Cool Hand Lucroy

It is hard to even be mad. Kind of honor to be directly involved.

Look, the Dodgers are just better. They beat us. I wish we'd played better, but I think our limit here was getting this to 6. We have some great young pitching. We have a couple of really good young bats. The system is deep. The pitching lab is great. This franchise is in great shape. I don't know if we'll win a pennant in my life, but I have seen more meaningful baseball than I ever thought back in 1999. Meaningful baseball is the point. I consider this season a clear success. This ending is incredibly frustrating the last two nights, but not the kind of frustration that's going to stick around more than another 8 hours. Sometimes, the other team is just better. I do hope we manage not to get shutout, though.

Not sure about Perry's brother. But the other two were! The MIL's favorite was Bob Allison. They talked a lot about games at the Met in Bloomington. Believe the Mall of America is on that site now.

You got it! My favorite was the MVP. Zolio Versalles. Mudcat Grant and Jim Kaat big names too. I might be able to name the 2011 Brewers better than the 2018 ones, mostly because of the bullpen and more established rotation.

Was talking to my in-laws today (both Twins fans) about the 1965 World Series. Koufax threw 24 innings in that series. He gave up 2 runs, only 1 earned. He pitched a complete game shutout in Game 5. Then, he did the same thing ON TWO DAYS REST in Game 7. We had a fun time seeing how many names from the Twins roster they could remember. They did pretty good for all this happening 60 years ago. Point is: baseball is great, win or lose. You don't remember these games if you're not a part of them. Go Crew! Let's get one and see where it goes.

Yup, I agree. I think baseball economics are like 20-30 percent to blame for our October struggles. The rest is some combo of execution, management, and randomness. Others can ratio that out differently. I think you can defend a lot of reasonable numbers

Thoughts. 1) How about Mis? What a postseason from that kid. MVP of October. Talk about showing something. I am super impressed with his ability to harness his stuff and keep us in the game. Seriously. Nobody talks about heroic performances in losses. That was one. 2) We wait on Chourio's hammy. I am going to choose to think he'll get a nice long rehab and recovery and come out better next year. Dude was still probably our best hitter in the playoffs. Gamer. Franchise cornerstone. Get healthy, kid. 3) Andrew Vaughn is making outs this series, but he has had very hard luck. Good ABs. Loving him at 1st next year. 4) Great game from Durbin. 5) Our lefties didn't hit. We didn't win. I mean, what can you say? The offense has gone MIA, and it's not one guy. It's the whole group. If not for a great play from Muncy, we get two runs and still lose. I don't think our whole offensively philosophy is to blame. I don't think MLB economics are to blame. I think it's maybe a combo of good pitching, mental blocks, the nature of baseball, and randomness. We look like the April/May Brewers. Bad time for those guys to return. 6) Let's just win one. Just win one. We're all pretty resigned at this point. It was a good year. Keep it going one more day.

If it's one inning, I guess it doesn't matter if it's Ashby or Koenig. They want a lefty, maybe they trust Koenig more in a leverage spot. The thing that's been tough to understand, all year, is just how often they use Ashby. He's up to like 71 MLB IP this year. Maybe that's not that much, but he's gotten it in a pretty condensed period. Are they anticipating him as a starter next year? Do their analytics just really trust his recovery? I have to think there's some underlying philosophy here, but it's pretty hard to see given that he's pitched (and struggled) as both an opener and a leverage lefty in these playoffs AND pitched in nearly every game. I'm not upset about this. I am confused/curious. Hopefully, he pitches another clean first, after already being staked to a 5-0 lead.

When I get to feeling like this...

Yeah, there aren't really a lot of SP options. I'm a little surprised we haven't just gotten Quintana named, even if the plan is just a few innings. I suppose the most logical explanation is waiting to see how some of the bullpen guys recover, going with an opener, and then Q or Mis get bulk innings. I'll assume we want to start a lefty. That means Q, Koenig, Ashby, or Gasser. Koenig seems likeliest since he's the most rested. Gasser not going to happen. Ashby could go too, since Murph and the FO don't seem to care much at all about his usage rates. If it were me, I'd just throw Q and be done with it. He's most likely only going 3-4 anyway. I know it's basically a need to win game, but somebody's gotta throw. I could see Mis as well. He's on full rest. Maybe they go Koenig-Mis and try to get through the fifth before turning to Patrick, Ashby, Megill, Uribe (in some combo) to try and close it out, hoping to let Q throw Game 4. Just seems like Q and Mis are really the only bulk options in some order for Thurs/Fri. I GUESS you could try to get 3-4 from Chad in Game 4 too, but he seems more valuable in a pen role right now.

This is very thoughtful. Many ways to skin the cat competitive balance wise. It can't all be reduced to cap/floor. The issue right now is that players are receiving around 50% of league revenue in salary, but the distribution curve for that is obviously weird. A pre-req for a labor agreement should be revenues remaining split 50-50. If a cap doesn't shift that balance, the union's resistance to it is a bit harder to defend, but there are also non-cap ways to maintain that ratio and restore some balance via revenue sharing and some of these other things you mention. Theoretically, this CBA negotiation shouldn't be that hard. The problem is, these sides REALLY don't trust each other. That, more than anything, is going to make things very difficult. If I'm the players, my biggest concern is leverage. I don't think they have that much. They'd probably play with a temporary CBA and be very reluctant to strike. The owners are the ones floating lockout because they always have the leverage in these situations, and fan sentiment, even in a fairly progressive baseball media sphere, is going to have a healthy anti-players contingent. Brewers have been good at drafting and developing young players and transforming pitchers lately. They keep doing that, the economic moves will sort themselves out.

Low-key, I've thought Durbin has been a big key for us. He was good at third tonight, but his first two ABs included six pitches. All strikes. For the woodpecker thing to work, that dude has to see pitches. I might be tempted to start Lockridge on Thursday just because he leads the world in pitches seen.

The economic structure of baseball is unfair. Mark A could also spend quite a bit more on payroll. He's pouring cash into Benfica and Norwich over in Europe, so the investment capital is clearly there. I don't blame him for spending it on a sport with a big potential growth market. He's still an excellent Brewers owner. But it's not entirely on MLB that the payrolls here are so imbalanced. It really is as simple as win one game. That's it. Put the pressure on them and see how they respond. They probably do and will respond. But we were up 2-0 in a shorter series, lost a nailbiter in Game 3 and then really needed some nails performances from the bullpen to win Game 5. It doesn't matter if the team wins the series. Just win once and take your shot at bringing the series back to Milwaukee.

If it’s the hope that kills you, tonight did a good job of making sure we all live very long lives. Observations: 1) We came out aggressive against Yamamoto, which was a good plan. We just couldn’t hit the strikes we got, Chourio excepted. Some of that is hard-hit balls finding outs. Some of it is being unable to know when to ambush a first pitch and when to let it go. Our swing decision have just been really, really bad in the games we’ve lost all playoffs. It hurts double when their bullpen is the one thing you have to get to in order to have a shot. 2) Our lefties were bad again. Yelich is an all-time Brewer. I feel bad for him. But it isn’t just that he’s struggled. His ABs indicate that he doesn’t have any idea right now. It’s like when Simone Biles had to withdraw from the Olympics because she couldn’t find the ground all of a sudden. Our lefties had two singles tonight. Not good enough against a righty. 3) Freddy was fine. He needed to be great. But he would’ve had to throw six shutout to give us a real shot. 4) The RBI double to Pages (1 for 29 in October coming into the series) was Freddy’s worst result. That’s an absolute killer. 5) It isn’t even Ohtani and Betts and Freeman that are killing us. It’s the Hernandezes. They’ve killed everybody all postseason. When you can pad your lineup with guys who turn robocop in October AND roll out four aces, it’s a massive advantage. 6) These guys did this same thing to Philly. They’re better than us. It feels like we’ve wrung every win out of this roster. 100 wins. I hope we can add one or two more to that total. Like a lot of you, though, it’s really feeling like the end of the line. 7) I thought Murph kind of quit managing in this one. Pitching to Ohtani was weird. Kind of an impossible choice, but he called walking him a “no brainer” yesterday, and it seems kind of like a similar situation. Whatever. Not walking Edman in the 8th was malpractice. I know Hernandez has been on fire, but why bring the infield in against Edman while letting him keep the platoon advantage. Dude never Ks. We were losing this anyway, but that was a bad one. 8) That said, let’s see what these guys do in LA. Everyone needs the day off. Weirder things have happened than a team like us coming back from down 0-2. Win one game, and who the heck knows. One game is, of course, a daunting task. But it’s also all it takes. 9) If we end up miracle winning this because I posted before the 8th inning was out, you’re welcome.

Prioritizing offense for sure. We'll see how long they stay with Bauers in left. But this gives you flexibility and is probably your best offensive 9. Last one from me until post game! Let's get this done!

Yeah, for sure. This makes sense. It's not something I'd thought of. It would explain a lot of he can't be in the field for whatever reason.

I guess the "good" news is: If Yelich stinks for three more games, we're probably not going to have to worry about facing Snell again. And if he's good, you probably give him the ABs. So, maybe a moot point. It's just kind of part of the October deal to have one of your better (of late) and more powerful (in his career) RHBs locked out of the lineup because the other catcher is the most important player on the team.

No one ever knows how all this will go, but I would guess: 1) If we lose the series, we'll either be saying: a) the Dodgers were just better or b) We really missed the big chance in Game 1. 2) If the Dodgers lose series, they'll look back at this game and believe it highlighted the weakness of their bullpen more than the strength of their starting pitching.

Andy Pages is a black hole (on base once in 29 PAs). Matt Shaw is very good (on base 7 times in 23 PAs). Ortiz has basically been Bryson Stott (on base twice in 14 PAs) in the playoffs. He hasn't been good, and he's certainly not continuing the tradition of light-hitting Brewers shortstops crushing October. I just think, on the list of things plaguing the Brewers offense, Joey Ortiz himself ranks about 6th. Want to fold it into "bottom of the order production" and maybe it's 4th. Even with a half a billion dollars, you can't buy October hitting from the 9 spot. You just have to luck into it. So far, we haven't. I agree with you that it might make sense to let Mona give it a shot tonight. Why not? But I think it would be a "let's throw some crap at the wall" kind of choice more than anything.

This. I think @adambr2 makes some good points about needing to score and maybe needing to switch things up when you know you're going to need runs. If there's ever a time to switch out Ortiz for Mona it's probably tonight, with a strikeout/fly ball pitcher on the mound. Can always go to Ortiz halfway through it you need defense. But I'm not convinced Mona is a clear upgrade. Joey's been on base 4 times in 18 PAs. That's really not a black hole given what you expect from that spot in the playoffs. Bigger issue is that we haven't gotten a lot of production from the 8th spot in the order either. I'm not sure you actually gain very much by putting in Mona, unless you expect him to get on base twice. Seems like a lot to ask against Yamamoto. I know we hit lefties well this year, but I just like our odds better against right-handed starters in the postseason. The platoon advantage from Yelich, Turang, and Frelick, plus the ability to get Jake "Babe" Bauers in the lineup far outweighs the smaller platoon downgrade from Contreras and Chourio. The biggest decision tonight seems like the OF. I would run out the same lineup as last night because I think you need Collins hitting from his stronger left side in the lineup, over Perkins hitting from his weaker side. Tough call given the defensive downgrade, but Collins looked okay in left yesterday, and Sal seemed fine in center. The big arm maybe offsets Perkins superior range and playmaking. Plus, we just need to get the starter out of the game. That should be priority number one. If your defense costs you 2 runs and you lose, you didn't score enough anyway (and I think lefty Collins is a bigger upgrade over lefty Perkins than righty Mona over righty Ortiz). One thing I WOULD do if we face Snell again is let Jansen hit as DH. I know that seems a little wild, but use the extra righty bat. You can play Yelich in the OF (and sit Sal) or sit him and get him an AB or two later in the game.

For the optimists: The road team winning Game 1 of a 7-game series, across all sports, has something like a 50-60 percent chance of winning the series. That's...not that good. Obviously, the Brewers are underdogs and have the less-talented roster, but I've seen the Brewers open 2 NLCS opportunities with Game 1, home victories, only to lose the series. Every game is its own story. Even if we go down 2-0, we get the off day, win on Thursday, and suddenly Game 4 is huge for both teams. The amount of swing possible when you have to win 4 vs. 3 is just a lot higher. I'm also just more and more aware of how many things have to go right for the Brewers to win games in the playoffs. We got A LOT of breaks last night, in terms of the double play and hard-hit balls for outs, but we also only put together one real offensive inning, and even in that inning, we had one hit. When your hope for tying the game comes down to a batter not getting out of the way of an inside fastball, you were really hoping to steal one. That said, pitch selection was again a bugaboo for us. Snell had a lot to do with that, but at a certain point we needed to sit on changeups and curveballs and make him throw the fastball. Never happened. Gotta learn the lesson. The most important over/under for me, for the series, is innings pitched by the Dodgers starters. I thought Priester/Peralta needed to combine for 8-10, and we needed to hope for less than 12 from Snell/Yamamoto. Did okay on the first part. Really struggling on the second. If we hold Yamamoto to 5 or 6, that's okay if Freddy matches. Really need him to shine, though. I know people are down on Yelich. Rightfully so. He's struggled in his postseason career with Milwaukee. For me, I think it's just that I know he has to hit for us to win. I don't blame him if he can't. That's baseball. But he hit 29 homers for us this year. After getting on base a lot early in the Cubs series, he's really had a tough go. Maybe the 9th inning walk gets him going. I know this: he's a guy who tends to hit in bunches, and the longer we're around, the more he gets the chance to put a string together. Who knows what we're saying this time next week, other than that it was a successful season. For now, I'm just glad to get one more week with these guys and fascinated to see how they respond. You can't fault their heart or effort. They're a fun group, and one I'm proud to root for, which wasn't as much the case in 2021 and 2023 (just too much offensive ineptitude for my taste). Go Crew!

Thoughts on this one: 1) I will never see anything like the play in the 4th. My goodness. Baseball. What else can you say? 2) If the Dodgers get 7 innings from their starter, we are not going to win games in this series. Snell was great. We have to be better at the plate. 3) Our bullpen just wasn't quite as sharp as it needed to be. Patrick and Uribe both looked human. Dodgers had a lot of baserunners. They hit the ball harder. If we had won, it would've been highway robbery. 3) People can bag on Brice if they want. He swung at a bad pitch. But our lefties were 0 for the game, until Bauers doubled and Yeli walked. If our lefties don't hit, we don't win. Lot of blame to go around offensively. 4) Silver lining is we got to Sasaki. I think we all would have taken 1-1 headed to LA. Let's make that happen tomorrow, and all is okay. We weren't good enough tonight. The Dodgers were better. Change that tomorrow.

Wow. That lineup is quite notable? I hadn't thought we'd move Sal to center and Jackson to right. Time for us to see if Isaac Collins is ready. I am PUMPED! Ashby, oof. I don't know. Would've gone with Koenig, though maybe they want him for possible leverage lefties. Let's hope the day off did Aaron good. At this point, these are all tough calls. I will continue to beat the drum for our lefties needing to join the party offensively. Saw some glimpses of that Saturday. May it bloom. 2.5 hrs from first pitch, and I genuinely feel great. Pressure is off. Season validated. Underdogs. It's time to have ***** FUN in October. Win or lose, I'm going to enjoy this ride. My main hope tonight is that we get to see Quinn Priester pitch like the Quinn Priester we saw all summer. Even in a losing effort, that dude deserves a bounce back. And I think he's the best bulk option tonight. Go Brewers!!!

Very surprised at Gasser's inclusion. Myers for Mears surprises me given how much the org trusted Mears to get out of jams. I guess they just see that as less valuable in a series that will demand more bulk relief, especially with only 12 pitchers. Maybe the emergence of Patrick helped there. He can do what Mears does and more, so they made the tough call. I would have had 13 pitchers. But what do I know? The marginal value of Hall/Mears/Z over Lockridge seems...small and not worth worrying about.

Mariners really bouncing back well. That pitching has been very, very good. Really like both of these teams. Glad one of them will get to a WS. I always find the schedule quirks a little funny. Basically, the ALCS will be two games in before we've even kicked off.