Cool Hand Lucroy

Kim homers to put the Braves up 3-1. Y'all reverse jinx nicely.

123 OPS+ while playing incredible defense at a premium position. What did Contreras finish last year? 5th? Turang should be up there for sure.

And check out Siegler with the warning track power!!! Almost.

I fully recognize that Harrison Bader feels a little bit like a Brewer in a dark mirror. But I really don't like Harrison Bader. Until we sign him in free agency this winter (half blue).

Like I said, I am much closer to this than where the org has landed. But the guy's getting like 8 ABs a week, right? And I don't think they're bad ABs. He has no power, but he walks, plays a couple positions, and has been a little unlucky. Obviously, I'd rather have Hoskins than Siegler, but we don't three 1B when one of them is Bauers. End of the day, alls I'm saying is I'd rather defend the Bauers out hill than the Siegler one (though I'd prefer not to have to defend any hill at all).

I can't think of many pitchers who are perfectly happy throwing 40 percent of their pitches for balls. But Q is one of them.

I sort of get Siegler. He has some versatility and fits the definition of "scrappy" or whatever that the org likes. I don't like it, but I can squint and understand the ABs at the bottom of the roster. I really dislike that he's getting starts over Durbin. I wouldn't do it. At least there's some kind of idea there, though. The best argument I can make for Bauers is handedness. That's not good enough, and him being up over Hoskins is a mistake. Aside from that, a good start to this one. Here's to 7 strong from Q and a Braves win too (as I channel my inner treego).

The answer is: next year. The Brewers want him in October. They are going to limit his innings. He'll start a middle inning clean and go one time through max. It's first-year Hader, with the idea that Miz actually will move to start. Kind of like they did with Burnes, and remember how awful his first year starting went.

Baseball drives you nuts. It never feels good to drop a game in the standings this time of year. Honestly, these times are always the most stressful. The math says you're good, but we also know the Cubs have a one in 15 shot to catch us, and that's not nothing. It's the time of year where I don't even really know what to be invested in. Just hope we win, and the rest shakes itself out. Today was a fascinating baseball game. We didn't pitch well enough to win. Or the Phillies pitched slightly less poorly. Or the Philly offense just hung in there a little better than ours. Maybe that lineup is just really darn good. Maybe it's all of that. We went 9-10 in a brutal stretch. We picked up half a game since beginning of last week. Dropped 1.5 since the end of the Cubs series. Could've been better. Could've been worse. I think the toll on the bullpen is a legit worry. Some guys are going to have to step here, especially if Miller is toast. We have to get some length from our starters or win some games 12-5 or something in these next 17 games, I would think. DL Hall makes a big difference if he's back. Gasser too. We're also in this weird in between phase where we have to play to win in order to secure the division (plus bye, because division without bye isn't all that meaningful seeing as we've done that multiple times over the past couple years), but we also have to think about October. I don't know. This stretch was just a grind, and we came out okay. There's still work to be done. But hard to gripe too much. On today's game, here's one thing. I've watched a lot of baseball in my life, and I usually have a pretty good sense of what's going on. I can tell if a pitch is a ball before it gets to homeplate. When a ball comes off the bat, I can usually tell if it's a hit or not (even ground balls up the middle, which has been an adjustment). Close plays at first. Tag plays. All the same. I'm not always right, but I have a sense. Check swings, I have ZERO idea what's happening. Flip a coin. They are the black box of baseball. So many routine judgement calls get made in the course of a game, and it all feels totally arbitrary. I don't think there's a way to fix that. Maybe it's just uncertainty we have to live with. I can get behind that. Living with uncertainty is important. But I don't blame Murphy for getting upset today. You figure you get one of the two coin flips in the Realmuto AB. Didn't happen. Them's the brakes. Deep breaths, day off, let's roll up at least 12 more wins before the month's out.

Tucker played the bounce terribly as well.

Totally get this perspective, but I care not at all about HFA in the LCS and WS, mostly because those three games in the middle, right in a row, feel better to me than the two plus two. And if it goes 6, there's so much pressure on the home team. Feels like a trivial difference. Not like I would be mad at being the 1, but I would certainly prioritize rest/rhythm rather than go all out for it, assuming the bye is clinched. Maybe I'd feel differently in 2-2-1-1-1 sports like the NBA and NHL, but it's still not something I'd get worked up about. Though more home games are nicer for the cash flow, so that's something (and none of this applies to the shorter postseason rounds). Maybe someone has the numbers, but I feel like HFA seems least important to me in baseball. And I generally think it's overrated in all major sports, save for European soccer, where having to fly all the way to Kazakhstan or go to Marseille where the fans camp outside the team hotel and keep you awake all night feels like a much bigger deal.

Extra helpful that Counsell went to Palencia, who has struggled lately. That's a nice week for us. I know we only need 1 against the Phils to get the breaker. That would be good. But let's go ahead and win the series. And, hey! Off day Tuesday!

We'll see how this Cubs game shakes out, but to have a week where you gain ground while facing the best team in the AL while your biggest competition faces the worst team in baseball is fine to good. That's the good news. The bad news is Woody looked very hittable, and we ran the bases like Little Leaguers, except maybe worse. The other good news is that the Phillies have had to win two close games vs. the Braves, and now they play Sunday night baseball before traveling to Milwaukee for an afternoon game, and we rested all our best relievers. I don't know what any of that really means in the aggregate, but we'll be at least 5 (.499999) up on September 1. I will take that many times out of many times.

Gameday is not having nice things to say about the ump so far...though maybe that's the most redundant thing it's possible to say in a game thread (with the possible exception of declaring the game a loss).

Alright. Let's reset. Lot of baseball left. Need to focus.

I have no idea how this one goes. Probably give the Jays the edge, but that's a dangerous thing with this Brewers team. My hot take is the Rockies beat the Cubs. That thin air sun at Coors is a real tough you know what. :)

Spent a week in Winnipeg area this summer. Lovely, lovely place. Jays and Royals are the two teams I like after the Brewers. Been an awesome atmosphere at Rogers these last two days.

Uribe hadn't actually pitched since Monday (though he did get loose a little bit the last two days, I think), so no real problem getting him in. I suppose I understand Ashby as well, given that a 5-run lead against that lineup with 3 innings to go is not really the spot to feel comfortable (we added 2 runs while he was warming, so it was 7-0 when he entered). Miller feels a little bit odd to me when you've got Rob Z. available, but you still got rest for Koenig and Mears, and the thing that really hamstrung us tonight is that Myers has thrown 77 pitches since Tuesday. This was a Myers game, but the dude just wasn't available to throw. So, it's hard to complain about the bullpen usage. Every win matters, and we really only have pretty good to really good relievers out there right now. There isn't a clear "mop up" guy, which is just another facet of our depth and roster construction. The flip side is: is there anyone I trust as much as I trusted Devin or Hader at times? No. But we've seen both those guys unable to close out big October games, so maybe the by-committee approach is the way to go. Thrilled with the win. Another day off the schedule, another notch off the magic number. Need 21 of 53 games to go the right way for the division (assuming the Cubs don't get Coors-ed).

Maybe? But, like, wouldn't you be disappointed with a 5-4 West Coast against the Angels, Giants, and Rockies? Especially when you're probably the second-best team in the NL?

See what happens when you throw strikes? Your defense gets to defense.

Alright, bullpen. Maybe it would be good to throw strikes with a five-run lead.

Baseball is about the long-haul. Maybe it's self-defense, but I've come to view playoffs as bonus. Plus, I don't think this team can really hurt me anymore, after all the difficult October losses of this wonderful stretch of franchise success. The one caveat to this is that finishing with a division title and a bye would be sullied quite a bit if we lose to the Cubs in the divisional round. THAT would probably be the last thing that could actually make me hurt emotionally as much as I have in previous Octobers. And, of course, I say all this, but once those playoff games start, I'm going to desperately want to win them. I'll be able touch grass and my rational self, but the emotional heart wants what the emotional heart wants.

It was awful. We were up 3 after sweeping the Dodgers in LA mid-August. But we finished 12-25 and ended up 8 games back. Probably the most depressing stretch of Brewers baseball I can remember (it's not as depressing when you know you're going to be bad, like it was throughout much of the 90s and 00s), especially when we started 2015 going like 4-17 or something. Come a long way since then!

Given the choice between 2008 and 2014, I would absolutely take 2008. ;)

Honestly? I'm more and more skeptical of the value of football to a university athletic program. Seems like the bubble is close to popping (there is just going to be vast inequality between the top-15 programs and everyone else). If you can't be a regular playoff team, that is so much staff, facility, and salary outlay for diminishing returns. The growth curve is just a lot better on volleyball, for example.