Cool Hand Lucroy

Alright. This sucks. A few thoughts, some more optimistic than others: 1) For his entire career, Woody has been one of the pitchers I've trusted most. He's just a horse. Cool, great personality, a franchise stalwart. Feel terrible for him. Yuck. 2) This obviously hurts our (already very small) chances of winning the WS. Boo. 3) It's also the baked-in risk of building a team around pitching. Pitchers get hurt. I'm not saying I'd rather the org take a different approach (I think the opposite, actually). But we've been pretty lucky on the injury front on the pitching side. Bad time for that to change. 4) I'm not sure this has an intense impact on our Wild Card odds. FanDuel moved from Dbacks +154 to Dbacks +124 and now has seemingly stabilized at +126, Beyond that, of course, it's hard to estimate the aggregated impact. For now, though, it really just means Peralta has to pitch Game 2, and Game 3 becomes a BP-heavy affair. 5) As another poster mentioned, this staff is still way better than 2018. Houser has a better FIP than Chacin did that year. Pitched fewer innings too, so might be fresher. Essentially, Houser/Miley/Rea are going to have to give you the 40 outs or so you would have got from Woodruff in the Wild Card and NLDS rounds, with some BP guys taking on a little added workload maybe too. I would have Rea on the roster because I think he's pitched pretty darn well lately (4ER in 20IP against decent competition). 6) Bottom line: this team needs magic to make a deep run. Baseball teams, even really good ones, always do. That 2011 Packers team had it. 2021 Bucks did too. Both had to deal with massive injury-related difficulties. We'll need more magic than we would have to get deep into October, but not that much more than we otherwise would have to get to an NLCS, especially considering Woody would only have gotten 2 starts in the first potentially 8 postseason games.

Anyone who wanted to face the Marlins must be forgetting: Brewers first-round playoff record vs. NL East? 0-3 (2-7 all games). Brewers first-round playoff record vs. NL West? 2-0 (6-2 all games). May the trend continue.

So, going into the final three, the Cubs will need to gain a game on the Marlins to make the playoffs. They may need to gain two, depending on the finish of the Marlins-Mets game. Marlins took a 2-1 lead in the top of the ninth, currently in a rain delay, doesn't look like there's much of a window to finish tonight. Might mean they have to play half an inning in New York on Monday. The Reds are a game and a half out, a game behind the Cubs. At this point, my desire to avoid the Cubs is mostly emotional. I just don't want those stakes. Objectively, though, the Marlins, Reds, and Cubs are all deeply flawed teams (Cubs maybe most of all giving the lack of pitching options). Best case scenario for the Brewers is probably something involving the Marlins having to play an inning on Monday and then fly to Milwaukee to play in the WC series. That's a tough scenario to make happen, though, since the Marlins hold tiebreakers over the Reds and Cubs and in case of a three-way tiebreaker. They would only have to finish that game if a) they can't finish tonight and b) they finish a half game behind somebody. Still, I think I'd rather play the Marlins than anyone, if only to help maintain Central Division bragging rights no matter what. I'd prefer to win this Cubs series, then let the chips fall where they may. That makes it pretty unlikely the Cubs come to Milwaukee. Though I do think we'll be decent-sized favorites over all three likely opponents (and slim ones over the D-Backs should they get swept this weekend).

This was a great article. Good work.

3 division titles in 6 years. Never thought I'd write that as a Brewer fan. What this FO and organization has accomplished since CC took the helm is incredible. Such a well-run organization. We're the Rays of the NL!

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Oof. Suzuki. Drops one and then whiffs on a pitch way off the plate. One more! There is no bad way to clinch a division!

Ghost of Brant Brown!!!

In case anyone needs to know the state of the Cubs bullpen, Drew Smyly is now on in the 8th inning of a one-run game the Cubs really, really want to win.

Anyone know the Brewers record when trailing after 7? I'd be curious. I know they've won all of 1 game when trailing after 8, but that number's probably pretty low for most teams.

A note re: the Cubs. Ross is having to do a lot of heavy BP management. Assad had been starting. Now he's coming in a high-leverage hold situation. Alzolay is down. Fulmer is down. Nobody in that group is really trustworthy, so it's full mix-and-match mode in Chicago. That's going to be tough to maintain for five more difficult games, plus a playoff series.

This is just one of those games where Mikolas pitched pretty well, and the Brewers failed in their one big moment. I have nothing to back this up, but it seems to me like the Brewers are really good at creating one or two golden opportunities for a 3-run outburst every game. When they take those opportunities, they usually win. When they don't, it's tough sledding. It's especially tough when the potential big inning happens early. When they fail there, it often seems the offense struggles to create more chances. That'll have to change in the playoffs, which are all about continual pressure.

It's no fun to lose baseball games, especially when just one win basically makes the whole season a success. But this is definitely a case of good things come to those wait. Patience. We're going to score runs this series. The Braves are going to score runs too. I'd bet a lot of money on those runs being enough one of the next four games. There's also probably a better chance either of these two teams comes back tonight than the Brewers end up losing the next six. And, even if they do lose the next six and lose the division, they'll get to go to Wrigley and make up for it anyway. These are like the epitome of all-reward, no-risk games. At least as far as baseball goes. Nature of the sport.

I mean...it COULD. But if you assume coin flip per game, with 7 games left, that gives you a 3.5% chance.

Well, a frustrating first half of this one. Missed opportunities plus some bad luck plus some plain bad baseball. Mostly, I just want to win tonight. I'm not worried big picture. You get in one of these ruts where you just need one big moment to kind of turn everything back around.

That was an awesome throw.

You have to throw strikes to this lineup. The walk hurt last inning too. Not a good time to lose command (as if there ever is, I guess).

Great defensive play on one end and a bad bounce on the other. Gotta be able to put up more than a couple against Mikolas and the Cards pen. I still feel like it's coming tonight.

I'm probably biased, but Contreras should definitely get MVP votes. I can't name 10 better guys this year. I don't know if I can name 5 who have been more important to their respective teams. Fangraphs has Contreras 9th in WAR (in the NL). 7th among position players. It's Betts, Freeman, Acuna for me, but, after that, you can make an argument that Contreras is right in the thick of that next group. Bonus points for playing a premium defensive position. He's also putting up a 125 OPS+ in a lineup without much prowess. He's not the MVP, but I'll go so far as to say it would be a travesty if he weren't on a whole lot of ballots, especially considering that he very much fits the "most valuable" part of equation when thinking about the Brewers.

If the Brewers can hit their average attendance numbers over the next 6 (should be easy given the Cubs series always puts $$$ in the org's pockets--I suppose we should thank them for that), they'll exceed 2.5 million on the year. That's off from the over 3 they've managed in the past, but given the massive changes in attendance across all professional leagues, it's still impressive. Milwaukee's a baseball town. That's a good thing. Long may it remain so. (and let's get the people celebrating tonight)

Well, gonna have to be a clinch at home against a hated rival. Nothing wrong with that, right?

I know folks are mostly joking about losing the division, but just in case: The Cubs play the Braves next. And the Braves are going to be throwing Elder on Tuesday and will have every reason to at least try to keep guys fresh. Plus, those bats against the Cubs already weak (and now stressed after two close games against the Rockies) bullpen.

I guess the good news is, the Cubs will be mad the Marlins won.

Getting Payamps right is a big priority over the next week. Rest and pick-your-spots. Uribe looks great, but he scares me in a postseason series. When his control is off (as it can be when the adrenaline is really going), it's tough. Hate to have an inning spiral. He's be my "I need one out to end an inning" guy.

Onto tomorrow. Honestly, I'm more concerned about avoiding the Cubs (maybe irrationally so) than anything right now. Let's clinch tomorrow. Or at home against the Cardinals. That would be joyful too.