nothing brewing

[flosses like fossas]

a freelance writer for the sporting news (from st. louis, mind you) has nothing good to say about the brewers recent showing.

 

ever the optimist i can't say i blame the critique. this ship needs righting, though he does merely point to the obvious (turnbow, gagne, yo-ga) black eyes, and neglects to point to things like the brewers' offense not yet having hit stride at anything close to their potential.

 

frankly, it's par for the course as far as yahoo.com sports writing goes.

 

Edit: fixed link

[crewcrazy]

It was definitely one of the roughest weeks I can remember, for sure, but it was just one week. If the Brewers end up winning the Florida series it'll go a long way in giving the team some momentum heading home to face the Cards and Dodgers.

[SeriesFinale]

That was very badly written and/or edited: quotes out of context, abrupt sentences, etc. That said, I don't have too much issue with what was said other than the Chicken Little aspect of it. He didn't seem to indicate the positives, making it seem like these are indeed permanent issues unless the team vaguely "rights the ship."

 

Here's a direct link.

[BREWCREW5]

Sadly guys, he is right. The brewers arent going to be good this year. The only thing he is wrong about was saying the crew crumbled in September (it was July and August, not September).

[bucks2281]

The writing is choppy and this guy is being overdramatic.

 

Milwaukee trails National League Central-leading St. Louis by 3 1/2 games, with the Cardinals set to play Monday night at Colorado. The Brewers never trailed by more than 3 1/2 games last season

 

The Brewers play St. Louis 4 times this week. And it's May 5. And most believe St. Louis will regress significantly. If the Brewers are back by more than 4 games after the end of the series against the Cardinals, then I'll be concerned.

 

That might not be a problem this season because the Brewers will not be playing meaningful September games unless Yost can get the club straightened out in May.

 

The Brewers are in crisis mode heading into Tuesday's series opener at Florida.

 

Come on! The Brewers blew a couple of games this weekend. Big deal. They've had a sub-par last couple of weeks. It happens. And they're still over .500. Ugh, this why sportswriting is an easy target. To say the Milwaukee Brewers are in crisis mode on May 5, IMO, is a gross overreaction.

[rluzinski]

Those quotes are enough for me to know not to even bother reading it. Crisis mode in May and they aren't even below .500? Righttttt.

 

I will enjoy it when the Cardinals fall apart.

[TuesdaysWithRillo]

CRISIS MODE!!! CALL 911!!! 3.5 GAMES OUT OF FIRST IN MAY!!!! SOS!!! SAVE OUR SHIP!

 

Ok. I'm done.

[Ennder]

I seem to remember the Cubs being out by like 7.5 games last May... how did that turn out?

[TuesdaysWithRillo]

The Cubs are a Derrick Lee injury and the Cards are an Albert Pujols injury from being nobody's so let's all just settle down and have a beer together. It's on me.

[orca1963]

The Cubs are a Derrick Lee injury and the Cards are an Albert Pujols injury from being nobody's so let's all just settle down and have a beer together. It's on me.

 

While I don't believe we are anywhere near crisis mode, I do believe it crucial that things get on a different track. IMO we should not be writing off the Cubs or the Cards as if they are going to collapse and give us our opportunity. The above injuries will probably not happen and both teams are better managed than we are (I am not one who is calling for Ned's head). My concern is what is taking place now is a continuation of what took place last year especially with the Cubs down the stretch. The Cubs lost there share of games at the end but the Brewer's managed to lose games at the same time. We are playing like a 500 ball club and that is what we are. Pitching and hitting problems are happening enough to ask hard questions of this team's players and managers. I have not seen any posts criticizing Maddox, and yet we have Turnbow and Gangne both struggling as well as starters Bush and Suppan etc. What about the bullpen coach? Or the hitting coach? What about the players themselves, are they dedicated to winning ball? What about their contracts and the lack of incentive clauses to motivate them Mr. GM?

 

My long-winded point here is that something is missing in a vastly talented team. In management as well as player personel we have people who have been trained by the best, succeeded and excelled at all levels. So why are we where we are? How about some real soul searching answers rather than Ned sucks or the Cubs or Cards will fail. He doesn't (all the time) and they probably won't.

[Invader3K]

Pujols could be forced to sit out the remainder of the season at some point due to his elbow, but if I'm not mistaken, the Cards will have various pitchers coming back during this season, which could at least help their pitching situation.

 

The Cubs are the ones to worry about the most. There's nothing to indicate "Derrick Lee will get injured". Yeah, he's been hurt in the past, but seems healthy so far this year. They also probably have enough depth where an injury to someone like Lee isn't going to be enough to derail them at this point.

[lukevan]

So why are we where we are?

 

It's been an odd early season, no doubt, with 5 blown saves, mostly short outings by starting pitchers and anemic offense and yet somehow we still are over .500. I worry if we'll have enough pitching going forward; we can't afford to blow saves at this clip and we somehow need our starters to go deeper (and to pick up another quality arm?). I'm still not really worried about the offense. It's too early to worry about a 3.5 game deficit to the Cards.

[trwi7]

There's nothing to indicate "Derrick Lee will get injured".

 

Well yeah he didn't say that he would get hurt. He said both of those teams could be screwed if they lose key players as well so saying we're out of it because we lost Gallardo is a little ridiculous. Wainwright could blow out his arm and Ramirez could break his ankle on a base. Then the same columnist would have to write how it's the Astros division to lose.

[JohnBriggs12]

There is no minimizing the Gallardo injury. It is devastating.

 

But there are plenty more signs of trouble like:

 

Gabe Kapler has as many HR as Prince Fielder.

 

Mike Cameron has more HR in a week than Hart and Hardy combined for the year.

 

22 of the 31 games played have been started by a pitcher with an ERA over 5, and one of the two who's started under that number is out for the season.

 

Our soon to be 34 year old catcher, who the manager thinks is impervious to fatigue catching every day, is batting .200 over his last 75 AB's showing signs of fatigue less than 6 weeks into the season.

[BrewCrewForever]

That was a rough week, no doubt about that. But tonight in Florida maybe we can win this series or even better get a sweep that would be huge going back home for a couple of series.

[trwi7]

There is no minimizing the Gallardo injury. It is devastating.

I agree it's devastating. I'm not down playing it in any way but if Doug can pull off a trade to get us another starter that can give us 6 or 7 innings of 4-4.25 ERA ball, someone like Joe Blanton then I would hardly give up the season. But right now, yeah it doesn't look good with Gallardo out for the year, Parra, Bush and Villanueva all struggling badly and the offense struggling.

[Ennder]

The Cubs are now 3-8 in their last 11 games. Eventually the Cards will hit a rough patch too, we just have to keep plugging away. Losing Gallardo is a huge loss but it doesn't mean we are out of the playoff hunt.

[rluzinski]

IMO we should not be writing off the Cubs or the Cards as if they are going to collapse and give us our opportunity.

 

I would expect the Cardinals to play .500 ball or slightly worse going forward, since they are playing well over their heads right now. The Cubs are a good team, though, so I can only hope for them to stumble.

[JohnBriggs12]

It's not the record I'm concerned with. The record given everything is pretty good. But playing the way they are (not hitting, below par starting pitching, spotty relief), there is no way they are going to sustain even a .500 record much less contend.

 

Forget the Cubs and the Cardinals, Houston looked much more poised to make a run than the Brewers did over the weekend. They have the best lineup in the division.

[Thurston Fluff]

Did he mention the Cubs palyed 14 games against teams with a winning record, 3 vs .500 and 16 aginst losing records? Or the Cards who played 19 games agsint losing teams, 6 aginst .500 and merley 8 vs winning teams? Compare that to the Brewers who played 18 games vs winning teams, 3 vs.500 club and only 9 vs losing teams. That while playing the most road games in the league. I knew the cubs didn't play all that tough a schedule but man the Cards really have played a cupcake schedule so far.

[rluzinski]

It's not the record I'm concerned with. The record given everything is pretty good. But playing the way they are (not hitting, below par starting pitching, spotty relief), there is no way they are going to sustain even a .500 record much less contend.

 

Everyone knows that the Brewers have been playing poorly. The real question is, what do we expect in the future? Should we expect nothing to change and the Brewers to play exactly the same? You could make a lot of cash in Vegas if it was that simple.

 

Forget the Cubs and the Cardinals, Houston looked much more poised to make a run than the Brewers did over the weekend.

 

Yes, based off of 3 games, I would assume that the Astros will fall behind by 4 runs 66% of the time but win those games 100% of the time. What does 3 games tell us about anything?

 

They have the best lineup in the division

 

As in, offense? Either I am misunderstanding your comment or you have no way to support that claim.

 

I swear that if people on message boards had to put money up on the bold assertions they make on a regular basis, there wouldn't be very many bold asserstions being made.

[Fear The Chorizo]

It's articles like these that make me anticipate a 16-5 type run for the Brewers...just when the talking heads and "experts" think they have it figured out, baseball has a knack of completely disproving them.

 

If last season taught us anything, it's that writing anyone off in early May is incredibly foolish - the Brewers were 24-10 around this time last season, and nobody else in the division was even over 0.500...the division was a foredrawn conclusion, and nothing could go wrong. Not exactly how it turned out.

 

The Cubs are finally getting to a portion of their schedule that doesn't include the Pirates - the Brewers are in the midst of their second 9 game road trip in their first 35 games. As for sketchy rotations, anyone paying attention to what's been going on in Cubbyland? Pinella's already lost his patience with Hill, getting that way with Marquis, Lilly's been inconsistent, and Dempster's starting to get hit around like his peripheals indicate. They basically have the same rotation as Milwaukee's right now, only their middling starters that can't get deep into games are veterans.

 

I'm still not buying the Cardinals, simply because they have career bench players playing everyday at this point - they're playing very well right now but there will come a point when these guys show why they've been career bench players and castoff pitchers. Also, their bullpen will continue to trend towards blowout mode, since the same relievers are being used on almost a nightly basis to get wins - very similar to the brewers' hot start last season.

 

As much negativity that surrounds the Brewers, we should be thrilled that they're still 16-15. The pitching staff as a whole needs to get more consistent, but it would be really nice if they start scoring runs more consistently.

 

To quote the great Lee Elia, I hope we get hotter than ****!

[cnycerveceros]

Did he mention the Cubs palyed 14 games against teams with a winning record, 3 vs .500 and 16 aginst losing records? Or the Cards who played 19 games agsint losing teams, 6 aginst .500 and merley 8 vs winning teams? Compare that to the Brewers who played 18 games vs winning teams, 3 vs.500 club and only 9 vs losing teams. That while playing the most road games in the league. I knew the cubs didn't play all that tough a schedule but man the Cards really have played a cupcake schedule so far.

This is probably a stupid question, but these kind of comparisons always make me wonder: doesn't a team that loses a lot of games always end up 'having played' teams that have won a lot of games. Every game you lose is one your opponents won. So in the end, do the 'worst' teams record wise have stronger strength of schedules? It must cancel itself out over the course of the year as your opponents play 'other teams' more often than they play you, but still it makes me wonder. This is probably a dumb question, but maybe someone could explain my idiocy to me.

 

[SeriesFinale]

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/img/v3/12-05-2004.fraley_05spo.IMG.GBB1G8VTK.1.jpg

 

 

"Bawk! Sky's falling, sky's falling!Bawk!"

[Thurston Fluff]

This is probably a stupid question, but these kind of comparisons always make me wonder: doesn't a team that loses a lot of games always end up 'having played' teams that have won a lot of games.

 

Not really stupid at all. In football it really is more true but it does mean something early in the baseball season as well. The differance is, other than the Rockies, the Cards have played teams that were expected to be bad all year and are showing why. They played the giants 7 times, Washington 3, Pittsburgh and the Reds a combined 5. The Rockies are the one team that may end up better than they are currently playing but so far have been awful at 12-20. If the other teams were bad just because they played the Cards (and the Cards were really that good) one would suspect that would show up in their record agianst other teams.