BruisedCrew

The Cubs haven’t exactly been tearing it up lately, though their pattern has typically been to ramp it up in the second half of the season.

The batting order really doesn’t matter if you’re going to give up 10 runs a game and put 5 or more automatic outs in the lineup. With today's pitching matchup, tomorrow is shaping up as the latest in the seemingly endless series of “salvage” games.

This is MUCH more than just a rough patch that all teams go through. The starting pitching has been a problem all season except for the brief stabilization a month or so ago and now it has fallen off a cliff. No reason to think it’s going to get significantly better.

Another game not worth watching as the Brewers burrow their way to .500.

I don’t think the concerns being expressed about this year’s team and where they are headed involves living and dying on every game. I think it’s fair and understandable for a fan to focus on every game because, as the Brewers marketing slogan says, “Every Game Counts”. Plus, on a day to day basis, today’s game is the only one that counts. How that game fits into the bigger picture is something else again, and it is foolish to let one game have too much impact on your feeling about the bigger picture. Speaking for myself only, a game like yesterday's is maddening by itself but, even if the Brewers had held on to win 7-5 or 7-6, I wouldn’t have come away from it thinking that all is well because the Brewers would still be in first place. Another rocky outing from Davies does nothing to alleviate concerns about the starting pitching and how all of the short starts are going to wear on an already shaky bullpen. The Brewers have to be able to win some games without getting two innings from Hader, but those have been pretty rare lately. I’m also wary of comparing this year’s record to last year’s because there is more than a 99% chance that the Brewers won’t finish as strong as they did last year. I was feeling pretty good when the Brewers got to 10 games over .500 and their pitching seemed to be stabilizing. But now the pitching has gotten worse and the Brewers are losing a lot more series than they are winning, including some to teams that we reasonably could have expected them to beat. On the subject of the thread, given the Brewers history, my minimum requirement is to have a season in which the team is in the running for a playoff spot well into September. But this year my threshold has been raised significantly. Anything short of making it to the Division Series will be a significant disappointment. I thought that with Grandal added, having Moustakas for the whole season, Arcia avoiding the huge slump he had last year, improvement from the young pitchers, and the possibility of Nelson returning, the team should be better than last year, even if it didn’t win as many as 96 games. But injuries to Knebel and Wahl and underperformance from several key pitchers and position players have resulted in a team that is not what I had hoped for. They may be at a crossroads heading into the All Star break. They are still just a half game behind the Cubs, who I expect to be a lot better in the second half, but there are a lot of teams no more than a handful of games behind them in the division and wild card races. And some of those teams have significantly better run differentials than the Brewers, suggesting that they are poised to start winning more than they have so far. The Reds and their solid pitching rotation are one of those teams. Instead of using the supposedly weaker part of their schedule to separate a little from the pack they have instead drifted back toward that pack. The fact that the Cubs haven’t separated either isn’t much consolation. The other thing that concerns me is thinking about where this team would be without Moustakas and Grandal, both of whom probably won’t be here next year. Other than Hiura, whose initial trial was a success, I’m not seeing many everyday players to support Yelich as Cain and Braun age and Shaw and Aguilar plummet from being extremely productive to complete black holes in the batting order. I’m afraid that 18 and 19 will be for the Brewers what 15 and 16 were for the Royals, except that getting one game from the World Series will be the Brewers high point before they drift back like they did after playoff appearances in 1982, 2008, and 2011. These next two weeks leading up to the All Star Game may tell us a lot about where the 2019 Brewers are headed.

It’s not. It’s just expecting something and not seeing it happen. Many had way too high of expectations and it’s ruining a time in Brewers history for them. Maybe some re-runs of the early 2000’s would help during rain delays or something. I don't think this is accurate. Burnes, Peralta and Chacin weren't expected to pitch to sub 3 ERA but certainly weren't expected 8.69, 5.54 and 5.60 ERA. Shaw and Aguilar should have been expected to hit 25-30 HR given their past two seasons. No one expected this drop off. There have been no answers and let's not start talking about the bullpen. Put simply, this team isn't even meeting averages let alone expectations. This. If you go through every player on the team one by one there are a lot more performing below expectations than above. One the above I put Yelich (who I thought wouldn’t be able to be as good as he was after the AS break last year), Moustakas, and Grandal. Woodruff has come along and Davies was there but is showing signs of returning more to “meeting expectations”. There are a lot more in the way below expectations category. In addition to the ones you mentioned, I didn’t see Cain’s OBP dropping by 100 points. I had expected more depth in the bullpen, but the injuries to Knebel and Wahl and Jefress’ regression took care of that.

I will say that the Brewers are getting more creative about finding ways to blow games. Between pitching, hitting, and defense at least 2 have been failing every day.

Don’t forget 2014, the ultimate example of being in first place for most of the season being meaningless. If the Brewers don’t make some significant personnel moves or get some dramatic improvements from some of the current players, they aren’t going to be in playoff contention in September. The starting pitching is a mess, the bullpen is crumbling under the weight of frequent short starts, and Arcia has joined Cain, Shaw, and Aguilar as black holes in the lineup.

The Brewers supposedly weaker part of the schedule is proving to be anything but. The Padres came into this series with confidence after scoring a ton of runs in Colorado and they’ve taken it to the Brewers. Now the Reds will come in after sweeping the Astros and looking at a golden opportunity to move into the playoff picture with 8 games before the All Star Break against the struggling Brewers.

[quote="adambr2" I would even be ok with Grandal or even Thames. Just not many great options. I do not want Thames or Grandal leading off and clogging up the bases ahead of Yelich if they do get on. No matter what order you put them in, a lineup with only 3 productive hitters isn’t going to produce a lot of runs on a consistent basis.

Another of the all too familiar “salvage” games. The sky may not be falling but the Brewers have been treading water pretty much since the 7-1 start. The good news is that nobody else has taken off, but by losing series to the league’s bottom feeders, the Brewers have missed a great opportunity to open up a little cushion. Even more alarming is that some of the early season question marks have turned into real problems. A month or so ago it looked like the pitching may be stabilizing, but it has turned back the other way with too many short starts taxing a bullpen that isn’t as good or as deep as last year. It seems like the Brewers need 2 shutout innings from Hader to finish off every win. Plus, as the season nears the halfway mark, hopes are fading that Shaw and Aguilar will snap pout of their horrendous slumps. It’s one thing to have an off year but they have been almost complete dead weights. What we thought might be one of the top offenses in the NL is closer to the middle of the pack in scoring runs, and that isn’t going to be nearly enough to overcome the pitching. And if any of Yelich, Moose, or Grandal gets hurt or goes into a slump, there may not be anyone to pick up the slack.

I just don’t get this constant need to police how people react to games. It’s not just you doing it, it happens all the time here when people post negative thoughts about the terrible baseball they’re watching. I'll agree with this statement. The IGT thread is for in game comments and thoughts. Makes perfect sense that when watching bad baseball, bad thought and comments will follow. It's the nature of fandom... I third this motion. This is true of every single message board for every team I follow. If you don’t want to hear people venting their frustrations, stay away from game threads.

The Reds are scouring their minor league system for any scrub lefty they can find to shut the Brewers down in their two upcoming series. Though seeing that their right handers have shut down the Astros the last two nights they may not need lefties.

That has the look of a broken hand and a long DL stint. Fingers crossed that he can dodge that part of the bullet.

Unless the Brewers find a way to score some runs, this is going to make 7 of the last 10 series in which they’ve gone into the last game of the series needing a win to salvage one game. 5 of those 7 have been 3 game series. They’ve managed to win the first 6 “salvage” games, but that’s not exactly following the “just win series” strategy.

Getting up early to play golf tomorrow. Maybe I’ll have a pleasant surprise when I get up but this is looking like a long game that won’t be much fun to watch.

When did this happen before? Many times over the years, like at Wrigley Field with the wind blowing in last year and this year, and in parks like San Francisco, San Diego, and others.

This is looking like another example of the Brewers offense having trouble in a rough home run environment. Their well hit fly balls are turning into cans of corn.

We are currently 10-10 vs LH starters this season, so it has been a break even strategy at best for opposing teams to this point. For the season we have actually hit LHP (.803 OPS) better than RHP (.782). The Padres just scored 44 runs in four games at Coors Field (11 R/G), in the sixteen games before that they scored 59 runs (3.69 R/G), well below their season average of 4.38 R/G. If the Brewers are 10-10 against LH starters and 30-21 against RH starters that would suggest that starting lefties is a good percentage move. The “winning” strategy doesn’t have to be better than a 50-50 proposition, just significantly better than the alternatives. For example, I would consider sending Christian Yelich to the plate instead of Travis Shaw to be a winning strategy even though Yelich doesn’t hit .500.

Teams are obviously figuring out that lining up their lefties for the Brewers is a winning formula. The Padres have been scoring a ton of runs lately and will provide a big challenge for the Brewers fatigued pitching staff.

The Padres have already scored 32 against the Rockies and they’re only in the 5th inning of the third game of the series. They must be licking their chops over facing Chacin tomorrow.

There’s a reason why they call right center field in that park “triples alley”. Time to get ready for the family barbecue and write this game and series off. When a run scoring hit goes through the fence and wipes out the run you know it isn’t your day. Hopefully this will turn out to just be one of those series that happen a couple of times a season to most teams. But, it’s hard not to be concerned about giving away bushels of runs to the two lowest scoring teams in the league.

I think we can scratch Anderson’s name off the “good” or “OK” lists.

It shouldn’t be hard for the Brewers to pick up a veteran right handed hitting 1B or 1B/OF from a non contender without giving up too much. It wouldn’t take much to be an upgrade over what Aguilar has been giving the Brewers and they’re running out of time to give him more chances to find his swing.

It’s been much too common in recent weeks for the Brewers to go into the last game of a series looking to “salvage” a game. That’s always frustrating, but it’s even worse when it happens against lousy teams like the Marlins and Giants.