2017-09-20: Brewers (Wilkerson) at Pirates (Brault) 6:05 PM CDT [Brewers lose, 6-4]

[pacopete4]

Here's my questions:

 

1. Should Hader have pitched the 8th?

 

2. Should Garza or someone been put in the game in the last inning to keep Knebel as a possibility for tomorrow? I mean no matter how that last inning played out, you'd would've needed a "closer" to finish the game at that point.

[NYChez]

Heading into the Cubs' series with Drake and Torres as the 8th and 9th inning relievers. Does Taylor Williams get put into a big spot for the first time?

[FVBrewerFan]

Heading into the Cubs' series with Drake and Torres as the 8th and 9th inning relievers. Does Taylor Williams get put into a big spot for the first time?

 

Hughes will get late inning work if game is close.

[adambr2]

No need to jump off the deep end. We wanted 2 of 3 and they got it. The only real bummer with this one is that our pitching staff is gassed. Tomorrow is going to be a very hard game even if Davies gives us 7.

 

No, we wanted every game. Baseball standings are measured in individual wins, not series wins. I realize it's greedy to want a sweep but at this point in the season, with 8 games left, every one is crucial. You cannot afford to give a single one away.

 

With the Rockies upcoming schedule, it's likely going to be tough to make up ground. Today takes the division off the table for us with anything less than 3 out of 4 vs. the Cubs. Even with that, we'll need to make up 2 games over 4, so it'll likely take a sweep.

 

Meh, I get being down about the loss as it is a tough one but winning each remaining series should get you in. If it doesn't, well they're playing their butts off. I'll have no problem missing out if they do that.

 

I agree with a lot of this, and I'm not questioning the effort. I'm just pointing out, each individual loss is equally damaging to our hopes, regardless of what has happened so far in the series. I don't expect to win out, but I can't rationalize being okay with a loss just because you've already won the series, especially in late September.

 

'Be happy with winning the series' is a pet peeve of mine, and this isn't specifically addressed to you, because I know it's a common mindset . 'Just win the series, a sweep is just gravy' is a common thought process. Why?? A regular season series in itself is pretty meaningless. It is nothing more than a few games against the same team but other than that has no real meaning. This isnt tennis or volleyball. The standings are measured in individual games. The third game of a series (individual from how much you need the opposition to lose), is equally as important as the first game of the next series.

 

Obviously the more series you win, the better shape you'll be in, but the reality is that you're not going to win them all, and so you'll also need as many sweeps as you can get to make up for the times you play poorly. What if we had only won the series the last time we had played the Cubs? Would that have been good enough? Well according to many yes, but we'd be 5.5 back of 1st and therefore pretty much out of the running for the division.

 

The only time winning a 'series' means anything is in the playoffs. Other than that, it's just 162 individual games. At least that's the way I see it.

[adambr2]

There will be a lot of games we look back on when we miss the playoffs by one game. But this one is going to stand alone.

 

I feel like someone says this after every loss.

 

Well, there's a grain of truth to it every new time. The more recent it is, the more it's going to stick out at the end of the season.

[MilwaukeeDoctor]

No need to jump off the deep end. We wanted 2 of 3 and they got it. The only real bummer with this one is that our pitching staff is gassed. Tomorrow is going to be a very hard game even if Davies gives us 7.

 

Not necessarily. Maybe Arrieta gets rocked since it's his first game back from injury.

[patrickgpe]

Here's my questions:

 

1. Should Hader have pitched the 8th?

 

2. Should Garza or someone been put in the game in the last inning to keep Knebel as a possibility for tomorrow? I mean no matter how that last inning played out, you'd would've needed a "closer" to finish the game at that point.

 

I think Hader should have pitched the 8th, but there is no way I would put in Garza in a tie game down the stretch. Now Swarzak and Knebel are both not available tonight in a game that they need to win. I think a case could have been made to let Hader finish the game and save the pen for the cubs series.

[KeithStone53151]

I think counsel made a big time mistake pitching swarzak in the 8th. Hader would have been a reasonable option, otherwise as much as it sucks you gotta let drake or torres or Guerra pitch and give knebel a clean 9th. That way we would have at least had 1 of knebel swarzak available today. I would guess neither are available and hader might not be either. It absolutely would have been better if we cashed in one of our many chances at a big inning and made the decision easier for counsel

[DuWayne Steurer]

A lot of people feel like this "should have been a win". The 7th inning was a missed opportunity with Santana and Braun coming up. They should have (I say could have) scored more runs. Santana strikes out a lot. That's the way baseball is played today. Lots of K's. There are a good handful of guys who are going to strike out 150+ times this year. This is the new nature of baseball. I think the K rate is over 20%.

 

The Pirates had an awesome opportunity the fifth inning to put the Brewers away with men on base and one out, and we say "What an awesome job by Jeffress to wiggle off the hook!!!"

 

Had the Brewers won, couldn't Pirate fans say "we should have scored more runs that inning! We should have won this game!"

 

This is baseball. Sometimes you don't score runs.

 

The Pirates pitcher did his job. He got a strikeout, and then he retired Braun. Kudos to him. It happens. It sucks, but things like that are absolutely going to happen over 162 games. I just feel like saying "should have" is false. The Brewers absolutely could have scored a few more runs in that inning, and it absolutely sucks leaving runners on base, but I think we (and I'm guilty of this at times myself) just a lot of times fail to look at the competition aspect. There's 9 dudes on the other side of the field trying to actively stop you from achieving the thing you're trying to achieve.

[jerichoholicninja]

This is baseball. Sometimes you don't score runs.

 

This is the Brewers second half. Get guys on and then K, K, K. I generally hate the pressing excuse as to why guys aren't driving runners in but it's pretty obvious Braun, Shaw, and to a lesser extent Santana are. Both Braun and Shaw go up there swinging at anything close to the plate nowadays, very out of character.

[KeithStone53151]

This is baseball. Sometimes you don't score runs.

 

This is the Brewers second half. Get guys on and then K, K, K. I generally hate the pressing excuse as to why guys aren't driving runners in but it's pretty obvious Braun, Shaw, and to a lesser extent Santana are. Both Braun and Shaw go up there swinging at anything close to the plate nowadays, very out of character.

 

This is spot on. It's amazing how often Braun has been swinging at the first pitch. Work the count and get YOUR pitch, don't swing at every strike or anything close. Trust your teammates to knock you in if they pitch around you.

[BruisedCrew]

I think counsel made a big time mistake pitching swarzak in the 8th. Hader would have been a reasonable option, otherwise as much as it sucks you gotta let drake or torres or Guerra pitch and give knebel a clean 9th. That way we would have at least had 1 of knebel swarzak available today. I would guess neither are available and hader might not be either. It absolutely would have been better if we cashed in one of our many chances at a big inning and made the decision easier for counsel

 

I agree with this, and I said so at the time. I don't care if Swarzak thinks he can pitch. He pitched two high stress innings on Tuesday and one on Monday. I'm not sure if he's going to be as effective as usual, and I don't want him completely spent for at least the first game of the Cubs series. And, I would only have used Knebel in a 9th inning save situation. After bringing him in in the 8th, which I wouldn't have done in the first place, I definitely wouldn't have used him in the 9th with the score tied. Guys like Torres and Drake have been on the major league roster all year and their going to have to get big outs sometime if you are playing 10 must win games in 10 days with only 3 starting pitchers (including one rookie) and a sputtering offense.

 

I would rather take my chances getting one inning against the Pirates offense than a couple against the Cubs.

 

Tonight's game and the rest of the Cubs series will determine how I remember last night's game. If the Cubs come out and blast the Brewers like they did in the infamous 2008 massacre, that game will just be a footnote. But, if they blow a late lead tonight because Swarzak and Knebel are unavailable or pitching on fumes, it will reinforce my opinion that Counsell took a bad risk last night.

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

I don't have a problem with keeping Knebel on in the 9th. It seems reasonable to me that tired Knebel is better than fresh Torres or something. Once you've thrown him in the eighth, and he throws only eight (?) pitches, you're not saving all that much wear and tear by removing him. And, look, Diaz was able to hold up on a decent high fastball on 3-2. Not for that, he gets out of it. Of course, I can definitely see the point that bringing him on in the eighth is questionable too

 

I'm more with you on Swarzak. He looked pretty lucky to get the two outs he got, and even without that I still think you want at least him fresh for the Cubs. You can deal with Knebel and Hader down. Knebel, Hader, and Swarzak is much tougher. I probably give Hader the 8th and just see, but you're right. Maybe you trust Torres/Drake/Guerra/Garza at some point because even over ten games it feels like those guys are eventually going to have to get high leverage outs anyway.

 

So, a mixed review on CC, I guess. Of course, as people have said, might not matter a lick today. Hope it's all much ado because the Brewers are up 12-0 and Davies has an 80 pitch no-no heading into the ninth.

[MilwaukeeDoctor]

This is baseball. Sometimes you don't score runs.

 

This is the Brewers second half. Get guys on and then K, K, K. I generally hate the pressing excuse as to why guys aren't driving runners in but it's pretty obvious Braun, Shaw, and to a lesser extent Santana are. Both Braun and Shaw go up there swinging at anything close to the plate nowadays, very out of character.

 

Okay at the same time, the pitching from the Brewers has been out of this world. It goes without saying that if the Brewers were also scoring at will, they'd be one of the top 3 teams in baseball. Obviously we'd all like to see that but it's simply not realistic to expect that or achieve it.

[BruisedCrew]

This is baseball. Sometimes you don't score runs.

 

This is the Brewers second half. Get guys on and then K, K, K. I generally hate the pressing excuse as to why guys aren't driving runners in but it's pretty obvious Braun, Shaw, and to a lesser extent Santana are. Both Braun and Shaw go up there swinging at anything close to the plate nowadays, very out of character.

 

Okay at the same time, the pitching from the Brewers has been out of this world. It goes without saying that if the Brewers were also scoring at will, they'd be one of the top 3 teams in baseball. Obviously we'd all like to see that but it's simply not realistic to expect that or achieve it.

 

Scoring at will is unrealistic, but if they could be scoring at something like the pace they did in the first half (instead of being the second lowest scoring team in the NL since the break) their position would be a lot better.