2nd half optimism!!

[Fear The Chorizo]

16 games left, 2 games back in the loss column for a wildcard spot.

 

No way anyone could say that was possible for this Brewers team a month ago - that right there is reason for optimism!

 

It would be great to be the team that sends the Pirates back down below 0.500 again, too!

[fondybrewfan]

Just win thats all you can do. Sweep PIT and they are probably out of the picture. Then its a 3 team race between STL, LAD, and MIL.

 

We have to face both Burnett and Wandy in PIT; its not going to be easy. If we win only 1 of 3 we are probably not out of the race; but it makes winning 3 of 4 in WAS that much more important.

[rluzinski]

I think what he (and many others) are talking about is the huge number of blown saves/leads by the bullpen. Sure, the Brewers have stolen some. EVERY team steals some every year, and blow some every year, but generally, pythag takes care of that.

 

Let's look at the Royals series, which the bullpen gave up the lead in the 8th, 9th, and 11th innings, and blew 2 saves in the 9th inning. Honestly, what are the odds of that? Let's look at the July series against the Phillies, which featured a 4 run 9th inning surrendered by the pen, a SIX run ninth inning surrendered by the pen, and then for good measure, the took the lead in the 10th inning of the last game of that series, and blew that one too.

 

When people say "the Brewers should have more wins this year", they aren't talking about pythag, they're talking about the incredible bad luck/timing of the bullpen meltdowns, and the horrible pitching of the bullpen in general, and how it has derailed a top-notch performance by the offense, and honestly, a surprising performance by the starting rotation, considering Greinke is gone, Marcum has missed a bunch of the year, Narveson has made 2 starts all year, and Wolf pretty much sucked.

 

I realize that the bad bullpen plays into the pythagorean w/l, but you can't honestly say you'd ever expect a team to blow a save 3 days in a row, let alone blow 3 saves in a 3 game series, twice within a one month span. The odds against are astronomical.

 

Playing devil's advocate here, but taking away even just 3 of those 6 craptastical meltdowns puts the 'Crew a half game in the drivers seat right now.

 

I knew exactly what he was referring to and I don't mean to suggest pythag is the end all, be all. But I can't agree that a team that has a +41 run differential should be 18 games over .500. It just doesn't feel honest. Again, you can't just look at the unlucky stuff when considering the "shoulda's", or every team should have won at at least 5 more games every year.

 

The Brewers bullpen has performed terribly in high leverage situations but they've apparently gotten some good fortune as well, considering their current record and modest score differential. No one is "wrong" here but 3-4 wins seems like an honest number.

[lcbj68c]

I knew exactly what he was referring to and I don't mean to suggest pythag is the end all, be all. But I can't agree that a team that has a +41 run differential should be 18 games over .500.

 

 

Any idea what Baltimore has done this year? http://espn.go.com/mlb/standings

 

 

I think Pythag/ Expect W-L and run differential are complete garbage. Play the games!

[pogokat]

I guess I'm curious how many RA belong explicitly to the bullpen in those games that were blown in the 9th or later? Just from reading the earlier posts, it seems at least 15 or so runs in those situations, which leads me to believe the run differential should be more like 60 runs than 40 if the pen had not surrendered tremendous amounts of runs late in the game

[DHonks]

pogo, we had a stretch in May, June, and July where it seemed like a 3 run lead wasn't enough. That's something that would be interesting to look at when trying to blame the bullpen

[DuWayne Steurer]

I knew exactly what he was referring to and I don't mean to suggest pythag is the end all, be all. But I can't agree that a team that has a +41 run differential should be 18 games over .500.

 

 

Any idea what Baltimore has done this year? http://espn.go.com/mlb/standings

 

 

I think Pythag/ Expect W-L and run differential are complete garbage. Play the games!

 

 

Pythag is extraordinarily accurate, and exactly one team ever has won the world series with a negative run differential during the regular season.

 

Only a handful have made the playoffs with a negative run differential.

[DuWayne Steurer]

I knew exactly what he was referring to and I don't mean to suggest pythag is the end all, be all. But I can't agree that a team that has a +41 run differential should be 18 games over .500. It just doesn't feel honest. Again, you can't just look at the unlucky stuff when considering the "shoulda's", or every team should have won at at least 5 more games every year.

 

The Brewers bullpen has performed terribly in high leverage situations but they've apparently gotten some good fortune as well, considering their current record and modest score differential. No one is "wrong" here but 3-4 wins seems like an honest number.

 

 

Russ, I'm not at all dissing pythag, I'm just saying that 'this year', the Brewers pen (as you yourself alluded to) has performed almost historically bad in high pressure situations. I'm not asking for 10 to 15 more wins. But I don't think it's unreasonable to say that with even an 'average' performance in high pressure situations (eg: close/late), the Brewers could easily be 3 to 5 wins better than they are now, and still be within the standard variance that pythag allows.

[rluzinski]

Russ, I'm not at all dissing pythag, I'm just saying that 'this year', the Brewers pen (as you yourself alluded to) has performed almost historically bad in high pressure situations. I'm not asking for 10 to 15 more wins. But I don't think it's unreasonable to say that with even an 'average' performance in high pressure situations (eg: close/late), the Brewers could easily be 3 to 5 wins better than they are now, and still be within the standard variance that pythag allows.

 

I understand but the question I was trying to answer was, "How many games should the Brewers have won this year?", not "How many games would the Brewers would have won with an average bullpen?" You need to also consider the games the Brewers "stole" to answer the former. And as I said in an earlier post, 3-4 games sounds reasonable when you consider everything.

 

I think Pythag/ Expect W-L and run differential are complete garbage. Play the games!

 

I second the notion that teams should play.... the games.

[pebadger]

The Brewers have had the second most save opportunities in the NL this season and are second to last in save percentage. Just a league-average performance in save percentage would have yielded 7 more victories.

 

Remove 14 RS off the Brewer ledger and recompute their Pythag for 701/646/142. That projects to expected wins of 76, a gain of 4 from actual.

 

Those 14 RS, if strategically removed at the tail end of 7 games (2 runs each to turn a L to a W) in terms of boosting the save percentage to league average, adds 7 W's to the Brewer record.

 

What does it all mean? I don't know, but I think it's fair to say that, at only two games back, even a modest increase in bullpen efficiency would have the Brewers in the lead in the WC race with a small margin.

[cnycerveceros]

Not sure if this is the right thread for this comment, but I've been enjoying the end of this season nearly as much as last year. The bounce back is exciting to see, and there isn't the dread that they might "blow it."

[torts]

Not sure if this is the right thread for this comment, but I've been enjoying the end of this season nearly as much as last year. The bounce back is exciting to see, and there isn't the dread that they might "blow it."

 

 

I LOVE POSTS LIKE THIS FAR MORE THAN THOSE DISCUSSING W/L POSSIBILITIES. WHO CARES, THEYRE WINNING! ONE GAME AT A TIME! THEY CAN DO IT!

[topper09er]

Torts: CAN WE GET UP TO THE MINUTE WEATHER UPDATES ON THE GAME TONIGHT?

[brewmann04]

Hourly Weather

2PM

 

65°

Showers

Precip 60%5PM

 

63°

Showers

Precip 40%8PM

 

58°

Showers

Precip 40%11PM

 

54°

Showers

Precip 40%2AM

[brewmann04]

Just WIN and HOPE

[Patrick425]

Current radar shows that a line of showers/storms just passed through Pittsburgh and there is really nothing after that. Here is the current hourly forecast per weather.com

 

6pm - Rain chance: 35%

7pm - 15%

8pm - 10%

9pm - 10%

10pm - 20%

 

I don't think they will have any problems starting the game on time and I don't think there will be any delays.

[torts]

Torts: CAN WE GET UP TO THE MINUTE WEATHER UPDATES ON THE GAME TONIGHT?

 

http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/its-gon-rain.jpg

[torts]

its lightly raining right now, it'll probably rain like this all night. its typical fall weather in pittsburgh

[stalton]

Since the Pirates were playing until 1:30ish this morning I'd expect Yo to dominate tonight's game. Even the weather is helping us!

[torts]

KAAAAAAAAAAAABBBBBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMM

[DHonks]

heck yeah!!! 1-0 on 10 game trip. Good start to it. And with Philly and Los Angeles now likely adding doubleheaders, that could be positive as well. Let's beat the Pirates while they're down. I feel bad for them for the 20 years of futility, but I'm greedy for wins!

[brewmann04]

sorry but the Bucs and their fans got too cocky and now looking to keep their streak alive.

JUst WIN and Hope

 

PS Doug they still have their Steelers

[BrewerTerp]

What was the better DM off-season move? Aoki or Ramirez? He's pushed all the right buttons this season.

[brewmann04]

it a tie IMO

[DHonks]

Brewers are 75-72 (15 to go) and Cards are 78-70 (14 to go).

 

What will it take for the Brewers to win the wild card? Does going 9-6 do it? 10-5? My thinking is that 10-5 could put us in position for a playoff game to be the 2nd wild card, although I think we really need to probably go 12-3. The Cards have 3 games each vs the Reds and Nationals, with 5 more against the Astros and 3 against the Cubs. We really need the Nationals and Reds to take 4 of 6 from the Cards. If the Cubs and Astros can take 4 of 8 against the Cards, that would put them at 84 wins and give us a great shot given how we are playing.

 

Unfortunately our rotation currently lines up with 3 starts each for the starters with no off-days, so we can't skip a guy to get Yo an extra start.