The sky is not falling, the 2014 edition

[The stache]

I realize that we've hit a bump in the road lately. Braun goes on the DL, our offense disappears. Coincidence? Maybe.

 

But Brauny should be back this week. Hopefully, too, our mojo will return.

 

Let's all send positive thoughts to Miller Park. Let's send some good mojo in the direction of Aramis Ramirez. Hopefully he remembers how to hit.

 

Let's all send positive thoughts to Khris Davis, who is pressing right now. Hopefully he remembers that sometimes a walk is a good thing. Ok, a lot of the time, a walk is a good thing.

 

Let's allsend positive thoughts to Ron Roenicke. Hopefully he figures out that you do not need to use nearly the entire bullpen when you have a five run inning.

 

We will turn this latest cold stretch around. We didn't have the best record in baseball 30 + games into the season by luck. There's talent on this team. But with so much of the game being momentum, this team just needs to get a little good momentum back.

 

I believe they will.

 

Now, excuse me. I'm going to turn on ESPN, and watch some more of the Johnny Manziel love fest.

[HiAndTight]

I realize that we've hit a bump in the road lately. Braun goes on the DL, our offense disappears. Coincidence? Maybe.

 

But Brauny should be back this week. Hopefully, too, our mojo will return.

 

Let's all send positive thoughts to Miller Park. Let's send some good mojo in the direction of Aramis Ramirez. Hopefully he remembers how to hit.

 

Let's all send positive thoughts to Khris Davis, who is pressing right now. Hopefully he remembers that sometimes a walk is a good thing. Ok, a lot of the time, a walk is a good thing.

Let's allsend positive thoughts to Ron Roenicke. Hopefully he figures out that you do not need to use nearly the entire bullpen when you have a five run inning.

 

We will turn this latest cold stretch around. We didn't have the best record in baseball 30 + games into the season by luck. There's talent on this team. But with so much of the game being momentum, this team just needs to get a little good momentum back.

 

I believe they will.

 

Now, excuse me. I'm going to turn on ESPN, and watch some more of the Johnny Manziel love fest.

 

 

I'm a bit confused on this one. Are you referring to the 8-3 win over AZ when Roenicke used Will Smith to pitch the 7th after the Brewers scored 4 in the bottom of the 6th to take a 5 run lead and then finished the game with Wooten(1 1/3 IP) and Duke to finish the game?

 

 

In any event, are people worried the sky is falling? I'm sure some are, but I'd think most are remaining pretty level headed, see the Brewers sitting at 22-14 and realize that Braun's coming back, Aram always struggles early on and guys like Segura, Davis, Schafer/Gindl and company are almost certainly going to improve significantly.

 

I thought they were a 85 win team(with good health and a little good luck). After their hot start, I figured they'd cool off. I still have another weeks worth of games before I start to worry too much. We have 6 games with the Pirates who we've played well against thus far and the Cubs. If we can't win at least 4 of these next 8 I'll start getting more worried.

[PrinceFielderx1]

Dude, of course there are fans that are starting to lose it already. It's Brewers fans we are talking about here. It's natural for the average fan to freak our prematurely after 1 month of baseball. People forget the things that can happen in a long season. This thread is needed or will be needed fairly soon. Keep it up.

[logan82]

There was a lot of positive freaking out at the end of April when everything was rainbows and lollipops.

[vegasbrewcrew1993]

I don't understand why a lot of fans are panicking. At some point the Brewers were going to go on a slump. Slumps are unavoidable. This is a good team. They had the best record in baseball for a reason. They took 2 out of 3 in St. Louis with bad lineups for a reason. Relax and just be patient. The season is just getting started.

[Bombers]

Most are probably remembering last May - which went horrible. But I agree - different team and we can turn it around quickly.

[adambr2]

People forget the things that can happen in a long season.

 

I said this exact same thing to you 2 weeks ago and you said the race would be basically wrapped up at the end of April.

[chadomac]

Braun being gone and Ramirez slumping badly is just really bad timing for the offense. If we could've driven in a few of those stranded runners over the last week we would probably be at about a .500 record this past week.

[TheCrew07]

People forget the things that can happen in a long season.

 

I said this exact same thing to you 2 weeks ago and you said the race would be basically wrapped up at the end of April.

 

I was just going to post similar... so let's see, over the top fanboyism=being a true fan, sky is falling=completely unrealistic fan.

 

Got it.

[phnxcrew]

I agree that most of us knew this was coming... Just keep pitching well and we will come out of it. I think what we've seen so far is a fairly good predictor of what will come. The cardinals offense may finally be performing to their level, the pirates had one good season, and the reds can't put their talent together. We will be in it all season. That being said I reserve the right to not watch through the slump because my unborn child will hear me swearing loudly.

[PrinceFielderx1]

People forget the things that can happen in a long season.

 

I said this exact same thing to you 2 weeks ago and you said the race would be basically wrapped up at the end of April.

 

I know and I stand by it. I don't know why people freak out when this whole things is already in the bag. The Brewers will win the division. There offense will start exploding.

[trwi7]

People forget the things that can happen in a long season.

 

I said this exact same thing to you 2 weeks ago and you said the race would be basically wrapped up at the end of April.

 

I know and I stand by it. I don't know why people freak out when this whole things is already in the bag. The Brewers will win the division. There offense will start exploding.

 

I dislike you.

[PrinceFielderx1]

We'll, I love you, trwi7.

[RockCoCougars]

No need to panic at all. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that they've lot 7 of 10, and only had 1.5 shaved from their peak lead. They obviously need to regroup, but all indications are that St. Louis/Pittsburgh aren't all they were cracked up to be. I think that Cincinnati is going to be the team to be the most concerned about, but they aren't world beaters either.

[PrinceFielderx1]

No need to panic at all. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that they've lot 7 of 10, and only had 1.5 shaved from their peak lead. They obviously need to regroup, but all indications are that St. Louis/Pittsburgh aren't all they were cracked up to be. I think that Cincinnati is going to be the team to be the most concerned about, but they aren't world beaters either.

 

Exactly. Now you know 1 of the reasons of why I'm so confident in my prediction on this Brewers team. The Brewers aren't even playing at their best yet. Not even close. Just wait till the offense get's back healthy even with ARAM out on the DL. The Brewers offense is MUCH better than this.

[gregmag]

I agree that we have to ride out the waves of a long season, although how that works emotionally for different people is complicated. I also agree that this team has some serious strengths that have gotten us this far.

 

However, I think the recent cold snap also reflects real weaknesses. First, this team has poor depth among position players. Our bench basically can't hit a lick, and what's behind our bench (e.g., Herrera) is a lot worse. Second, even our regular lineup is bad at getting on base. We have zero guys on the roster who take a lot of walks. We're fine if everybody is healthy and hits .275 as a team and we hit a bunch of home runs. But if any of those three things stops being true, we're going to have trouble scoring.

 

We can still win the division if the Cardinals keep scuffling, because our pitching is solid and deep. But it will be a lot easier if we can find some more offense, either by heating up guys we have or by trade at some point.

[homer]

Everyone's gonna get healthy, Davis will start hitting, pitching will be good.....hakuna matata.

[HiAndTight]

No need to panic at all. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that they've lot 7 of 10, and only had 1.5 shaved from their peak lead. They obviously need to regroup, but all indications are that St. Louis/Pittsburgh aren't all they were cracked up to be. I think that Cincinnati is going to be the team to be the most concerned about, but they aren't world beaters either.

 

 

St Louis is still the class of the division and the team I'd be betting on to win the division. They, like the Pirates have some impact prospects who could come up and make a legit impact. Polanco for the Pirates and...Taveras or whoever for the Cards. Plus, they're under performing obviously.

 

 

I think when we did our predictions for the Brewers record in May, I had them at 13-15 or something? I'm hoping that's what they do over the month. If they're going to win, they're going to have to make sure that when things go bad, they don't completely go off the rails and lost 10 in a row. The pitching has been too good.

 

Thank god for Rickie Weeks right now! Though...it'd be nice if he'd be starting from time to time in LF. But when Weeks gets hot and plays well, the team usually wins. Not that he's the key that he used to be, it just seems like that's still the case even though we're far less dependent on him.

[HiAndTight]

No need to panic at all. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that they've lot 7 of 10, and only had 1.5 shaved from their peak lead. They obviously need to regroup, but all indications are that St. Louis/Pittsburgh aren't all they were cracked up to be. I think that Cincinnati is going to be the team to be the most concerned about, but they aren't world beaters either.

 

Exactly. Now you know 1 of the reasons of why I'm so confident in my prediction on this Brewers team. The Brewers aren't even playing at their best yet. Not even close. Just wait till the offense get's back healthy even with ARAM out on the DL. The Brewers offense is MUCH better than this.

 

 

Sure. If Aram hasn't hit the wall in his mid 30's after an injury plagued season last year and several relatively unproven guys perform how we hoped they would our offense will start to produce much better.

 

However as that happens, our pitching is almost certainly going to go through slumps. Garza and Estrada have had health issues, Gallardo struggled last year, Peralta still is far from a proven #1/2/3 type pitcher. Lohse is pretty reliable.

Our BP looks very good, but does anyone think Duke's gonna post a sub 2.00 ERA this year? Or that K-Rod is going to be able to give up 1 run every 20 innings pitched? Thornburg and Smith will be perfect?

 

 

This team is good, but man, do you not see the talent on the Cards roster? You seem to take for granted that the players who have gotten off to uncharacteristically good starts are going to continue to perform at elite levels and that players who've gotten off to slow starts are going to perform at their peak level. I hate when people say, "I'm just a realist," because I've yet to find someone who thinks their opinions are just totally unrealistic....that said....I'm a realist. The Brewers aren't the best or 2nd best team in baseball talent wise and they're going to have to get lucky to win the division.

[RightFieldCoder]

[sarcasm]We're obviously struggling. We only took two of three from the Yankees. We were able to sweep the Red Sox a month ago.[/sarcasm]

 

Edit: Just in case, I came back to edit this to blue font.

[PrinceFielderx1]

No need to panic at all. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that they've lot 7 of 10, and only had 1.5 shaved from their peak lead. They obviously need to regroup, but all indications are that St. Louis/Pittsburgh aren't all they were cracked up to be. I think that Cincinnati is going to be the team to be the most concerned about, but they aren't world beaters either.

 

Exactly. Now you know 1 of the reasons of why I'm so confident in my prediction on this Brewers team. The Brewers aren't even playing at their best yet. Not even close. Just wait till the offense get's back healthy even with ARAM out on the DL. The Brewers offense is MUCH better than this.

 

 

Sure. If Aram hasn't hit the wall in his mid 30's after an injury plagued season last year and several relatively unproven guys perform how we hoped they would our offense will start to produce much better.

 

However as that happens, our pitching is almost certainly going to go through slumps. Garza and Estrada have had health issues, Gallardo struggled last year, Peralta still is far from a proven #1/2/3 type pitcher. Lohse is pretty reliable.

Our BP looks very good, but does anyone think Duke's gonna post a sub 2.00 ERA this year? Or that K-Rod is going to be able to give up 1 run every 20 innings pitched? Thornburg and Smith will be perfect?

 

 

This team is good, but man, do you not see the talent on the Cards roster? You seem to take for granted that the players who have gotten off to uncharacteristically good starts are going to continue to perform at elite levels and that players who've gotten off to slow starts are going to perform at their peak level. I hate when people say, "I'm just a realist," because I've yet to find someone who thinks their opinions are just totally unrealistic....that said....I'm a realist. The Brewers aren't the best or 2nd best team in baseball talent wise and they're going to have to get lucky to win the division.

 

The Brewers are in the top 3 in talent in baseball. There offense hasn't even gotten going yet, and that's me being a realist. We know what their pitching can do.

[monty57]

We know what their pitching can do.

 

...over a short time frame when they are all pitching to their best ability.

 

I'm with H&T on this one. I'm happy for how the pitching has performed, but just like some guys will heat up, others will cool off. We do not have the best pitching staff ever assembled... they have just pitched like that so far. They will come back to earth, and hopefully by the time they do some of the other bats will come alive.

[PrinceFielderx1]

We know what their pitching can do.

 

...over a short time frame when they are all pitching to their best ability.

 

I'm with H&T on this one. I'm happy for how the pitching has performed, but just like some guys will heat up, others will cool off. We do not have the best pitching staff ever assembled... they have just pitched like that so far. They will come back to earth, and hopefully by the time they do some of the other bats will come alive.

 

I never said any differently. I said, when the pitching cools off the offense will make up for it until the pitching heats up again.

[TheCrew07]

The Brewers are in the top 3 in talent in baseball. There offense hasn't even gotten going yet, and that's me being a realist. We know what their pitching can do.

 

I don't even know what to say to this as it is so absurd, what a completely biased opinion based on nothing more than a hot start. Objectively we don't even have the best talent in our division, much less top in 3 MLB. The Brewers have been fun follow, we couldn't have asked for a better start, but that doesn't represent the true talent of this team. Unless of course you really think we have 3 sub 3 ERA pitchers on the staff, a closer who's only going to give up a run every 20 appearances, Reynolds is going to hit 46 HRs at age 30, and so on down the line. If so that brings me back to my initial statement.

[PrinceFielderx1]

The Brewers are in the top 3 in talent in baseball. There offense hasn't even gotten going yet, and that's me being a realist. We know what their pitching can do.

 

I don't even know what to say to this as it is so absurd, what a completely biased opinion based on nothing more than a hot start. Objectively we don't even have the best talent in our division, much less top in 3 MLB. The Brewers have been fun follow, we couldn't have asked for a better start, but that doesn't represent the true talent of this team. Unless of course you really think we have 3 sub 3 ERA pitchers on the staff, a closer who's only going to give up a run every 20 appearances, Reynolds is going to hit 46 HRs at age 30, and so on down the line. If so that brings me back to my initial statement.

 

You didn't mention a lot of other offensive players in that post of yours that will step up. I believe the pitching is around a 3 ERA pitching staff.