BruisedCrew

I believe that the “league” I was referring to was the National League, and that the Marlins are a shade below the Pirates in runs per game.

Alcantara says. “If only I didn’t have the worst offense in the league behind me”.

As expected the night game between the Phillies and Nats has been postponed. Good move by MLB moving the one game to this afternoon. Now they can try to fit the other 3 games between the raindrops this weekend instead of trying to get 4 in.

That’s why I said the LAST real chance. There are so many games and series that could be pointed to, including getting swept by the Phillies in June. The first game of that series marked the end of Hader’s scoreless streak and the beginning of the end of his place as the Brewers dominating closer. But, despite all of those pratfalls the Brewers could have put themselves back into a good position with wins last night and Sunday against the Reds. Now they are still begging for help while showing no signs that they are capable of stringing together 6 wins in a row.

Phillies win their first game over the Nats 5-1 to cut their magic number to eliminate the Brewers to 5. There is a good chance that tonight’s game will be rained out, so at least they got one of the 4 games in. The Phillies are now 14-2 against the Nats for the season. Going back to last year they have won 22 of the last 24 against the Nats. Expecting much, if any, help from the Nats is really an act of desperation. When we do the post mortem on the Brewers season, I think we will be looking at these last 4 games as the last real chance to grab the last playoff spot. While the Phillies lost 4 in a row the Brewers were only able to pick up one game, largely because the offense went dormant. I think it is now at the point where the Brewers really have to win out and hope for the Phillies to lose 2 of their remaining 6.

It’s hard to get excited about a team that only has a chance to grab the last spot in an expanded playoff system if the team they are competing with falls on its face worse than the Brewers do. On the surface I would like to see the Brewers make the playoffs. But, when the likely result of that would be getting to see the Cardinals celebrate at the Brewers expense for a second time, maybe a quiet end to this disappointing season would be more merciful than anything else.

Predictable.

Garcia with the bases loaded. Yikes. And Peralta’s command is shaky.

Seems like the Brewers are in total command of this game and should be ahead comfortably. Yet, it’s too close for comfort.

They have a potentially interesting situation setting up there. The forecast for DC is for rain and showers all weekend, starting tomorrow. It looks like they want to start playing tomorrow afternoon and do the best they can to get all four games in in three days. That raises the question of what they would do if they just can’t get all of the games in. The only real option would seem to be to have the Phils come back to DC to play the Nats on Thursday If it is needed to decide the playoff spot.

Cubs win 2-0 to sweep the season series over the Phils 6-0. Phillies scored 3 runs in this week’s series.

Just saw that the Phillies doubleheader against the Nats has been moved from Saturday to tomorrow because of heavy rains expected over the weekend from hurricane/tropical storm Ian.

Phillies lose.

I should have been more specific that I meant getting 6 outs without surrendering the lead. The Cardinals throw out a scrub lineup the day after clinching the division and the Brewers are having trouble taking advantage.

So, they managed to escape the 7th with a one run lead. How are they going to get 6 more outs?

Adames is lucky they turned that DP. That glove hand toss was unnecessary BS.

Morel with a 3 run HR. Cubs lead Phils 4-1.

Judge just hit #61.

Whatever slim chance the Brewers had just went down dramatically.

That’s the end of Houser’s season.

The game is just about an hour old. I think the Brewers have been at bat for about 5 minutes. Cards could be celebrating a division title and a no hitter tonight.

The champagne is being set up in the Cardinals clubhouse.

With 9 games remaining, the Brewers playoff hopes are on life support. Factoring in the tie breaker disadvantage, they are 2.5 games behind the Phillies and 4 games behind the Padres. Fangraphs lists the Brewers playoff probability at 20.7% and 538 shows a slightly more encouraging 31%. The "elimination number" for the Phillies to close out the Brewers is 8; for the Padres the number is 6. In other words, if the Phillies win 8 of their last 10 (which is certainly possible given their schedule) and the Padres win 6 of their last 9, the Brewers can win out and still be out of the playoff picture. If you're looking for something from the past to give you hope, I would point to the wild card chase in 2008. In early September the Brewers looked to be playoff bound with a 5 game lead over the Phillies for the wild card spot. But an early September slump, capped by a 4 game sweep by the Phillies, erased that lead. Now tied with the Phillies and 12 games remaining, the Brewers fired manager Ned Yost hoping a change would bring the team out of its funk. Popular lore would have you believe that the change to Dale Sveum inspired the Brewers to a late season charge, but it didn't exactly work that way. The Brewers lost 4 of their first 5 with Sveum at the helm and, with only 7 games to play, found themselves 3 games behind the Phillies and 2.5 games behind the Mets, who were feeling the pressure after blowing a 7 game division lead with just 17 games to play the year before. The rest is history. The Brewers won the final game of a series in Cincinnati, then came home to sweep 3 from the hapless Pirates, and 2 of 3 from the Cubs, who were coasting into the playoffs. The Mets made it all possible by losing 5 of their last 8. Maybe 2022 will produce a similar improbable finish. All we can do is hope.

I really think that the W-L records against teams over .500 is a separate and largely independent point from whether being 8th in runs scored makes the Brewers the 8th best offense in MLB. From the W-L perspective the losses against bad teams are the Brewers downfall. Several of those losses have come in high scoring games and others have come like in this series with being shut down in one game after pouring in runs in others.

As I have said many times, the Brewers offensive numbers relative to other teams are inflated by the number of games they have played against some of the worst pitching teams in MLB. I have presented numbers that back up my point in other threads So, being #8 in MLB in runs scored doesn’t translate to me as 8th best offense. If you disagree with me, that’s fine. But, I have seen nothing that would tell me that this offense matched up against the best pitchers on the playoff teams wouldn’t be overmatched.