BruisedCrew

Pinch hit Frelick for Vaughn now?

Maybe we won’t have to worry about Chourio playing LF (or hitting) for awhile. Hopefully he’ll be OK after that blow.

Get used to it.

The best chance for the Brewers to win today was to shut down the Guardians B Team offense. Now to pull it out they’re going to have to score against a strong starter that has settled in or one of the league’s best bullpens.

Kuhnel is an example of why I’m concerned about pitching depth over the next 4 weeks. Heres a guy who wasn’t in the organization until recently and, because of injuries he is forced into high leverage situations.

I don’t know. He’s 22 years old and you can’t teach old dogs new tricks

That’s a pretty tiny fraction of the plays a LF has to make. With his general speed and athleticism it would be a waste to just use him as a DH when that spot can be filled by someone who can’t play in the field at all. I’m willing to give him the opportunity to learn the position. I also remember the HR that he stole that saved a game against the Twins last year. Maybe with some more experience he’ll be a better LF when he’s a grizzly old veteran of 24. It would be a waste of talent and potential to use him as a DH.and put someone in LF that can steal a HR 2 or 3 times a year but can’t hit a lick.

Come on.

For those of you who saw Pratt in the minors, does he always swing that hard.? Seems like it might help him to dial it back a fraction.

You are getting to what I think is a key point. First, to be clear, the concern I have been raising is not about the rest of the season, but just the period between now and the All Star break. So much can happen between now and the end of the season (including players returning from injuries, new injuries, deadline pickups, etc.) that it’s hard for me to think that far ahead. I have to question the relevance of some of the season to date stats about games started by pitchers other than Misiorowski and Harrison. Those numbers include starts made by pitchers now on the IL (Woodruff, Henderson, and Crow) and Patrick, who is no longer starting.. After last night we can’t be sure about Sproat’s status either. The other big factor is that a lot of the games won with the other starting pitchers involved a lot of help from the bullpen, including multiple inning stints from Ashby, Patrick, Hall, and Drohan. With Hall on the IL and Drohan starting the long relief corps has been weakened. I know now that Woodruff will be starting a game next week, so maybe he will help. He still has to be considered a question mark. Then there is the important fact that the Brewers are just starting a stretch of 27 games in 27 days, with just one off day. For the first two months of the season the Brewers had an off day every week, meaning fewer starting pitchers needed and more opportunities to reset the bullpen. Maybe I’m signaling a false alarm, but the pitching staff is going to be tested in a way that it hasn’t been tested before this season. Today’s game is a good example, with both Ashby and Patrick likely unavailable. It would help if the offense could put up 5 or more runs again

Wheeler seems to be doing pretty well.

That’s a prototype for how the Brewers are going to have to win some of these games with the bottom of the barrel starters.

Although it makes the heavy schedule that much more challenging. The series in the Cincy bandbox could be really ugly with the pitchers they’re going to have to use.

There goes another pitcher to the IL.

Might’ve gotten a break on that last strike. I’m not sure that was a swing and the home plate ump called it himself. They didn’t show a replay from the side.

Better win this one after burning through so much of the bullpen.

It’s possible that Woodruff could start in Cincy. But with questions about his velocity and presumably on a pitch count, he’s as much of a question mark, if not more so, than any other options. That bandbox can be brutal.

This series, and this block of 9 games before the next off day, will be an interesting test of the Brewers pitching staff. With Misiorowski being held out until Friday in Atlanta, I suspect that they will also give him 6 days of rest so he can open the Cubs series next Friday. If they do that Mis and Harrison will both miss the Guardians and Reds series. We’ll see how well the bottom of the rotation and the bullpen c,an handle these games. For the Guardians series they will be facing one of the lowest scoring teams in MLB that will also be without 2, and maybe 3, of their top hitters. Ramirez and Angel Martinez are both on the IL with significant injuries suffered in their game on Saturday. DeLauter also left that game with an injury after he ran into an outfield wall and is not in the lineup tonight. That might just be because of the LH SP. On the other hand, because of a Sunday rainout the Brewers will be facing the Guardians top starter (Gavin Williams) who was scheduled to go Sunday, but will now start tomorrow. They will also be facing Parker Messick on Thursday, another tough customer. By ERA the Guardians will have a better SP in each of the 3 games. It will be up to the offense to give Gasser, Sproat, and Drohan some cover.

4 is retired (Molitor).

My read on this is that Rengifo is legitimately ready for an IL stint. In the last couple of days he fouled balls off his leg twice, and yesterday he hurt his shoulder or something after diving for a broken bat popup. So, this is a chance to let Pratt play regularly for 10 days with Hamilton and Ortiz manning third. If he struggles too much he can always be sent back when Rengifo is ready. I don’t see it as making a change just to make a change. My expectations for prospects coming to the big club for the first time are usually pretty low and I’m rarely too surprised. Like Willie said, I just hope he doesn’t hurt the defense.

They won’t be there next year and when they are there, it won’t be in the same park.

Yelich getting the day off too, which also makes sense. Rengifo batting fifth says it all.

The last two games on our 12 pack the opposing SP have been Schlitter and Yamamoto. The Brewers scored a total of 1 run against the two of them. So, it figures that they would get Sanchez as we go today. The over/under on Brewers runs scored should be 0.5. I did get rewarded for exchanging my tickets for the upcoming Cubs game for the Brewers 16-2 win over the Giants. It was fun to see some runs for a change. Hopefully Harrison can have a bounce back game to keep it close. This is the fourth time he’s started a game we attended.

The season stats for the pitching are just fine. In May the pitching was spectacular while the offense was mediocre. But the season stats for the staff as a whole are not very meaningful now because of how many of the pitchers who contributed to those stats are either on the ILor are showing signs of wear. Hopefully some of the pitchers on the IL can return and be effective sometime in the next few weeks, or at least after the All Star break. But, in the meantime it’s going to be a struggle to cover innings.

It’s going to be a challenge for Brewers fans who have become used to solid pitching to adjust to what appears to be coming over the next few weeks. Colorado and Vegas can be explained away to some extent, but losing 2 of the last 3 home games by scores of 12-9 and 9-8 sounds some alarms.