wins that got away so far in 2008

[Fear The Chorizo]

I always point to 2007's large number of games the Brewers lost that seemed destined for wins as the difference in the division last season - The Cubs did right the ship, but Milwaukee more or less handed them the division with all the blown 3+ run leads late in games during the course of that season. This year, there hasn't been as many significant meltdowns, but I wanted to try and put together a list of games that were especially tough losses to stomach and see if there were common denominators.

April 20 against the Reds - Lost it in the bottom of the 10th when Gagne gave up solo shots to Encarnacion and Bako, followed by another run after Yo and Harang turned in great pitching performances.

May 4 against the Astros - Saw the Brewers blow a 6-2 lead against Houston, with yet another Gagne blown save mixed in.

May 10 against the Cards - good comeback to tie it, only to lead to Gagne giving up 2 more 9th inning runs

May 14 against the Dodgers - Combo of Milwaukee relievers and poor defense coughs up 3 9th inning runs in another late inning loss - Mota gets credit for the blown save and loss

May 17 against the Red Sox - 2nd game of doubleheader squandered away late due to shoddy defense

June 6 against the Rockies - Sheets' quality start completely squandered as Mota's entrance in the 8th led to a 5 run inning and a 3 run blown lead.

June 27 against the Twins - Very entertaining game, but a tough one to swallow with McClung not being able to keep the Twins from continuing to get back into the game, and Mota/Kendall falling in love with high fastballs to Joe Mauer after getting him down 0-2 in the count

July 3 against the Dbacks - too fresh in all our memories, up 5-0 heading to bottom nine and couldn't get an out before the Dbacks plated 6. Mr. Mota started the fun, albeit with 2 infield hits, he did walk a guy to set the inning up for the meat of the Dbacks' order.

Many of these tough to swallow losses had similar scenarios - The Brewers' offensive inability to tack on runs against opposing bullpens/middle relief and late-inning blowups of their struggling relievers. The frequency of Turnbow+Gagne's presence in the early season meltdowns has been more than replaced by Mota since mid-May.

Some of the early season woes were solved once the bats started generating more runs, and the bullpen has been strengthened with Torres' success. Still, the weak links appear to be an inability to tack on runs after generating big early leads against opponents' bullpens, and even moreso the presence of Mota in late inning-high leverage situations. I'm hoping common sense sent the memo to Yost that Mota isn't to be used in these situations anymore, and that while he does need to pitch, he needs to be kept on a short leash. I would hope Brewer management realizes that if Mota's the weak link, they need to cut ties/trade him - I think in house options to replace Mota's innings are more than available, especially if Gagne continues to show good command. McClung should shift nicely back into that middle relief role after the allstar break.

Mota's got a dollar amount tied to his name, but so does Turnbow, who is giving them nothing right now as well - the Brewers need to realize what they gave up to acquire him (Estrada, which equals nothing in my mind), and make sure he doesn't cost them any more games. He's got good stuff, but if he isn't commanding it or if he's tipping hitters as to what's coming, he's this year's version of Turnbow.

[homer]

Just out of curiosity, how many games do you think the Brewers stole? I'm sure the Cubs feel they let one get away back in April.

[BillScottCanRake]

Nice work compiling the list. I'm sure it wasn't very much fun putting it together.

 

I agree with Homer that it would be very interesting to see how many games the Brewers have "stolen" this year. Without researching it myself, I am guessing the number of blown games and stolen games is a lot closer in number than they were last year.

[jason21nl]

I understand that over the course of the year there will be blown leads, and blown saves and games that we should have flat out won, but the AZ game still makes me mad. Shutting a team out for 8 innings, having a 5 run lead going into the bottom of the 9th and blowing it without even recording an out. OUCH

[lcbj68c]

Despite the time it took to compile the list, I still don't like the idea that "Wins got away". This isn't football, where you can just sit on the clock. It's 27 outs. The first 3 outs count the same as the last 3, the first 6 to the middle 6, etc. Hence, the reason why I dont like "naming closers" or the save stat.

 

That said, you should not give up 5 runs in an inning, regardless of the inning. Seemingly, all these games are games that were blown late, or as I prefer to call it, games that the other team "stood up and won".

 

Therefore, only the July 3rd game I think have a significant impact to the season. Opponents "earn" their victories, not blow them away. It just seems blown away because they get the runs late, as opposed to early. Just my take.

[dadofandrew]

Every team loses games, many of the ones listed aren't even tough losses. Many are simply coin flips, and surprisingly, you win only about 50% of those.

 

There is no clock or ability to stall in baseball, it's a different beast. The runs count the same in the 1st or the 9th...all the rest is for the lawyers.

[dlk9s]

Every team has games they "should have" won. Those games were painful, but keep in mind that the Brewers have the best record in the league in one-run games, so many would consider us quite "lucky."

[lcbj68c]

I'll add to that, similiarly, the "division lead" was not blown away last season, rather the "Cubs stood up and won it". Winning the games later rather than earlier just makes it seem like it was blown away.

[Fear The Chorizo]

On the flip side, games that the Brewers appeared to steal, trying to follow the same criteria that I used to identify games they seriously squandered:

 

April 17 against the Cards - Crew scores 3 8th inning runs off the pen and Prince hit his 1st dinger in the 10th to avoid the sweep

 

April 23 against the Phillies - Fielder hits a 2 run homer in the 8th against hamels, and Turnbow actually notches a save

 

May 1 against the Cubs - big Braun double after Wood created a jam for himself and blew a save. Yo's injury severely dampened this win after the news broke the following day

 

May 9 against the Cards - Weeks delivers a 2 out, 2 run single as Izzy blows another save

 

July 2 against the Dbacks - Brewers look pathetic against a spot starter for the Dbacks, only to score a run in each of the last 4 innings to get the win - Torres slithered off the hook by getting a double play ball to end the game.

 

Not quite as many on this list as the other side, but there were also a ton of games that could've gone either way in which the Brewers were able to come away winners. There were also a good number of games where significant Brewer leads where whittled away to set up late inning theatrics, including a quite a few blown saves that led to walk-off or extra inning wins early on. Many of the games which Milwaukee "stole" were still relatively close games, and while overcoming one-run deficits isn't exactly stealing a game, I tried to view the games from the opponents' perspective as best I could.

 

I'm not intending to say that the Brewers "blew" all of the games I listed to start this thread - just pointing out games I remembered that stung worse than the other losses did, and trying to point out any similarities. Mota being the gas can that burned the Brewers in many of the more recent "bad losses" led me to think starting this thread was worthwhile. I think the two games that stand out the most to me are the 6-5 Dbacks loss and the 6-4 loss to the Rockies.

[joepepsi]

In the last 46 games, since the end of the Boston series, the Crew have lost by more than 3 runs only 8 times. I take that mean they have been close enough to win in 38 of those 46, having actually won 30 of them. 83% of the time they have had a reasonable chance of winning, right down to the last out. As someone who still remembers Jason Bere or Everett Stull coughing up 6-10 runs in the 1st inning, I take special delight in how well they have done keeping close when behind on this last run. The July 3rd game hurt; but at least with this team there's no sense they are on the verge of an extended losing streak.

[Bucky Rules]

As someone who still remembers Jason Bere or Everett Stull coughing up 6-10 runs in the 1st inning

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!! I had convinced myself that was just a bad dream. Please don't ever mention those names (among many others) again.

[Menotti80]

hello? June 14th?

 

brewers blow a lead vs the twins, russell ties it up off nathan with 2 outs, prince was 2 inches frmo a winning homer, and tavaras blows up and we lose 9-4.

 

i will never forget that game. biggest emotional rollercoaster EVER.

[Fear The Chorizo]

16 Brewer wins have been by 4 or more runs this season. # of games the Brewers lost by 4 or more? Exactly 16. That 83% has been there all season. One would think that replacing McClung with Sabathia every 5 games should increase that percentage as the season rolls along, especially if the bullpen continues to show improvement.

[Fear The Chorizo]

I'd put that June 14th game into the category of "games the Brewers made a charge, but didn't quite get over the hump" (another would be the 6 run inning to tie the Nats, only to lose 7-6). It was definitely a downer, though, and I would like to erase Taveraz in a Brewer uniform from my mind.

[RyDogg66]

Id classify a win that got away as a 3+ lead with 6 or fewer outs to get. Presumably at that point you have your best relievers and unlike early in a game, can play for outs instead of worrying about runners.

[Menotti80]

I'd put that June 14th game into the category of "games the Brewers made a charge, but didn't quite get over the hump" (another would be the 6 run inning to tie the Nats, only to lose 7-6). It was definitely a downer, though, and I would like to erase Taveraz in a Brewer uniform from my mind.

 

true, and the brewers only had a 2 run lead into the 6th (i think). that game hurt me really bad through because russell put me on cloud freaking 9, then the prince almost-homer, and then julian. UGH!

[rluzinski]

Still, the weak links appear to be an inability to tack on runs after generating big early leads against opponents' bullpens

 

As far as I can tell, the timing of the Brewers' runs seems tied to the strength of the pitcher they are facing and a flip of the coin. Mostly just random, as far as I can tell. I know. Somewhere, Tom H.'s ears are burning.

 

If you want to objectively identify the games that the Brewers "should" have won, why not just win probability from fangraphs.com? Here's that May 14th game, for instance:

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/wins.aspx?date=2008-05-14&team=Brewers&dh=0&season=2008

 

The Brewers had a win expectancy of 93% at one point in that game. Choose some arbitrary cutoff (90%?) and count the games up. I think you are just identifying the most disappointing games, though. I don't really see the utility in it, beyond possibly identifying under performing relievers (and you don't even have to look at context to identify those).

 

Me? I see a team that has a 19-15 in run games and one that's 10 games over .500 despite have outscored their opponents by only 16 runs for the season. I think they've been pretty efficient in winning games. I can't complain.

[Tbadder]

I'd classify a win that got away as any game that Glendon Rusch humiliates you.

[Postseason2006]

This one is a win that got away. Pathetic. Thank god Mota is still here.

[pebadger]

I don't think you can classify this as one that got away when the biggest Brewer lead was 1-0. Not to say that the team wasn't disappointing, but this one didn't "get away". In a lot of ways, this one was almost sadly predictable in terms of offense generated.

 

As poorly as Harang has pitched this season, I'm guessing that the Brewers will make CC work pretty hard to earn a W on Sunday, too.

[Fear The Chorizo]

The point of this thread was to show just how many games Mota has cost the Brewers by pitching late in ballgames still in question - While Milwaukee was still trailing when he entered the game, once again Mota basically eliminated any chance of a Brewer win. While it stinks to score 1 measly run against Glendon Rusch, they were still in the game with 2 cracks at Colorado's bullpen. Instead of going with a reliever who's been effective recently, Yost decides to pitch Guillermo Gas Can and suck the life out of the park.

 

If I'm a reporter, I just have to ask Yost why, and continue asking him why to the point of beating him over the head with the question so he stops putting Mota in a position to cost this team ballgames.

[rluzinski]

The Brewers had a 25% chance of winning before Mota even touched the ball, according to fangraphs. Even if Mota is a true 5 ERA reliever (which is terrible), he's still not much worse than the alternative. Gagne? Riske?

 

I didn't like seeing Mota coming in either but let's not trick ourselves into thinking that the odds went down drastically when he was called on.

[Postseason2006]

The Brewers had a 25% chance of winning before Mota even touched the ball, according to fangraphs. Even if Mota is a true 5 ERA reliever (which is terrible), he's still not much worse than the alternative. Gagne? Riske?

 

I didn't like seeing Mota coming in either but let's not trick ourselves into thinking that the odds went down drastically when he was called on.

Regardless of the percentages, coming back and scoring 1 run in 2 innings is a little less daunting than 5 runs.

 

And what were your odds when Boston was down 3-0 to the Yankees with two left in NY?

[Jimbo]

If you want to objectively identify the games that the Brewers "should" have won, why not just win probability from fangraphs.com?

 

Choose some arbitrary cutoff (90%?) and count the games up. I think you are just identifying the most disappointing games, though. I don't really see the utility in it, beyond possibly identifying under performing relievers (and you don't even have to look at context to identify those).

 

Me? I see a team that has a 19-15 in run games and one that's 10 games over .500 despite have outscored their opponents by only 16 runs for the season. I think they've been pretty efficient in winning games. I can't complain.

 

Last season I started a thread on this very topic, and I used fangraphs with a criteria of 90%.

 

This year unofficially I count 2 comebacks and 4 blown wins.

[Fear The Chorizo]

I would have opted for any guy over Mota in that situation. If Gagne or Riske can't go in back to back games if need be, then this bullpen is in serious trouble.

 

If it's to the point of not having other options in that situation instead of Mota, then I hope something's done to replace him on the roster with a reliever who hasn't been awful for the past few seasons. I'm not saying the rest of their pen automatically shuts a team down in that spot, but boy it's getting old watching Mota pitch in those situations.

 

Overall, this game did a very good job of showing exactly what the Brewers need more of on their roster - good relievers and hitters able to adjust their approach/work the count. There are plenty of nights when home runs and good starting pitching mask their problems, but boy it's frustrating to watch when the same problems continue to cost them.