BruisedCrew

Maybe he had the phone number for his orthopedic surgeon written on his hand.

Before this 18 game stretch I said that I would be satisfied if the Brewers didn’t lose any of their division lead.. It’s possible that they could still do that with a win tomorrow, but when you throw in losing 3 SP to injury it’s hard to say that this stretch hasn’t been something of a disaster even with 10 or 11 wins. We’ve also seen terrible slumps from Chourio and Contreras.If that’s related to the situation in Venezuela (which would be understandable) it could be a big problem for some time. With the pitching situation the offense is going to need more from those guys than they have been providing.

He’ll have to overcome both Skenes and the return of the PNC Park hex I don’t think the Brewers have ever gone into the final game of a series in that park needing a win to avoid a sweep and actually won it. Fortunately this is just a 3 game series instead of some of the 4 and 5 game series of the past.

Followed by a bad miss by Contreras letting the game ending strike, go right down the middle.

They’re getting beat by one guy

Brewers hitters are looking mentally and/or physically tired in this game.

Ugh. Another golden opportunity wasted.

A potentially productive inning wasted there. Yelich passes up a walk by swinging at a pitch several inches inside, and Turang fouls off ball 4 before being called out on check swing for Ball 5. So the first four hitters could have/should have gotten on base and they have nothing to show for it. After that first game this is starting to have one of those classic PNC Park nightmare series.

I wonder if this game will actually be starting at 3:05. They are calling it a split doubleheader and the Pirates said that tickets for the Friday game would be honored at the 1105 game. It seems ambitious to clear out the stadium and admit a new crowd in not much more than an hour.

The long road trip might finally be taking its toll. That game was horrible on several levels, but especially the pitching.

Can we please retire the “Vulture” love. He has been pretty bad lately

I can’t believe that he doesn’t have some physical problem, with a bad back being the most likely. His numbers are bad, but he looks worse than his numbers. I wish he would go on the IL just to rest and rehab if nothing else without having to deal with the games and swinging over breaking balls at his feet. Maybe after a month or so he can come back refreshed. He is one of my favorite Brewers ever and it hurts ME to watch him like this. This must be what it was like for Yankee fans in 1939 watching Lou Gehrig before anybody knew what was wrong with him.

You get to do it again tomorrow if you have Peacock

And I didn’t do that either. The fact that you keep repeating this shows that you haven’t actually read what I’ve been saying.

Has THE NUMBERS COMMISSION ruled that it is improper to look at the last month of games for all teams, including all of their runs, to make an observation that for that period the Brewers offense has been below league average in runs per game? Seems to me that people, including Sveum, do things like that all the time. I’ve stated exactly what I’ve been doing very clearly. If you don’t agree with me, that’s fine.

My opinion and observations are based on numbers. Is there a set of rules that determines what THE NUMBERS are that are approved for use in forming opinions. The numbers I am using have led me to the conclusion that since the Brewers returned from Vegas their offense has been below league average and that the Brewers have been winning because of exceptional run prevention. I apologize if that opinion conflicts with THE NUMBERS, whatever they are

You missed the point. It isn’t about peaks and valleys or dismissing 3 games. It’s about a month of averaging about 4.3 RPG, 10 days of high scoring, (6 of which were played in parks that contribute to inflated scoring,) and then another month of averaging 4,5 runs per game. If you want to talk about peaks and valleys this is more of a valley with a bump in the middle.

Yeah, I found that game on baseball reference. That home run capped off the Brewers blowing a 7 to 3 lead.

Wasn’t it Wilson who gave up a 600 foot home run to Carlos Santana that capped off a pirates comeback win over the Brewers a couple of years ago?

The game is listed as Delayed on the MLB site.

If you want to go down this path I could use something similar to highlight my questions about the Brewers offense. For one thing, I don’t think this season has been that much of a roller coaster so far. It’s nothing compared to the Cubs or the Braves (which has been more of a steep climb followed by a steep descent). The Brewers had a good first week followed by a bad streak that brought them back to .500. Since then it’s been a mostly uphill climb without the dramatic winning streaks from the second half of last year. But I think the way you divided up the games presents a misleading picture of what the Brewers offense was like in that middle block of 38 games. I’d have to spend some time getting the precise numbers, but that block seems to include the two 13 run games against at the end of April and the high scoring games in early June against the Giants, Rockies and A’s. Those games whitewash the whole month of May in which the Brewers offense was middle of the pack (something like 4.3 RPG) The next two groups covering 29 games show the Brewers scoring around 4.5 RPG. If we just looked at the games from May 1 on, there would be about 10 weeks of the Brewers averaging about 4.5 RPG with one block of exceptionally high scoring games in the middle. These are all facts that we can each interpret how we want for purposes of evaluating the Brewers offense and what we can expect from it going forward. I think we would all agree that the games in Colorado and Vegas are aberrations and are not very relevant for projecting future performance, especially because the Brewers won’t be visiting either place again. My conclusion from this is, at least for now, the Brewers offense is more of a middle of the pack 4.5 RPG offense than an elite 5 RPG offense. But that run prevention has been undeniably elite and that’s why the Brewers have been winning at the rate they have been.

If tonight’s game is rained out, I would vote for a DH in September. Both teams have an off day on the Monday before the Tuesday-Thursday series so the DH could be for Tuesday. There are also thunderstorms possible tomorrow afternoon so getting 2 games in might be dicey. I assume nobody would be happy about having to play a doubleheader on the day before the All-Star break.

The specific debate now is about what to expect going forward based on what we’ve see to date. There was also a comment the other day about having the Brewers having great run prevention and great offense. I think if you look at game by game and series by series results the Brewers record is more a matter of outstanding run prevention and enough offense to turn that into wins. Using a lot of numbers for different measures over various periods of time may not be as persuasive to some people as it is to others. I like to understand what those things are supposed to measure, and it is not unusual for me to conclude that those measures have some flaws of their own. The issue now is not whether the Brewers have a “really good” team. Their recent regular season success has upped the standard to whether they have what it takes to go to or win the World Series without relying on an unlikely hot streak.

I didn’t feel like quoting it and addressing it in an IGT that will be archived soon. Maybe during the All Star break when nothing else is going on I’ll revisit the issue and we can discuss why a team that is averaging 5 runs per game for the whole season has more than once in the last 10 weeks gone 30 days or more at a pace significantly lower than that. It has also fallen from its scoring pace from April when it barely won half its games. Maybe the answer is that some of the advanced metrics would say that the Brewers should be scoring more than they actually are scoring. And before the pitchforks, tar and feathers come out, I should make it clear that I’m not saying the Brewers suck and that their offense is terrible. I’m just not convinced by results and my (maybe lying) eyes that it as elite as some are making it out to be.

Maybe I wasn’t watching the game closely enough, or had my eyes closed as Ashby was putting the runners on to bring the tying run to the plate. The first time I saw Uribe throwing was in the top of the 9th alongside Yoho. It looked like a situation where they were going to bring Uribe in unless the lead got significantly larger. If Uribe was already heating up in the 8th and would have replaced Ashby if he put another runner on it does make sense to just bring him in for the 9th instead of heating up Megill too.