BruisedCrew

The Brewers are on the verge of going 0 for 4 for the season in series against the Nats and Marlins, with 3 of those series coming in the last 3 weeks. Just have to keep hoping that nobody else in the division starts playing better than .500 ball.

Mine came back too but it’s still balky.

I think the perception about the Brewers not playing well goes back to the poor stretch before the break. Having an 11-13 July while losing four straight home series, including to the woeful Marlins and Nats is going to leave a sour taste. Maybe we should say that, except for all those games they lost, the Brewers are doing pretty well.

At least I don’t feel like I’m missing anything now that Spectrum has lost the picture, at least in my area.

Of course another big reason the Brewers have maintained their division lead while going 26-24 in their last 50 games (likely 26-25 after today) is that none of the other division teams has put together a run. Things would look a lot different if someone put together a stretch like the Mets (34-16) or DBacks (32-19) has during this period. I’m getting a chuckle out of your last paragraph in light of the flak I took the other day for what some thought was “cherry picking” because of the date I chose to break the Brewers season into two pots of consecutive games. Picking out the bad stretches is true cherry picking.

Josh Bell homered to tie the Bucs 7-7.

Is this going to be another one of those games where the Brewers score a few runs early then shut it down for the night?

I didn’t realize how hot the D-backs have been until I was looking at offensive numbers for June and July. They went 31–16 in those two months while averaging 5.75 runs per game.

I did get a 1 month trial through another site. Some times they reject you if you’ve had another one too recently.

I guess I won’t be seeing this one. The free Apple TV trial I got earlier this season has run out and I’m not paying just to see a couple of games on TV.

One thing about these comments that compare the Brewers to other teams. When I look at these I focus on just NL teams because those are the teams that the Brewers are competing with for playoff positions. I also focus specifically on NL playoff contenders because they are also potential playoff opponents. At this point, i consider the Phillies, Dodgers, Brewers, Braves, Padres, DBacks, Mets, Cards, and Pirates to be playoff contenders Because I do that, I might be more critical than posters who seem to be happy, or at least satisfied, if the Brewers are near league average or "middle of the pack"in any category. When I hear "middle of the pack" I think the fringes of making the playoffs and having to get exceptionally hot to advance very far in them. So, when I look at the Brewers offense for the months of June and July and see their production of 4.22 RPG, I don't just see it as 12th in the NL, but as 8th among the 9 playoff contenders. Their June-July record of 27-24 was aided significantly by the runs allowed per game of 3.86, which was second best in the NL. But I also note that the run prevention sagged from 3.63 RAPG in June (second in the NL) to 4.25 RAPG (8th in the NL and 5th among playoff contenders) in July as the SP continued to deliver short starts and the bullpen showed signs of wear. So, on the question of whether the offense is in serious trouble, the answer for me is a definite maybe unless the run prevention can return to its early season form. The record of 11-13 in July that includes losing 4 series at home, including 2 to some of the NL's worst teams, might be sending an alarm.

This is no more cherry picking than what is frequently. done on these boards and in baseball analysis everywhere. Over the course of a long season, you will often hear a commentary about a team or player start with “Since date XYZ..” or “In his last X games…” When the point is to illustrate a positive trend, the commentator is going to start from a low point, and when it’s a negative trend they will start from a high point. If you want to reject my comments out of hand because you have a knee jerk reaction to anything I post, I would direct you to Tim Muma’s recent article which breaks down the decline in the Brewers offense in much more detail. He broke down his analysis by starting one day later than I did. I’m not sure why he chose that date, but the trend he is describing is just what I’m talking about. I don’t see you and your friends accusing him of cherry picking. If you need to know what has fundamentally changed about the Brewers offense, and aren’t swayed by huge drops in production from several every day players, maybe you could consider the loss of the team’s most productive veteran hitter indefinitely, if not for the rest of the season.

This is affected significantly by exactly when you start the clock. When I commented on this in another thread I started after June 2 because that came at the end of the 6-1 homestand against the Cubs and White Sox in which the Brewers scored a ton of runs to rise to 2nd in MLB in runs scored. By starting on May 30 you pick up an additional 4 wins and 32 runs. They may have risen slightly by scoring 14 runs on Sunday and yesterday, but the last time I looked they were 12th in the NL in runs scored since June 2. I guess instead of 2 months I should have said 8 weeks. If you change that start date from May 30 to June 3 I think you’ll find that the Brewers fall a few places.

Not really. 6 of the 16 hits he’s had since his return have come in the last 4 games. After Friday his slash line was.222/.327/.356. He has few enough ABs that his stats can fluctuate pretty wildly with a couple of good games.

I’m interested to see how they plan to score enough runs to win games in the postseason with a lineup that has been one of the lowest run producers in the NL over the last two months and might be without its best hitter for the rest of the season.

Hader gave up a 3 run HR in the 9th and the Pirates are a couple,of outs away from tying the Cardinals for second place.

Still another example of why I didn’t waste much time pondering what the Brewers would do with Williams and Megill when Williams was available.

Why? He’s turned into a decent hitter and was one of the Brewers better playoff hitters. He’s always had the potential and tapped into it as he matured.

Always excited to see Frelick swinging for the fences.

The heavy use of the bullpen seems to be coming home to roost.

I would be concerned that a trade of Adames at this stage of the season would produce a collapse similar to the one after the Hader trade. It sends a signal to the players that the front office doesn’t think the team can win and also sheds a player who is probably the team’s biggest mentor and emotional leader.

The good news is that the Brewers improved their runs per game average for the week.

Another out on the bases.

Really can’t afford that.

Can’t afford that when you have a questionable offense behind you.