BruisedCrew

Again, there’s a lot more to baseball than “batted ball profile”. I’m not a huge disciple of things like exit velocity, launch angle, and xBA because I’m not sure if they can take into account how well a team positions its defense, executes its pitching game plan to get hitters to hit into the defense, and then makes the plays to convert batted balls into outs. But I do note that Baseball Savant lists the Brewers xBA last night at .204, which doesn’t sound like a great batted ball profile. While there is going to be some luck in every game, I’m not convinced that the Brewers luck last night was so bad that it would have turned a 7-1 loss into a win.

I did watch the game until the score got to 6-1, and we’ll just have to agree to disagree. I’m not going to argue about the two catcher’s interference calls because it was ridiculous the way Martinez swung at those pitches. I’m not sure if he was standing any further back than a lot of other hitters. For as long as I’ve watched baseball it has been common for batters to rub out the back line of the box and stand as far back as they can get away with. Other than that, though, I consider soft hits and hard hit outs to be part of the game. Smith’s dribbler was extreme but I don’t think there was anything unusual about some of the other “soft” hits. Sharp grounders hit right into the defense are not unusual either. Maybe what we need is to change the game from baseball to “Exit Velocity Ball” to cut down on some of the whining coming from the Brewers announcers the the last two days. When elite hitters like Betts and Freeman get their bats on the ball and drop soft liners into the outfield, to me that is good hitting, not pure, dumb luck. The Dodgers’ 2 HRs were not lucky either. I also consider the ball that Wiemer misplayed and dropped to be a significant factor in the game that cuts against the notion that the Brewers outplayed the Dodgers. I guess if every sharply hit ball the Brewers hit had gone for a hit, and every soft ball the Dodgers hit had turned into an out the Brewers might have won.

Both games have been decided by 10:30 so it hasn’t been an issue.

A few hard hit balls that could have been hits, but saying the Brewers outplayed the Dodgers is quite a stretch. Failing to make plays in the field is part of the game too. 3 runs on 5 hits in two games isn’t going to get it done against many teams. For the record, I see that the fly ball that Wiemer dropped was correctly changed to an error.

Levering’s whining is really getting annoying.

Very interesting. Being weak in both number of opportunities and conversion rate is a pretty deadly combination. Neither surprises me, though I often feel like a low number of opportunities is an even bigger problem than the conversion percentage. The number of runs per opportunity does surprise me. I wonder how many of the runs come in situations that are less critical, like in later innings with either a big lead or big deficit. A 3;run HR late in a 10-1 game would obviously have less impact on the outcome than a sac fly or single that breaks a tie in the last of the 8th.

Watching the game I wasn’t feeling like the Dodgers were that lucky until the game was pretty much out of reach. The first 3 runs in the 6th inning were a result of: Montaserio’s throwing error that opened the door. Muncy’s sharply hit ground ball into RF Martinez’s very hard hit RBI double into the gap in left center. Hernadez’s sharp ground ball through the drawn in infield that drove in 2 runs. That ball would probably have been an out with the infield back, but I give the hitter credit for getting his bat on the ball instead of producing a strikeout or popup like we often see from the Brewers in those situations. At that point the score was 4-1 and the Brewers were in deep trouble. The offense producing 2 hits and 1 walk in 9 innings is a bigger story to me than the Dodgers “luck”. We’d be doing cartwheels if the Brewers had an inning like that Dodgers 6th. I do agree about Santana. He has come tantalizingly close to having 4 HR in the last two games, and the 2 he got were no cheapies.

Really not this year against the best of the better teams. Against the 4 other NL teams currently in the playoff positions that they have played (Braves, Dodgers, Phillies, Giants) they are a combined 6-14. They haven’t faced the Marlins yet.

Bed time. Open the door for a team like this and they’ll drive a tank through it.

If offered a 3-3 trip against the Dodgers and Rangers almost every Brewers fan would accept it over playing the games and hoping for more wins.

I will be out of the country so I won’t have to listen to it if the race does come down to that last weekend.

“Only need to split”. Based on the dogfights in the series here around the 4th, splitting 6 games against the Cubs is not going to be easy. Their lineup is impressive and they have some pitchers who seem to have success against the Brewers. I’m expecting the race to come down to that series the last weekend.

I’d rather be the home team regardless to get the advantage of the last at bat. But if the Cubs play the wild card series here I would guess they would have more fans here than the Brewers would. Weekday or weeknight games in October at playoff game prices would be a tough sell in this market.

The best thing he did was throw enough strikes. Two of the three outs were rocked pretty hard

Ah, this is the put away the Brewers needed.

I nominate Bummer as the Brewers MVP in this series.

It can be the same issue there. Who should you put in the lineup against a LHP who destroys LHB but is vulnerable against RHB? Many times the available options don’t allow accommodating a pitcher or hitter with reverse splits. You have to consider the opponent’s strengths and weaknesses too.

What should a manager do against left handed hitters who kill righties but have trouble with lefties and he only has one lefty available? I think Counsell knows as much about hitters and pitchers splits as fans do.

Last night wasn’t like that. They didn’t have many chances and got 3 out of their best opportunity.

When was the last time Turang tried to bunt and actually got it down in a helpful position.

I made this comment on Friday. It’s amazing that for as few runs as the Brewers score, how often I end up being frustrated after a scoring inning because they didn’t get more. That top of the fifth was the latest example.

He obviously isn’t seeing the ball well at all right now.

Jays 5, Cubs 2. End of 2.

Brewers are pulling out their getaway day offensive approach. They were literally at bat for 2 1/2 minutes.

I wasn’t telling him how he should be a fan, I was just noting how he deals with game threads. I think it’s posters who tell others things like “you should find another hobby” that are telling them how to be fans.