helped

The Brewers aren’t going to give up on Sproat, and that’s a good thing. Corbin Burnes was even worse in 2019 than Sproat has been this year and then we all know what happened. Of course I’m not saying Sproat will win a Cy Young or anything like that, but he’s not going to be DFAed. He should be done this year, though, and I hope the Brewers have an excellent sports psychologist to work with him extensively this offseason. Dont let Sproat’s outing get you down. I highly doubt he will be a part of the team the rest of the year. Uribe’s outing was a bit troubling, but I prefer giving up 2 hits in his situation over walking two guys to begin the inning like Sproat did. The main reason we feel uneasy after tonight is a guy who will throw 0 pitches in the playoffs this year. The magic number for the division is 5 now. It’s mathematically possible for the Brewers to clinch this weekend.

With my user name, I’d be remiss to not participate today.

I hope the Brewers either put Harrison on the IL or option Anderson before the game tomorrow. We need reinforcements in the bullpen, even if in the way back. I’m glad Anderson did his role today, but having to use Uribe in a blowout loss shouldn’t happen. Romero and Senzatela are almost certainly unavailable tomorrow, and Gasser hasn’t really gone deep into games (though I do think he is our #3 starter right now).

This is the kind of stretch where I really miss the old 40 man call up rules for September. We may have to use a decent bullpen arm or two today even if we are down multiple runs. Having Stallings, Gordon, and Koenig up right now to eat up the innings Harrison can’t would be nice. Hopefully Grant Anderson can go more than 2 innings today.

Kyle Harrison is still a huge piece of our pitching staff in the coming years, but he seems so spent this year. Right now, I’d trust all 5 of our other starters, along with Crow and possibly Sproat over him. Maybe a few weeks off will help. Maybe he needs a whole offseason. I trust he will be back as a top 3 pitcher in the rotation, but right now, we can’t depend on him.

I hate to say it, but Kyle Harrison is reminding me of 2011 Shaun Marcum right now.

The latest I saw is a restart at 9, but who knows?

The Cardinals are upset that the umpires are enforcing uniform standards?

Right now, Gasser might be our 3 after Miz and Henderson. Wouldn’t be surprised if it’s an opener followed by Patrick or Hall either.

Things looked grim when we couldn’t score anything off Boyd after two hits to lead off the 4th, followed by the Cubs scoring 3 in the bottom of the inning. I was definitely down at that point, but I tried to remind myself it was going to be a whole different game when we got to the Cubs bullpen. They have a good bullpen, but it hasn’t been good lately, and it’s nice to see the Brewers take advantage.

At this point, these aren’t high stress pitches. After using Anderson for multiple innings yesterday and putting Wilson on the IL, the remaining long reliever is Chad Patrick or DL Hall. Hall has looked quite good lately (maybe a dark horse SP candidate if May/Harrison/Gasser don’t look playoff ready?) so I’d rather use him in high leverage. Hopefully Patrick can get us through multiple innings tonight so we don’t use much of our A bullpen. Barring a huge comeback, having Gary pitch the 9th is probably best case scenario.

Well, just gotta remind ourselves that a week ago at this time, if we knew the Brewers would be 7 up in the division after tonight, we would have been thrilled. I also think our two best pitching matchups are the last two games of this series, especially given Harrison’s recent struggles. I wouldn’t give up on a Robert Gasser start either. His numbers are really inflated by two blowup starts, but other than that, he’s been cromulent as a bottom of the rotation arm. We do need to figure out who is our #3 pitcher, though. Thankfully, we have some time for May, Gasser, Drohan, Harrison, or maybe even Crow to get red hot.

Just to put things in perspective, I’m going to go back just under 20 years and 11 months ago, on a cool Friday night in Pittsburgh. The Brewers were playing their third to last game of the season against the Pirates. Vibes were high after the Brewers had just won their last home game of the year with a Gary Glover masterpiece in front of a full house of freeloaders (relatively new owner Mark Attanasio made every ticket at the ballpark free that game). But now the Brewers had to hit their goal in Pittsburgh. The Brewers had a slight 6-5 lead in the bottom of the 9th. Closer Derrick Turnbow got the first two outs easily, and now he had to face Tike Redman of the Pirates. Redman hit a ground ball to 2nd base. Bill Hall picked it up, threw it to Lyle Overbay, and it was done. The Brewers had done it, and it was shown prominently on the TV screen: “Clinched .500 Record”. I bring this up because at the time, this had been among my most exciting moments as a Brewer fan. For the first time in my Brewers fandom (I was a freshman in college at the time), the Brewers weren’t going to finish with a losing record. Today, the Brewers won their 81st game of the year. On August 22. As frustrating as this team can be sometimes, we have it good. Really good. Mark Attanasio is a reason for that. Matt Arnold is a reason for that. Pat Murphy is a reason for that. Our scouting, pitching lab, and minor league staffs are reasons for that. And of course every player from Ashby to Zerpa is a reason for that (I think I got the first and last players alphabetically for this year). I know the grass always seems greener on the other side, but for all of our complaints about Murphy and Attanasio and Arnold and the players as a whole, if we tried to replace them, it is very likely we’d do worse, and possibly much much worse.

I’d venture to guess that if Luke Adams was a middle infielder or if Joey Ortiz wasn’t day to day at this point, Adams would have been called up. With Pratt on the IL and Ortiz (at best) day-to-day, our only middle infielders available were Turang and Hamilton, and that’s with using one of our two emergency 3B in the lineup (the other Frelick, is rehabbing now). For a team that depends son its defense so much, I don’t like the idea of Vaughn, Adams, or Sanchez (ok, Sanchez should be in blue) playing shortstop or 2nd base.

I was wondering if the team would option Drohan after the game yesterday to (more than anything) give him a break (his innings have increased significantly from last year and it’s showing), give Crow a spot start this week, and bring up Drew Rom in the interim. Having said that, I’m not really surprised by the move. Wilson was perfectly cromulent for what he was brought in to do, but it’s clear they didn’t trust him much.