This is why you go for the playoffs if given the chance....

[endaround]

Linebrink gave up 9 runs in 11.2 innings in August, never more than 3 at an outing. So no, he pretty much stunk all of August when the Brewers tanked away the season.

[Tbadder]

You know, we spend the whole off season looking at rosters, trying to imagine how it's gonna go. We pour over stats, look at ages, check peripherals (sic?) etc., etc.

 

Conclusion: Brewers are good; Cards are bad.

 

Lets go back and compare their line-ups, their starting staffs their bullpens. What's changed?

 

No body and no team is ever as good or as bad as they are at a given moment.

[rluzinski]

Lets go back and compare their line-ups, their starting staffs their bullpens. What's changed?

 

Nothing has to change for anything to happen in 15 games. That's why many of us are trying to drive home. What's significant about a team's record in April of where it currently puts them in the standings, not what it tells you about the relative strength of two teams.

[Thurston Fluff]

The depth of the teams will start to get tested more as the season wears on. Both through players regressing/progressing to their average ability and the inevitable injuries. Unless a team sort of lucks out, which is always possible, and remain injury free or get that proverbial career year from some players at once we'll see the teams start to show their true abilties before long. The Brewers last year was a perfect example. Most of us felt they were a slightly above average team. They started out so well that some, myself included to a degree, got fooled into thinking that was the real Brewers talent level. When October came around what we all saw was the real level was more like the preseason predictions than the early season showing.

That is where the Cubs and Brewers will start to pulll away from teams like the Cards and Reds. They just have better players and more depth than the other two.

[mletto157]

There was a thread before the season started asking people on here to predict the Brewers month of April knowing we would be without some key players. If I remember correctly, most of the predictions were .500 or less, with a just over. So the concensus was we would be playing .500 baseball.

 

So basically, if we all knew the Brew would be playing .500 baseball through the month of April... and obviously didn't predict major slumps from most of our best hitters; than I think we should all be pretty happy with the start so far, don't you think?

[TuesdaysWithRillo]

Also, you'd have to think inserting Yo and Cameron into the lineup in the next 2 weeks will give a shot of life to the team as well. Do fans panic about the Packers after 2 games? That is the approximate equivilent going from 162 games in a season to 16.

[Thurston Fluff]

Do fans panic about the Packers after 2 games?

 

Yes. Fans panic because they are fanatics. They live and die with each pitch, each throw and each strikeout. Football fans are the same way. They then say things like player X is never going to be any good, or player Y always is going to suck. Then, a month later, when player X or Y are back to thier ususal standard they say things like - everyone was saying player X sucked but I knew those people didn't have a clue. The average fan vernacular has three key words - always, never and everybody. Quite frankly I'm not sure I'd want it any other way. It's the intensity of the emotion that makes sports so fun and so frustrating. But you don't get one without the other.

[TuesdaysWithRillo]

Yes. Fans panic because they are fanatics.

You sound like Colin Cowherd. But there is some truth to that. It's hard to balance being a fan and being rational at the same time.

[Gopher74]

You know, we spend the whole off season looking at rosters, trying to imagine how it's gonna go. We pour over stats, look at ages, check peripherals (sic?) etc., etc.

 

Conclusion: Brewers are good; Cards are bad.

 

Lets go back and compare their line-ups, their starting staffs their bullpens. What's changed?

 

No body and no team is ever as good or as bad as they are at a given moment.

Well I certainly don't think the Cards are going to be there for the long haul, but I do think that it's possible the Cards are a team that sticks around most of the year. The thing we all just gloss over, myself included is that Dave Duncan does an amazing job with reclamation projects. What was Suppan before he got to the Cards? Chris Carpenter? Darryl Kyle? He just has such an ability to take pitchers with good arms and get the most out of them. I was a little worried coming into the year about Kyle Lohse because he's always had a very good arm. Lohse, Wainwright and Looper may hold serve until Carpenter and Mulder get back, Mulder should be back relatively soon.

 

So no, I don't think they'll win 90 games, but if the Brewers and Cubs play poorly and under perform winning only 85 or so games, the Cards could find themselves right around there.

 

I don't know if any team has more annoying, pesky, obnoxious little hitters either. Seriously, "skip"? Any guy named Skip...I tell ya....