BruisedCrew

I’m not sure this will be overturned. The way Yelich bounced around and off the base they might not be able to say for sure that he was never tagged.

I think there are many points in between going “All in”, making minor acquisitions to prop up the current team, and going into total rebuild mode. I also think what the Brewers did reduced their chances of reaching the World Series from slim to slimmer. In combination with what other teams did, including the Cardinals and Phillies, I think their chances of missing the playoffs completely have gone up significantly. Those teams addressed some of their weaknesses while the Brewers did nothing to their hitting and arguably made one of their strengths weaker. I don’t lump the Hader and Bush deals together because they could have done one without the other. I assumed they would make a deal to acquire a veteran setup reliever and that would give some support to the bullpen. But taking away Hader creates a cascading effect through the back end of the bullpen that might make things worse, and isn’t going to make it better unless you think that Hader’s recent problems were more than just a bad stretch. As a matter of philosophy I’m good with trying to be competitive on a regular basis over hoping to hit the jackpot in a 2-3 year window of competence surrounded by many years of sub .500 teams (see KC Royals). I don’t like the Hader trade because I think it made the team worse in the short term and disrupts team chemistry and familiarity with roles. I also don’t see that the prospects they got were so special that the Brewers couldn’t have made a similar deal in the off-season. In the off-season they might have been able to include Hader in a deal that would have returned an established hitter to cover one of the Brewers many positions of mediocrity. I am also disappointed that the Brewers couldn’t pick up a veteran right handed hitting 1B/OF who could serve as a platoon with Tellez, provide some depth in the OF and at DH, and be a better PH option than what they have now. The Astros were able to get Mancini and the Mets didn’t make any big moves, but bolstered their roster with platoon pieces (Vogelbach, Ruf, and Naquin). The Brewers did nothing.

I can agree that the Brewers and Cardinals have both been unimpressive this year.

Yes and no. It would have been nice to not have to go to Williams again. He night be done for the rest of the series. Hopefully he won’t be needed on Sunday.

Rogers probably still has jet lag and will be out for at least another week to recover. Would have been nice to get through this game without using Williams for the third day in a row.

Even with the one good week they have been under .500 for the last 3 months. The offense shutting down after the second inning has kept this from being a laugher.

Cardinals and Phillies both win again. Brewers need to win to keep pace.

The Reds unloaded some decent players at the deadline: Drury and Naquin are two that come right to mind. With Castillo gone and Greene on the IL anything less than a sweep in this series will be like losing ground. ETA: they also traded Pham, who had been their regular LF, and Stephenson, who had been one of their best hitters with an OPS of about .850. After their awful 3-22 start, the Reds have played at basically the same pace as the Brewers: 39-41 to the Brewers 40-40. But, now that they have traded off several of their best players they are pretty awful. The Brewers have to take advantage of their games against them because you can bet that the Cards and Phillies will be taking advantage of their games against the bottom feeders, and they both have more of them than the Brewers do.

De Jong rises from the ashes with a 2 out 2 run double to put the Cardinals ahead of the Yankees 4-3 in the last of the 8th.

No third straight loss for the Braves tonight.

Not enjoying the lack of add on runs tonight.

Glad Rowdy didn’t get the walk.

I guess this game won’t be starting for awhile.

Another cliche is that having an ace starting pitcher or two prevents those long losing streaks. That doesn’t work when the aces have bad games or the team can’t score any runs. Burnes had a couple of his worst outings of the season during the Brewers losing streak in June, and Burnes and Woodruff couldn’t prevent this week’s sweep. BTW, I brought up the Braves situation more because of how eye opening it is. I remember a couple of years ago I was impressed that the Dodgers hadn’t lost 4 in row, and this year when I heard how few series the Mets and Yankees have lost.

How to watch the Brewers game vs. Cincinnati Reds Friday night via streaming on Apple TV+ https://www.jsonline.com/story/entertainment/television-radio/2022/08/04/how-watch-brewers-vs-reds-game-friday-via-streaming-apple-tv/10233741002/

Sure, it happens to most teams but not all. Playing under .500 ball for 3 full months does not happen for most good teams, and only things like weak divisions and expanded playoff formats keep those teams in the playoff discussion.

The game is free on Apple TV. You don’t need a subscription, trial or otherwise.

Whenever fans get upset about a losing streak or getting swept in a series by one of the worst teams in the league, someone is sure to come out with some variation of the mantra that “all teams go through things like this.” I just heard that the Braves have not lost 3 straight games all season, and I confirmed that by looking at their game by game results. So, it is not impossible for a team to avoid losing streaks. Throw in a 14 game winning streak and you have the makings of a good season. This came up on the Mets- Braves telecast because the Braves have lost two in a row, one to the Phillies and one to the Mets. They have jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the first inning tonight.

Somebody asked the question how you can get Apple TV and I was just responding with how I access it.

I am not going to call any game or series with this much time left a “must win“, but because the Brewers have been treading water for the last three months, and undid most of the value of winning seven out of eight by losing the next four, I see this as a series in which anything less than a sweep is a lost opportunity. The Brewers have fewer games remaining against the worst teams in the NL (Reds, Pirates, Cubs, and Nats,) than the Phillies and Cardinals do. If the Brewers can’t start banking wins against some of these teams, it’s going to be very difficult to make them up somewhere else. The Brewers have already squandered an opportunity by losing 7 of their last 8 against the Pirates and Cubs. If they don’t start turning that around they might be digging themselves into a big hole when they face the Cardinals and Dodgers in the next two weeks.

I can get the Apple TV app on my iPad, on my smart TV, or through a Roku streaming device.

OK then. I might have thought that players would be taking a lot of red eye flights. But hopefully this is the real explanation and not a coverup for something else. He didn’t pitch on Sunday even though the Padres were in a save situation. At the time the report was that he was being removed from the closer role because he had been ineffective but maybe the Padres were just holding him out because of a possible trade. Because this trade is so unpopular, if Rogers isn’t effective he may be in for the Schoop treatment from Brewers fans who generally are not booers.

The story on JSOnline says without further explanation that Rogers was unavailable today. So, let’s recap this. Rogers pitched on July 26 and 27 (last Tuesday and Wednesday) blowing saves in both games. It was the 11th time this season that he pitched on consecutive days. Then he didn’t pitch again before being traded on Monday, and threw one inning last night. After working one inning in a week, he is unavailable the next day? ***? I’m half expecting now that we’re going to find out that he has an arm problem that might be a reason why he stunk up the place in July, giving up runs in 8 of 11 outings. If the guy is hurt or can only pitch one inning a week, that will cement this as the worst trade in Brewers history.

That could be. When I watched it live it looked like Renfroe was moving over and then slowed down, and I thought it was going to be a foul ball. Then it dropped in fair not that far from him. Maybe with his various muscle injuries he isn’t covering a lot of ground, but I think a RF with better range might have gotten to it. I could go back and watch it again but I don’t have the stomach for that. It’s interesting, though, that on Sunday I was driving through the UP of Michigan and could only get the game on satellite, and they had the Red Sox feed. I put it on just after Renfroe’s HR so they were talking about him and how the Sox miss his bat in the OF. One guy made a comment that he always thought Renfroe was overrated defensively. That has been my impression too. I don’t know what the defensive metrics say, but It seems like he doesn’t have great range. Again, he may be reluctant or unable to really stretch it out after pulled hamstring and calf muscles.

I look at those two plays and see Gamel making a play defensively and Renfroe letting a high fly ball drop fair. in other words, the Pirates made plays and the Brewers didn’t. I’m guessing that the expected batting average on Reynolds double was very low. A ball hit that high, and pulled no less, has to be caught.