2011-08-24 Brewers (Marcum) at Pirates (Thompson) - [Brewers lose, 2-0]

[Invader3K]

Casey and Yuni with the worst back-to-back ABs of the season. Seriously, it will be humiliating if a similar late/close situation arises in the playoffs with those two hitting one after the other.

Thankfully Weeks will be back sooner than later.

[bigredrobbo]

The fact that we've had about 3 of these games in the last month, instead of about a dozen is surely cause for some sort of perspective. Virtually every team loses at least 60 games in a season, so days like this are inevitable. To some people here, however, it's not enough that we have puppies and rainbows and unicorns, we want CHOCOLATE, too, goldangit!

[markedman5]

The playoffs were always going to be a coin flip anyway. We can beat anyone and anyone can beat us.

 

The journey is whats fun....just having a chance when most teams are at home watching is fun .......especially for our fan base.

 

 

I hope we don't see people jump off a cliff if we bow out to the braves in a 5 game series........

 

Relax and enjoy the ride....we haven't won a division title for 29 years!!

[sargennm]

I'm not going to worry about a cruddy offensive performance on a getaway day game at the end of a 7 game/6 day road trip.

[topper09er]

or it proves that morgan has already been used this game.

yeah my fault, still Kotsay and Kottaras should be in there over either of our minor league left siders

Not going to happen since RR somehow has used up his entire infield bench.

He could have been creative and put the team in the best chance to win. You dont worry about the bottom of the 9th unless you are tied in the top of the 9th. This is another instance where TLR would have given the Cards the best chance to win, which means not letting out/GIDP machines Casey and Yuni face a tough righty closer. You could have put Kotsay in CF and moved Hairston to SS and put Kottaras in LF and moved Braun to 3rd, which would have been fine for a few innings. Remember a while back when TLR put Pujols at 2nd base against us, I think it was due to injury but the point is its not the end of the world for guys to play out of position for a few innings.

[brwrsfan]

Alright, I've taken some deep breaths. It sucks to lose, especially to a guy making his MLB Debut. But it's still a 5-2 road trip - just about any team is happy with this and we increased our lead in the division during the trip. It's a bummer to lose, but the fact is, we can't win every day (though it sure seems like we have). Good teams lose games, this is just one of ours. Kinda sucked, but it happens.

 

I agree on the Casey/Yuni at bats though. The lack of a bench really hurt in this game. That or the stubbornness of RR. I would have much rather seen Kotsay instead of Betancourt in the 9th inning. He should have bat with the game on the line unless we have no other options. Just a terrible at bat by him and Casey. And they've been like this all year.

 

On the good news front, the Cardinals are own 7-1 in the top of the 6th inning (all earned runs off Garcia too), so it's looking good right now that we'll maintain our lead and have the magic number shrink. Which is just gravy on a day that we lose a game. Still 4 innings, but the Dodgers are in a good spot right now. Each day that passes gets us one day close to the division, as well as one day closer to Weeks/Gomez.

[topper09er]

Dodgers up 9-1 now in the top of the 7th.

 

Also, Furcal on the Cards: .213/.277/.338

Yuni since the Furcal trade: .277/.296/.447

[brewmann04]

this last time i tape a game while at work

[brewmann04]

Brewers magic # goes down still but as we can see there still plent of things to work on. Brewers still have to focus and continue taking Series and it starts this weekend.

[brwrsfan]

Still 3 innings left in this Cardinals game, though they are down 8 runs.

 

Despite the ten game lead and all the hoopla from people (myself included) about the magic number, I hope the Brewers don't care what the Cardinals do at this point. Just focus on winning our own games, with a ten game lead and 30 games to play, we just need to focus and win some games and we're in a great spot.

 

Barring a comeback here, it's really starting to look like the Cardinals have started to mail it in. Think about it....they're currently staring at a 10 game hole in the division. Just about every day they see the scoreboard or box scores and the Brewers seem to have won again, be it 11-9, 2-1, 9-1. They played pretty well for a couple weeks and still lost ground to us. They lose a tough one on Monday (blew a 1-0 lead in the 9th), got destroyed yesterday and are now down big again today. They also lost series to Pitt and Chicago last week. Unlike the Brewers, the Cardinals seem to be finding ways to NOT win games.

 

All this, plus the realization that they only have a month of the season left to make up a 10 game hole. If Pujols or LaRussa start to pack it in, the rest of the team is bound to follow. Both of them could be on their way out of town in a month and might just give up on this season. I don't think they have, but it's certainly possible to think so.

 

Of course, as I'm typing this, they go single, HR (from Laird of all people) to cut the lead to 9-3 with 1 out in the 7th. 9-3 after 7.

[SeriesFinale]

I agree; they really seem to be turtling.

 

That stretch where they went 15-5 and lost a couple games in the standings had to have been disheartening.

[brewmann04]

The team need to focus and fix their own problems and can't be statisfied with a split aganist the Pirates. I thought the beating they took in game took would have woke them up to take the series. The have time to work out their Issues especially Base running and defense and getting Weeks and Gomez should help.

[brwrsfan]

The Reds have a DH in Florida today, they're up 2-0 early in game 1. If the Reds win those two games, they would close to within 11 games of us, only 1 game behind the Cardinals. Maybe we need to start worrying about them at this point too. Granted, they have to win both games or they'll be 12+ games back yet, but it's not far fetched to think that they could.

[BillScottCanRake]

A little perspective might help us get thru the day.

• Milwaukee has 30 games left after today. If they split, they'll end the season 93-69. St. Louis has 32 games left after today's loss, meaning they need to go 26-6 to reach 93 wins.
• Philadelphia has the best record in baseball. On average they lose 7 times out of every 20 games. Today's loss was Milwaukee's 7th since July 23.
• Speaking of the Phillies, they have lost to the Pirates as many times as the Brewers (twice)- but they've played them seven fewer times.

 

I know losing sucks and it hasn't happened a lot lately, but it happens a lot to even the best teams and it's going to happen way more in the last month of the season than it has lately. When you have a 10 game lead with a month to go, you can live with a 15-15 stretch. Better than needing to go 26-6 and hoping for help...

[BillScottCanRake]

The Reds have a DH in Florida today, they're up 2-0 early in game 1. If the Reds win those two games, they would close to within 11 games of us, only 1 game behind the Cardinals. Maybe we need to start worrying about them at this point too. Granted, they have to win both games or they'll be 12+ games back yet, but it's not far fetched to think that they could.

 

The Reds have 34 games left. If Milwaukee gets to 93 wins by going 15-15 the rest of the way, the Reds would need to go 30-4 to get to 93 wins.

[chickinbrickin]

I am actually glad they a struggling a little bit right now. Everything wasn't going to fall into place forever. Let's just consider this series a little reality check, and hopefully it will prove to the guys that they aren't invincible and they need to remain hungry and focused.

 

Keep in mind Rickie will be back soon, and our lineup is going to look a lot better with him in it. Go to sleep tonight with visions of this.

 

Hart, Morgan, Braun, Prince, Rickie, Lucroy, McGehee, Yuni. Hopefully RRR will realize he can’t keep Lucroy in the 8th spot during the post season. That guy has to get more ABs with runners on.

[a3uge]

As it stands, I think their lineup is remarkably better than 2008. Mike Cameron in CF? I'll take Morgan. Weeks was obviously hurt back then too. His replacement was Ray Durham. Meh. Counsell was .226 in a 3B platoon with Bill Hall. Kendall at catcher? Huge upgrade offensively now. Okay, the line-up was similar, but the pitching increased dramatically, even without CC. Sheets, Bush, Suppan, Parra, and Sabathia... Two of those guys had a higher ERA than our 5th guy right now. But you've got a huge upgrade in the bullpen. I'll take Krod and Ax over Gagne and Torres any day.

[StearnsFTW]

Dodgers up 9-1 now in the top of the 7th.

 

Also, Furcal on the Cards: .213/.277/.338

Yuni since the Furcal trade: .277/.296/.447

Furcal's better than I thought he'd be.