Cool Hand Lucroy

This is where I'm at for sure. The best way for the Brewers to balance winning and making postseason runs and keeping the team competitive for long stretches of time is to (mostly) develop position players and to reclamation the crap out of mid-tier starting pitchers (and trying to turn fringe or back-end starters into elite bullpen arms). It's just really, really hard to have pitchers and position players all developing at the same time, and we saw this with Woody and Burnes. They got really good, but the next crop of offensive talent was just not ready. I actually think Woody and Burnes (and Freddy, plus Hader and Devin) completely bailed out the Brewers in terms of playing winning baseball from 2019 to 2023 because the team really struggled to produce or acquire quality position players after the incredible Yelich-Cain infusion. Those pitchers are more the exception than the rule. I'm more confident in this strategic approach is what I'm saying. Focus on position players like Turang, good defense with a strong contact profile, guys who maybe lack power but can run and field and put the ball in play. The Brewers win with AVG and OBP and playing great defense and adding value on the bases. AND they win with the "out-getters" approach, plus acquiring some lottery ticket, Freddy Peralta types for guys like Adam Lind, plus some shrewd trading that can net you your Adameses and Contrerases. A lot of whether I want them to add any kind of starter this year comes down to if/when/how we get Junis and Hall and Ross back. I still have a lot of hope for Hall. We'll see how that pans out. Bottom line, for me, is I just think this team is being run very responsibly by a lot of people who are right more often than they're wrong. My sense is that they're not going to make a big deadline splash, and, honestly, I'm hoping they don't, especially when we're going to be the 3-seed in the NL at best. Trading away guys who can help in this current 5-year window for what? A 5 percent increase in the odds of winning a 3-game baseball series? Not for me. I might think a little differently if we were guaranteed an NLDS, but, even then, there's so much randomness that I think a lot of teams, even the big-market ones, are much more reluctant to part with prospect capital to acquire half-season players, even elite ones.

This is my thinking too. The Brewers are going to bullpen their way through the playoffs should they get there. Peralta is going to figure it out and be their big starter. Rea will be there. Maybe someone else emerges or gets healthy or they acquire a decent guy. But we're not going to see a big prospect or core piece get dealt, and I don't think we should. My possibly too hot take is that I might actually prefer a bat to a pitcher. You have to hit in October. You have to hit good pitching. Inwant the Brewers to be positioned to do that because Devin Williams is going to be our big deadline add. We're going to have one or two guys we can hope get 15-18 outs at a time. And then like 7 or 8 guys who can get 3-6 outs at a time. You need to get 54 outs to win a first-round series, and that's enough to do that. Beyond that, I think the 2015 Royals and 2018 Brewers show that you can get deep into the playoffs without big-time ace starters.

Yikes. Gotta bear down and preserve this one.

That is a tough AB for Bauers. He saw 5 pitches, swung at the only strike, and K'd.

Imagine Ortiz gets another day with the off day tomorrow. Might as well give him three days off.

Kikuchi has thrown a ton of pitches, so at least there's that. Bullpen going to have to get 12 outs at least, you would think.

Welp, third time through hurts Wilson. Hope they can battle back, but a 2-4 road trip isn't the end of the world. Big homestand coming up. Get an off day between the Jays and the surging Reds.

I like when they use him that way, but I'm not sure it's made much difference the last couple times.

Wilson sure has settled down, as he tends to.

Does Frelick go down when Mitchell is ready? Do they let Mitchell play for a while in Nashville? Do we lose Monasterio and finally see Sal at third? Doesn't really feel like there's an easy, clear choice.

Good pitch count work this inning from the Crew. Great AB from Jackson, just a better play on the other end. I love how this team just keeps coming at people. Makes them a lot of fun.

Yeah, that's a tough choice. Given injury rates, I'd be real hesitant to do an extension. I could see an argument for either just keeping him like we seem to be doing with Willy, or trading him sooner than later.

I know the Tigers have been pretty decent this year (good for them--I'm a Central division fan, whether the NL or the AL, and I think the Royals are definitely my 2nd favorite MLB team), but Canha as your #3 hitter is tough. I like the guy, but tough to really score when you're lineup looks like that.

Skubal tossing 102. WHOA.

I give Wilson a lot of credit for managing this role really well overall. Mostly, I hope we're in a position to move him back into his best role very soon, especially since his last 5 starts have been worse than his first several. Worried about the trendline there, and he's very valuable as a guy you ask to get 6-10 outs instead of 15. It's strange that I prefer Myers as a starter at this point. I think Wilson is for sure the better pitcher. But I think Myers seems more suited to regularly keeping you in the game for 4-6 innings long term. Of course, it's not looking great against Skubal, so maybe nobody keeps the Crew in the game today.

Not too upset if the Crew ends up losing today, but I wonder about Wilson as an SP. I get that we don't have a lot of options right now, but it seems clear it's a square peg situation. It's not even that he's been bad (he hasn't). It's just that you go out there with every Wilson start just sort of hoping he can push through five and have a great first two trips through the order. He'd be my first move to the pen if we can get some guys back healthy. Did Perkins not get the memo that bunting isn't allowed? What a dirty player...

Series win! Big given tomorrow's tough pitching matchup. Does Megill remind anyone else of Corey Knebel? It's maybe more the fastball/curveball combo that does it for me.

Myers does have a shot at the CG. 115 pitches over 9 is way different than 100 over 6.

Jimmy Nelson?

Hard to beat Benetti and Stone as a duo. The White Sox know how to hire announcers, which is sort of too bad because they don't know how to do much else.

Love Benetti as a broadcaster. And he's good at basketball too.

Wow, that's surprising. Although I suppose once in ten years is still exceedingly rare. Four triples would be amazing. Halfway there! And with the score 10-0, he might as well try for three on anything that's an easy double.

Somewhat hilariously, if this game continues like this, the Brewers will be underperforming their run differential despite the fact that most folks seem to agree they're overachieving based on roster talent.

This ballpark is, like, built for this version of the Brewers offense. That big outfield just super incentivizes contact, and it's great to see the lineup taking advantage.

Bingo. 2 runs in 28 innings was never going to avoid a sweep in this series. We all want to step on the gas all the time, myself included, but if you're going to get swept, it may as well be against one of the best teams in baseball while you hold a seven game division lead. We've got some more tough pitching matchups in the Tigers series. But our next like 20 games are pretty manageable. It's not an easy stretch, but there are opportunities to go something like 12-8, which would be just great heading close to the ASB. This series sucked, Put it behind us and take 2 of 3 this weekend.