Why all the doom and gloom?

[sveumrules]

Why all the doom and gloom? It's the internet. People who are able to keep an optimistic mindset go out and sip on lemonade in the sunshine while all the haters type type away in their mother's dimly lit basement, right?

[SoCal Brew Crew Fan]

I see both sides. Yes, the Cards are in the drivers seat in the series. They now have homefield and get 2 starts from Carp. Our top 2 (Braun & Fielder) may be better, but their top 3 and beyond is deeper. Marcum is toast, Wolf may not be any better and an injured Rickie Weeks is a shadow of his all-star self unless someone makes a mistake inside he can pull.

 

That being said, what does that give them a 60% chance of winning tops? Yo has never pitched well versus St. Louis, but he's been on a nice roll lately...we get him for 2 starts as well. If we get into the bullpens, which could happen in a tight Carp vs. Yo matchup...the top 3 relievers on either team are Ax, KRod and Saito-san. That buys us time to get Braun or Prince another at bat or two. We aren't the only team that has crappy starters...Garcia, Lohse and Jackson can all be had. I'd take Greinke over any of them. Plus, as great as Carp has been...he just had 2 games against the Phillies...the Brewers are way better at this point in the year than the Phils lineup. Carp had a 3.86 ERA against us this year, granted his last outing was a shutout, but they've shown they can get to him.

 

While my money would be on the Cards, it's not so insurmountable that I've given up hope. We have around a 40% chance to make the World Series...the odds haven't been that good in a long time. Hang in there!!!

 

EDIT: Clarification

[umphrey]

It's 1-1 so either team could win. I am pretty worried though because right now it feels like we have to get 2 shut down outings out of Gallardo, which is asking a lot, 4 shut down outings against elite offenses who each get to see him twice, and steal another game by scoring at least 6 runs.

I just have no confidence any starters not named Yovani have any potential for a good outing, including Greinke. With Greinke there was a lot of discussion whether his first 1-2 months were a fluke or not, I never really made up my mind, but it took him months to turn things around then, the same problems came back now, and I don't see how he fixes it by Thursday when we play St Louis.

[brewtank34]

Carpenter is going to get rocked tomorrow night. The home crowd is going to be taken out of the game almost immediately. I had a dream too and we won in 5.

[tomwopat]

Way too many balls in play for a defense like the Brewers. Have the Brewers pitchers lost their strikeout mojo or are the Cards just that good at putting the bat on the ball?

[RockCoCougars]

Way too many balls in play for a defense like the Brewers. Have the Brewers pitchers lost their strikeout mojo or are the Cards just that good at putting the bat on the ball?

I don't know about that. The Cardinals whiffed 10 times on Sunday, and that game would have never really been in doubt had Berkman beat the shift with a slow grounder and Freese followed with a very borderline home run. I wouldn't have expected many strikeouts from the guys who went last night for the Brewers.

[Mr QL]

We're in a pretty tough spot with 3 games in St. Louis. Are we going to get swept there? Probably not but it's not completely out of realm of possibility. Them taking 2 of 3 looks fairly likely and them returning to Miller Park up 3-2 scares the hell out of me. Winning the first two games seemed really imperative with the way the format is and they pooped the bed last night. Out hit, out pitched, out managed. Gotta take 2 of 3 in St. Louis now.

[bork]

I'm worried about the starting pitching like everyone, but I can see a positive. Greinke will finally be pitching on normal rest in game 5.

[Bombers]

Just get the series back to Milwaukee should be the motto. We have the best home record in baseball. (If we take more than 1 game, obviously - great) ... but as a fan ... I won't get gready and say we must win 2 ... Just give me 1. Give me one and lets go back home and handle our business.

 

Sure down 3 - 2 isn't ideal but if you told me in April we would need to beat the Cardinals in 2 straight games to go to the World Series and both games were in Milwaukee - I would be like. Ok. Let's do this. Is it ideal. No. But it is why you get homefield! Get the series back to Milwaukee. Everyone now. Lets get the series back to Milwaukee.

[WisconsinSportsRule]

I think there are legitimate reasons to be concerned.

 

-We got on the road for 3 games and we've struggled on the road

-Gallardo is pitching great, but career record against St. Louis isn't good

-The great pitching that has carried us the entire season is falling apart

-There's obviously something wrong with Marcum, workload or injury, pick one

-The Cardinals lineup is really good......Pujols heating up

 

I really hope this team can take this series, I have confidence in them but at this time, I think the Cardinals have the edge the rest of the way. Prove me wrong Brewers.

[Ennder]

Anything can happen in a 5 game series, I'd be worried if we were playing the worst team in baseball much less one of the better ones. We are at best 50/50 at this point since they get 3 home games to our 2, of course everyone is worried.

[markedman5]

" I think the fact that no starter aside from Gallardo has stepped up is what has people worried. "

 

That and the fact that Gallardo has some teams that he has really struggled against and St Louis is one of those teams.

 

We need our starters to step up big and so far in the post season its been Gallardo and the 3 dwarfs.

 

St Louis got on a roll at the right time and shows no signs of slowing down.

[The Truth]

The amount of hand wringing after one loss is, quite frankly, rather ridiculous.

If that was indeed the case, it would be ridiculous. The hand wringing is more about having only 1 starting pitcher out of 4 who has pitched well in the post-season so far.

 

I have faith in Greinke getting it together. I never know what to think about Wolf. I think Marcum is pretty much done for the year. In the words of my 8 year old: "that ain't good..."

[jjfanec]

This is what has been frustrating about this board all year. The negativity has been high all year. Heck down 3 in the first game people said the game was over. I am not sure why people have been so negative. We are 1-1 in the NLCS and you would think we were down 3-0. We played a terrible game but we had two bad ones in Arizona and still one.

 

I love how Carpenter has become unhittable now. We won 2 games with Ian Kennedy starting in the last series and he was better than Carp all year. Carp also was really bad in game one of the first round. He could pitch a gem but look at how Verlander has pitched so far. He has been hit fairly well. We have some guys hitting really well in Braun, Fielder and Hairston. I dont get the doom and gloom. It actually embarrasses me as a Brewer fan

[Schlitz001]

THANK YOU!

 

It's been hard for me to come here lately as well, which is disappointing, because I don't know where else to go to cheer on the Brewers. I live in a part of the country with hardly any Brewer fans, so I rely on brewerfan.net to keep me informed and involved with other Brewer fans.

 

I understand that there are a lot of reason the Brewers could lose this series, but isn't this season so far a huge testament to what can happen when things go right? It bums me out to read posts in the IGT declaring that a game is over after the Brewers go down by 2 runs in the 4th inning. Where is the optimism? I agree with rluz that there are huge overreactions to small samples (see: 1 AB). The worst team in baseball has a chance to beat the best team on any given day and for my money, the Brewers match up quite well with the Cardinals.

 

If you want to be negative and brag about your predictions of the Brewers losing the NLCS, at least wait until the series is completely over. Thanks and try and realx and enjoy!

[pebadger]

It's the playoffs. Nobody should expect this to be easy. Both AZ and STL outscored the Crew this season, and AZ did it against better pitching in their own division.

 

The Brewers have their top 2 pitchers going over the next 3 days. Leave aside recent disappointment. How is this not a near-optimal setup given a series tied at 1-1?

 

Turn the situation on its head and pretend for a moment you are a STL fan. Where are you at if the one guy you most believe in on your own staff gets beat tomorrow night and Milwaukee takes home field advantage right back?

[BrewerTerp]

for what it's worth, the vegas moneyline for the series right now is STL -120/MIL even. virtually a toss up with the slightest edge to the cardinals.

[theavrock]

I agree with all this. It would have been nice to be up 2-0 and in the driver seat with Yo and Grienke going in STL, but I didn't expect to win all 4 games at Miller Park. I always figured we would have to win at least 1 there.

 

With Yo and Grienke going I really feel like we will go 2 for 3 there and return home with a 3-2 advantage. Even Wolf might throw out one of his random 7 inning 4 hit starts. Our pitching staff can't really pitch any worse than they have and we are 1-1 in the NLCS.

 

Yesterday was a very depressing game to watch, but thankfully it only counts as 1 loss. I'm sure much of this has to do with the fan base (myself included) not being used to every game mattering like they do in the playoffs.

[TheCrew07]

It's reasonable to be concerned about this series, so far the Cards did exactly what they needed to do. They took 1 game in Milwaukee and now it's a 5 game series in which the Cards have home field advantage. It's one of the reasons I don't like baseball's 2-3-2 format. It is certainly plausible that the Cards will come back to Milwaukee up 3-2 and the Brewers will have Marcum on the mound.

 

Given that scenario last Feb I think many of us would have taken it, however when taking recent history into account, I don't feel very good about that scenario at all. Part of it I'm sure is that I hate losing to the classies almost as much as the Cubs, but thus far in the post season the starting pitching isn't exactly inspiring confidence. Throw sample size out the window now, it's all about success over a short window and individual match-ups. Career statistics don't mean squat now... is our pitching locating or not? if not, plans B, C, and D better be ready to go. Will we play clean defense? Is it reasonable to expect the offense to score 6+ runs a game?

 

I'm not handing St. Louis the series, but even the most casual fan should be willing to admit that if the Brewers don't win 2 of 3 in St. Louis the series might not make it past game 6. Unfortunately the Cards have tilted the pendulum in their favor and I'm not sure that winning 1 of 3 games in St. Louis will be enough for the Brewers to take the series.

[BuckyBrewer61]

How about a little perspective here:

1) Our two best players are playing like our two best players in the postseason:

Braun .500/.567/.962/1.528

Fielder .333/.467/.833/1.300

Compare this to Pujols .414/.452/.724/1.176 (2011 postseason OPS was .843 before yesterday)

Oh, and our worst player?

Betancourt .346/.370/.615/.986

Not bad

2) Our ace is pitching as well if not better than their ace:

Gallardo: 1-0, 1.29 ERA, 0.929 WHIP

Carpenter: 1-0, 3.00 ERA, 0.917 WHIP

3) Some perspective on how red hot the Cardinals invincible lineup is. Batting stats through the first two games of the NLCS:

Brewers: .279/.364/.603/.967

Cardinals: .333/.366/.526/.891

Deep breath people...

[hawing]

It's harder to feel upbeat after Monday night, but these teams are pretty evenly matched, and a drawn out series would not surprise me.

 

The usher in our regular-season section (Bill in the press box area) said "See you Sunday" when we left last night, and I'm not going to question him.

[rluzinski]

for what it's worth, the vegas moneyline for the series right now is STL -120/MIL even. virtually a toss up with the slightest edge to the cardinals.

I'll take Vegas's opinion every time. That's saying the Brewers have a 48% chance of winning.

 

And if it was so obvious that Marcum was "toast", he would have been shut down already. Im not happy with his performance so far but it could just as easily just be a momentary blip. Everything is just so obvious to people around here, until they are wrong and find something else that is obvious.

 

And disregarding small samples while focusing on individual matchups.... My goodness. People act like the playoffs are magical.

[Oxy]

rluzinski wrote: And disregarding small samples while focusing on individual matchups.... My goodness. People act like the playoffs are magical.

And where is your evidence that the playoffs are NOT magical :P

[chuckiehacks]

They are magical. It's written in the stars.

[TooLiveBrew]

A million miles away?

 

Man do I hate that song. Didn't take long at all, either. I think I went from "never heard this song before" to "hate/rage any time I hear a note of it" in like a day.