adambr2

Huge! Can the pen hold it?

When you've done nothing but make repeated moves for bats over and over again and throw your pitching scraps, and you still can't score, it's time to take a hard serious look at your hitting coach.

The Brewers can't use a DH. They have played Thames in both corners, Schoop at SS, Aguilar at 3rd, and Shaw at 2nd. They would find a way to work him in somewhere to get his bat in the lineup.

To elaborate more on that, I think it would be completely negligent of Counsell to have the mentality of just winning a series, not sweeping it. I'm bringing this up again because they were harping about it tonight again on the radio. Just win or split your series and you'll be fine, they said. They used to refer to it as "gravy day" when you've already won the series and are going for a sweep, because another win is just "gravy". I continue to find this mentality to be inexplicable. The only time just winning a series counts just as much as a sweep, is the playoffs. In the regular season, a 3rd game potential sweep against the Giants counts for exactly as much as a rubber game against the Cardinals. If they honestly have the mentality that losing a 3rd game of the series isn't a big deal if you've already won the series, they really are ignoring the basic fact that MLB standings are based on games won, not series won. Yes, in a perfect utopian baseball world, you could win or split every single series and you would be in great shape at the end of the season. In the real baseball world, you're going to have stretches of really bad baseball where you end up doing things like getting swept in a 5 game series in Pittsburgh, and you had better have some really good stretches in there as well where you are sweeping, not just winning series, if you want to be in it at the end of the season.

T-Rats win...on a walkoff strikeout.

We aren't going to make the playoffs, are we?

As a team that regularly starts Eric Thames in the outfield, I doubt that would stop us from starting Davis if he was still here.

THIS, can never be forgiven...EVER! I'm sure RR has completely forgotten, and maybe doesn't even think that was a monumental mistake, but we Brewers fans, will have to live with it forever. Gosh that was horrible. I got over it long ago. At the time, Gomez was a black hole offensively. I had no problem switching defense for offense. What offense? Kotsay at that time in his career was a pretty weak hitting .700 OPS or so outfielder, around the same as Gomez put up that year. It was basically a lateral offensive move with a huge defensive downside.

Once the decision is made you go with it? You can't adjust based on what follows? I would hope that an MLB manager could be a little more flexible than that.

Its not necessarily that the approach just didn't work though, it was still early in the season and we were still finding our way in the pen as to what we had. Look at the guys getting big innings that week -- Hoover, Albers, Drake, Barnes. Probably not coincidental that improvement also coincided with Hoover and Drake being DFA.

I will repeat my post from July 17, as it is very relevant today: April 6 - Blown Save (Jeffress), Brewers won on Arcia walk-off April 7 - Blown Save (Barnes), Cubs score 4 in the 9th, win 5-2 April 9 - Blown Save (Albers), Brewers won 5-4 on walk-off walk April 10 - 3 Blown Saves (Drake, Barnes and Hoover), Brewers lose 5-3 in extras April 15 - No blown save, but Albers lost it in the 9th Yes, the bullpen had a rough first week or so after Knebel went down before righting the ship. A couple dramatic walk-offs kept the torches and pitchforks at bay. Effective bullpens are cyclical, and I would argue that the situational approach, again, is not a sure-fire solution either. The best solution is to get Knebel to a point where he's dominant again. If that doesn't happen, look to Williams or Jeffress to start closing games more often. If the "best solution" is to get Knebel to a point where he's dominant again, wouldn't that apply to any reliever? I mean, that's kind of obvious. If we can get Taylor Williams to the point where he's dominant, that would make him a good closer too. No one said the pen was perfect with Knebel out, but it sure was a lot better than what we're doing now. I honestly just think Knebel is kind of overrated here. His ERA is approaching 5 and we're still looking for a way to pigeonhole him into the 9th? Sure, he's nasty when he's right, but guys that can throw 98 grow on trees in the league these days. If you can't hit your spots on your secondary pitches, you'll end up prone to both walks and homeruns, which fits Knebel to a tee. I don't see how he's much different than Barnes, only more HR prone. People fall in love with the "All-Star" next to a closer's name far too much. Derrick Turnbow was an All-Star. Relievers are extremely volatile, and baseball history is literred with closers who were dominant for one year only to fade into obscurity (Turnbow), or simply became just another reliever. (Axford).

No, I think you can make a pretty strong case that Soria should have been up after the second walk.

"But at some point, we're going to try to work to get him back to big spots in the game. I think we function best when Corey has the ninth" -- Counsell Why is Counsell abandoning the "closer " role kicking and screaming when he does so well at being innovative about everything else?

I remember years ago on this board we had a debate of the hypothetical value of a reliever who would be guaranteed to go 1 inning and give up exactly 1 run in every single outing. I would have liked to have that guy today.

It's not even so much the blown saves but how Corey is blowing them. When 3 straight batters need to do nothing but stand there and wait and all end up scoring, you have given the game away, plain and simple. Very few things are more infuriating to watch in baseball than a pitcher on your side who gives a game away on something as simple as a total inability to throw a pitch in the strike zone.

I'm not that old school. And really my only issue is I'm pissed but everyone loves to pounce on negative emotion, which isn't allowed around here. I'm pissed too, but I'm pissed at our guys, not Renfroe. Mostly I'm pissed at Corey who basically cost us this game himself.

Curious as to how many games Counsell plans on costing us sticking with the conventional approach before making some adjustments that we were told he was already planning to make.

We are now only 1.5 games from being out of a playoff spot entirely.

I really couldn't care less if Renfroe beat his chest, ripped his jersey off and spun it around over his head as he rounded the bases. If we were embarrassed by that inning, we should be.

There's no reason Jeffress couldn't have worked the 9th today too, and that probably would have been that. But nope, gotta have your 9th inning guy. Hope it was worth it, Craig.

Well....he did shut it down.

Barnes is such a disappointment.

Series' like this one in August and September are why we are that team that wins 86 games and watches someone else play in October. Just like the Reds sweeping us last September.

I didn't appreciate Corey's walks.

LOL. Great job Counsell. Thanks.