adambr2

Well, they really needed to find a way to get 2 in San Francisco. That was their time to make hay, and they didn't. I'm not saying we'll get swept (though it wouldn't surprise me), but it's almost impossible for me to see us taking 2 in L.A. This isn't like a series in Colorado where maybe if things break right we can take it. The Dodgers are that good. They haven't lost a series since early June against the Nationals. I realize anything can happen. But the odds really are very low.

I'm still optimistic on our chances to catch the cubs. Right now is pretty much the optimal time for them to gain ground on us from a schedule standpoint. Last week and this week, they faced bums while we faced solid competition. Now we face a Dodgers team missing 3 key players while they face an awful Phillies team. In theory, after this weekend we will have better opportunities to gain ground. Also their spat of injuries certainly isn't helping their cause. Lester, Russell, Contreras, and now Bryant. And their depth/farm are both awful, so they don't have much for options to replace these guys. They feel kinda like the Brewer teams from 5-6 years ago that had some very poor players taking meaningful atbats due to lack of depth. That's just it, it's pretty likely that 3.5 will be 5 or 6 by the end of the month with the schedules. While it's still theoretically possible to make that up in September, their schedule doesn't get any more difficult. While they aren't the 100+ win team from last year they're still too good IMO to go into a huge funk in September against a soft schedule enough to get back in it. We'll likely be in a position where we need to go 6-1 against them to rest of the way to have a shot and I just don't see that happening. Injuries will hurt, but not enough to send them into the big tailspin that we need. I'm a lot less of a believer in the Rockies and Diamondbacks and as long as someone else doesn't get hot and catch us, we only need one of them to falter, and neither is sitting on a really easy schedule. At this point all we can do anyway is control what we can control. I would guess that would not be good enough to win the division but would be enough to sneak into a 1 game WC playoff.

I brought this up in the bullpen thread the other day. As Lathund mentioned, there are some drawbacks, as it'll cost you someone on the 40 right now, unless you can find justification to send someone to the 60 day DL. Even then, you'll have to go forward in 2018 with Burnes on the 40 man. Indeed he's a guy you definitely want in your rotation eventually, so you don't want to mess with his development too much. Most likely you could let him finish out the year in the pen and then start 2018 in the AA or AAA rotation to continue his development, and he'd be fine, so sticking him on the 40 this early in his career and having one less 40 spot going foward is probably the biggest drawback. I do think he's a guy who could be an effective MLB reliever right now. In the end I don't think they probably see enough of a benefit out of a few September innings from him right now to outweigh the drawbacks. Frankly, I kind of doubt that Counsell would trust him with any critical innings yet anyway.

A bit of good news tonight as the Diamondbacks lost to the Mets and the Royals rallied late to beat the Rockies, so no ground was lost in the WC race. The Cubs did win, but to be honest, I'm not paying much attention to them. Sorry guys, in my opinion the division title just isn't happening. The wild card however is getting closer, and actually we're now closer in the standings to the Rockies than the Cubs.

This team is such a tease. Riding high winning the series in Colorado and of course proceed to lay a big egg in San Francisco, averaging a meager 1.6 runs per game for the series. That won't get it done. Absolutely no excuses, they had great matchups, they avoided MadBum, and once again, the offense choked. They're actually very fortunate they didn't get swept, against one of MLBs worst teams. Now they need to win the series in L.A. just to avoid a losing road trip, and yeah, that ain't gonna happen. Just be happy to limp back home at 4-5 if they can at least win one.

Carlos 'White Flag' Torres. When you're trailing after 8 and know the game is over anyway.

Here's why people often believe the game is over before it is: This team has 1, count 'em, one single win this season when trailing after 7 innings. That is incredibly bad.

Anddd that will likely do it. Great work Barnes.

Gotta try to make him Chris Sale first. If that doesn't work, then Miller. Yep. What a wasted opportunity it would be for the Brewers to not give this special arm a chance at the rotation. There's many scouts who don't believe he'll ever be a starter. It all depends what the Brewer scouts believe. If they don't believe irs going to happen, they may see it as a waste of time, resources and productivity to continue going forward with it right now. I'm not opposed to trying. Obviously he's much more valuable if be can make it as a high end starter. But the Chris Sale projections are really optimistic. He's got a much higher probability of being a Miller than a Sale.

I know many still want Hader in the rotation, but man, this guy really could end up being our Andrew Miller

Definitely a big one. Not an especially dominant one but one of those in which it's hard to think of anyone who played tonight who didn't contribute to the win in some way. Nice team win.

I would have to agree with you. Josh Hader is a legit bullpen force when on. I will pitch him against anyone in the majors when he can locate his pitches just a little bit. Not disagreeing with either of you but was tonight the beginning of seeing Hader as more of the 7th inning man? He got four outs and pitch count in the 20's so maybe it's CC's feeling to get him out to possible use tomorrow?' I hope not, I despise any pen strategy that gives a guy the inning just based on what number inning it is, with the possible exception of the closer in the 9th since I know everyone does that and will continue to anyway.

I get that Counsell is still a young manager but he really needs to start developing a little better feel for managing his pen and picking the right spots of when to ride a situation out and when to bail on a guy who clearly doesn't have it. Hader was dominant tonight. He's not a LOOGY. This was (is) a 1 run game that we need. Not every decision needs to be matchup based. Sometimes a guy just has it that night, and another guy doesn't. Hader had it tonight, Swarzak did not. Fortunately he got lucky and there was no harm done, but next time might not work out that way.

My goodness Pina. I love what you've done for us this year but that potential Ball 4 was about 2 feet outside.

I don't even need to look up the 2nd half stats for Nelson to know that he's stunk up the joint just like last year.

Sogard, maybe start making big boy throws over to 1st so Thames doesn't have to keep digging them out.

Rough road trip for Braun so far.

Yeah, that was a deserved error I think, but it's not like it was a cheapie for Keon. Nice to see good luck go our way for once.

New strategy for opposing teams: every inning, intentionally walk our leadoff man and then balk him over to 2nd. Then simply sit back and watch us flail, hack and pop up our way out of the inning.

Pathetic. Just pathetic. Thanks, Walker and Braun.

They've lined out to Pence about 5 times tonight, especially earlier in the ball game. Actually there was 4, but nothing hard after the 4th inning. Stratton wasn't dominant at all tonight, and he actually fell behind in a lot of counts, we just couldn't make him pay. Not saying there were no good ABs tonigbt, but they were definitely outnumbered by the bad ones.

I get using Aguilar there, but I don't understand why they didn't take a shot with him for Vogt instead of Broxton, who obviously had a much better chance of tying the game than Vogt did.

Another terrible AB. Good grief Aguilar, Broxton could have done that.

Vogt is safe. All calls from CB Buckner should automatically be reviewed, he is the worst.

Well, need Vogt or Broxton to get ahold of one.