2017-07-26: Brewers (Nelson) at Nationals (Gonzalez) 6:05 PM CDT [Brewers lose, 8-5]

[OnaBadger58]

Don't worry Swarzak will solve everything. Stearns is a putz when it comes to bullpens. This may be his downfall as a GM.

We have traded Smith, Thornburg, and Jeffress. Relievers don't just grow on trees.

 

None of those guys are his. The guys we are pitching tonight are. His job is to find them. He's whiffing badly.

Brewers had a top 10 pen last year. When you trade away 50% of it, you can't expect for things to keep up. You make it sound like Stearns has been here for 5 years!

[dlk9s]

lol Villar

[adambr2]

Of course since we have a total 8th inning meltdown to trail by 6, we go ahead and score a few in the 9th.

[Boomer5]

Don't worry Swarzak will solve everything. Stearns is a putz when it comes to bullpens. This may be his downfall as a GM.

We have traded Smith, Thornburg, and Jeffress. Relievers don't just grow on trees.

 

Exactly. Stearns had a great pen last year. Traded all of them, which 90% of you agreed with. This year was rebuilding, not forming a pen to compete for WS. Again, something most agreed with. Now they stumbled into a possible pennant race and it's "Stearns doesn't know how to build a pen??!?" Ridiculous.

 

DS inherited a great pen and correctly traded them to help with the rebuild.

 

He has not acquired a bullpen which is the point.

[AKCheesehead]

I had to wait a few minutes to gain composure so as not to run afoul of the cuss filter. I hope CC learned from the mistakes he made in the bottom of the 8th.

http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/003/866/nfNeT7YvTozx0cv7ze3mplZpo1_500.gif

[adambr2]

If we lose to Scherzer tomorrow (very likely), and the Cubs beat the rebuilding White Sox (very likely), and we happened to get swept by the Cubs (not all that likely, but certainly possible), we would have dropped a whopping 10 games to the Cubs in just 3 weeks and trail them by 4.5 in the division at the trade deadline.

 

That would certainly squash any further fantasies about making the playoffs this year and hopefully put the kabosh on any further 'win now' moves.

[FVBrewerFan]

Nor should he have acquired a pen. That would have meant spending big money and/or trade prospects, which would have been foolish. Cheap, rebuilding year team, that was the plan and rightfully so.

[adambr2]

I had to wait a few minutes to gain composure so as not to run afoul of the cuss filter. I hope CC learned from the mistakes he made in the bottom of the 8th.

http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/003/866/nfNeT7YvTozx0cv7ze3mplZpo1_500.gif

 

He's made this mistakes more than once this year, so I tend to doubt it. I still have no idea why in the world Swarzak was not with the team yet. When you rent a guy for 2 months you sort of need every game out of him that you can get.

[DuWayne Steurer]

 

That would certainly squash any further fantasies about making the playoffs this year and hopefully put the kabosh on any further 'win now' moves.

 

Not that I want the club to be in buy mode and mortgage the future for rental pieces like Darvish, but this is a horribly disheartening way to go from buy mode to stand-pat mode. I get what you're saying and I even agree but the method by which it's occurring is gut-wrenching and heart ripping.

[Devinep]

So I know we all like to nitpick lineups for us. I was thinking this last night and it happened again today for the Nats, and how they put poor hitters at 1 and 2 while having four of the top 10 hitters in baseball batting lower. Classic Dusty old school thinking that you have to put a fast guy there.

 

Counsels just as dumb with Villar leading off - fast but can't get on base

[jerichoholicninja]

It's pretty inexcusable that he's not with the team. I can understand if he needs to get things sorted out with where ever he's living but he'll be in Milwaukee in 3 days. I think the team would give him the afternoon off to drive the 90 minutes back to Chicago to get that all straightened out.

[DuWayne Steurer]

So I know we all like to nitpick lineups for us. I was thinking this last night and it happened again today for the Nats, and how they put poor hitters at 1 and 2 while having four of the top 10 hitters in baseball batting lower. Classic Dusty old school thinking that you have to put a fast guy there.

 

Counsels just as dumb with Villar leading off - fast but can't get on base

 

Yeah it's almost August and he's still batting a guy leadoff who's hitting 220 with an on base percentage below 300. I think it's safe to say at this point it's not just a cold snap

[gregmag]

We just aren't that close. I mean, a 5.5 game lead at the break is something. But so is a one-run lead in the bottom of the eighth.

 

We just don't look like a team that's one or two players away from contending. We look like a team that has some great pieces, some big holes, and some promising prospects. I would have gladly taken that in April, so I'll take it now.

[adambr2]

 

That would certainly squash any further fantasies about making the playoffs this year and hopefully put the kabosh on any further 'win now' moves.

 

Not that I want the club to be in buy mode and mortgage the future for rental pieces like Darvish, but this is a horribly disheartening way to go from buy mode to stand-pat mode. I get what you're saying and I even agree but the method by which it's occurring is gut-wrenching and heart ripping.

 

Better now than in August before it's too late. It sucks, but we can't just wish for this team to be better than they are. The unfortunate reality is that they're not as good as the Chicago Cubs, and all the rentals in the world probably won't be good enough to get us there.

 

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Blazek pitches lights out tomorrow, we win 1-0, and we somehow sweep the Cubs and the whole perspective changes. But I very, very much doubt it.

[FVBrewerFan]

There's paperwork, physical blah blah blah. It's 2017, get to DC immediately and get that stuff done in the morning. It's not 1933 where you have to wait for t he steam train on the B&O line.

[Ennder]

There was no reason for Stearns to invest in the bullpen before this season so stop trying to say he doesn't know how to build one.

 

The defense cost us this game more than anything else anyway. It is an issue with this group of guys that I hope is just fixed with replacements. This is a bad defensive team which puts a lot of extra stress on a pitching staff.

 

I really don't get why Counsel took Hader out. The guy is part of the future and is going to need to learn how to pitch in big situations like that. Knebel wasn't going to get used yet in the 8th so we knew a bad RP option was going to have to replace him. If Hader is good enough for one of the best hitters in baseball he should be good enough for a slumping guy. I say that as one of the lower people on Hader this year too. That was a situation where you let him try to finish the next guy off.

 

For whatever reason the Swarzak trade didn't go through until this morning. It is pretty rare for a player to pitch on the same day he is traded.

[Fear The Chorizo]

As big of a bone headed move it was to take Hader out after 1 batter, the silver lining in tonight's game is that he's earned himself a much longer leash to see if he keeps improving from the pen or hangs himself with it. That was a big boy spot in the game and he more than belonged there.

[rickh150]

So I know we all like to nitpick lineups for us. I was thinking this last night and it happened again today for the Nats, and how they put poor hitters at 1 and 2 while having four of the top 10 hitters in baseball batting lower. Classic Dusty old school thinking that you have to put a fast guy there.

 

Counsels just as dumb with Villar leading off - fast but can't get on base

 

Get Villar out of the lineup..... AHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Leading off against a lefty. Hilarious!

[OnaBadger58]

The defense cost us this game more than anything else anyway. It is an issue with this group of guys that I hope is just fixed with replacements. This is a bad defensive team which puts a lot of extra stress on a pitching staff.

No, it was definitely the bullpen.

[Ennder]

The defense cost us this game more than anything else anyway. It is an issue with this group of guys that I hope is just fixed with replacements. This is a bad defensive team which puts a lot of extra stress on a pitching staff.

No, it was definitely the bullpen.

an average defensive team gives up 0 runs in the 8th. Even if you ignore the first misplay there were at least 2 more outs left on the field which led to the final 5 runs.

[NievesNoNO]

I know this one hurts, but all is not lost here people. IF the 8th plays out a bit differently and the Brewers win the whole attitude is different. I know, shoulda, woulda, coulda, but they've gone toe to toe on the road against one of the best teams in the NL and ran into a bit of bad luck and then a poor decision and a meltdown in the 8th but even with the shaky pen that game should end up a win on most nights.. maybe that should've been in blue . I'm still optimistic I guess.

[adambr2]

Yeah I don't get the Stearns can't build a pen talk. Uh, this was a rebuilding year. Go back to March and pretty much everyone expected the pen to suck. If they expected to contend they would have invested more but it would have been dumb to invest 20M in pen arms with no realistic expectations to contend.

 

Obviously the Swarzak move showed the adjustment to expectations but you can't expect Stearns to rebuild an entire pen mid-season. The pen is rebuilding, it just looks bad because the rest of the team is outperforming the rebuild.

[adambr2]

I know this one hurts, but all is not lost here people. IF the 8th plays out a bit differently and the Brewers win the whole attitude is different. I know, shoulda, woulda, coulda, but they've gone toe to toe on the road against one of the best teams in the NL and ran into a bit of bad luck and then a poor decision and a meltdown in the 8th but even with the shaky pen that game should end up a win on most nights.. maybe that should've been in blue . I'm still optimistic I guess.

 

Not sure how you do it at the moment. Personally I think we're likely headed for a near certain 1.5 games back tomorrow and basically going to get to the point where we need to take 2 out of 3 against the Cubs or they're going to start just running away. We've been in a tailspin, 6 games lost in 2 weeks, just no way around it.

[rickh150]

Because you don't say that if he lines out to RF and we're out of the inning

 

I wouldn't have said anything, but my opinion of him would still be the same.

 

What about him makes you want him pitching in an important situation?

 

In His last 22 outings, he's given up runs 3 times.... he pitched bad tonight and I was surprised he was in and not Knebel with two outs. Yet, he gets tons of ground balls. I wouldn't hesitate getting him in the 7th or 8th, not that he had to stay in for the whole inning or until the Nats get 7 runs in the inning. I wanted him in instead of Banes with a runner on 1st for the double play, but like you said Barnes didn't pitch bad... soft hit balls got thru.

[BigDaddy1974]

Really sad to waste a very good outing by Nelson. He deserved better. I know many will be critical of this but I would be selling a this point. Put anyone who isn't in the long term plans on the market. Unfortunately I don't see anyone who is at the end of their contract that would bring anything significant back.