Remaining Schedules

[KeithStone53151]

I kind of hope the Reds keep pushing the Brewers. I’m never a fan of clinching early and not having meaningful games. I hope this team can get red hot as the playoffs begin.

 

I generally agree with this, but also like the idea of being able to give rest to our horses as needed entering the playoffs. All of them are approaching uncharted territory from an IP perspective in a season. Their innings have generally been managed quite well in my opinion and they've been given a lot of extra rest...but each of these guys being able to skip a start in mid september would be kinda huge.

[FidoMcCokefiend]

I kind of hope the Reds keep pushing the Brewers. I’m never a fan of clinching early and not having meaningful games. I hope this team can get red hot as the playoffs begin.

I get what you mean, and I want them to do what they need to, in order to get no worse than the 2 seed.

 

That being said, as I lifelong Brewer fan and only 7 playoff appearances all time, I'm fine with clinching whenever it happens!

[OldSchoolSnapper]

To an extent the high number of remaining games helps suggest that the Cards can 'control' their destiny more. In practice it makes for quite the statistical tight rope they would have to walk to comeback. The spreadsheet helps bring that into focus. at just under .500 the Cards would need to win 38 and lose 17 to overtake the Crew. But with that same record you would expect the Brewers to have forced 6 losses on the Cards, and given up 7 wins. Meaning against everyone else they need to go 31-11 or a .738 win%. Under the same number of Brewer wins Cincy probably takes 2 out of 3 from the Crew and would need 32-19 against everyone else or .627.

 

While all true, these things do happen with a higher degree of frequency than fans of teams with big divisional leads at this point in the season like to admit - just ask the 2018 and 2019 Cubs;)

 

What it takes is for the trailing team to just get on absolute fire and take full advantage of winning the remaining head to head matchups they have with the team they are chasing.

 

Sort of. The Cubs went 16-12 in September in '18, with a 5-game lead I'm guessing that would win a division about 99% of the time. And the Brewers didn't really go gangbusters in the two series with them; they went 4-2, making it even harder to believe. And there was a tiebreaker game, so anything less than just scorching play from MKE and they would have held on. I think most people forget how dicey that last DET-MKE series was too. The Brewers very nearly lost both of the first 2 games.

[BruisedCrew]

Looks like Brewers will miss Gausman this weekend. He's out on paternity leave.

 

Gausman pitched yesterday, so the Brewers would have missed him anyway. Looks like his leave will fall conveniently in between starts so the Giants will be able to add someone to the roster to replace him.

[owbc]

I do emphasize with having some paranoia over losing the lead as well as the fairly common occurrence of big MLB division leads disappearing in September. But this team is built for September and October and they are getting stronger with time. I think they are far more likely to be playing for the #1 seed than the division in the last week of the season. The season is 2/3 over and they have a huge cushion.

[Jopal78]

I do emphasize with having some paranoia over losing the lead as well as the fairly common occurrence of big MLB division leads disappearing in September. But this team is built for September and October and they are getting stronger with time. I think they are far more likely to be playing for the #1 seed than the division in the last week of the season. The season is 2/3 over and they have a huge cushion.

 

I wouldn't be so sure. I think avoiding the Wild Card Game is very important, but once they manage to win their Division the smartest play would be to rest Woodruff, Burnes and Peralta not only for the playoffs but for the future and avoid unnecessarily taxing their arms.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

In reality this won't be mathematically clinched, if clinched at all, until the last 10 days or so of the season, so you're talking about sitting those guys down for a start. It's possible it's not until the last few days. Personally I'd just rather keep their juices flowing and let them throw 4 innings or whatever. I don't think avoiding the WS is even on the table. There is no WC game for 2nd place in the Central, that team is donezo.

 

I don't do the paranoia thing; we should win this and it's a colossal choke if we don't, my confidence has nothing to do with what happens in the end. I don't get overly stressed about the matchups. It would be cool to see LAD get knocked out by SD in the WC, but either way the Brewers have to get through at least one truly great team to win the NL.

[BruisedCrew]

To an extent the high number of remaining games helps suggest that the Cards can 'control' their destiny more. In practice it makes for quite the statistical tight rope they would have to walk to comeback. The spreadsheet helps bring that into focus. at just under .500 the Cards would need to win 38 and lose 17 to overtake the Crew. But with that same record you would expect the Brewers to have forced 6 losses on the Cards, and given up 7 wins. Meaning against everyone else they need to go 31-11 or a .738 win%. Under the same number of Brewer wins Cincy probably takes 2 out of 3 from the Crew and would need 32-19 against everyone else or .627.

 

While all true, these things do happen with a higher degree of frequency than fans of teams with big divisional leads at this point in the season like to admit - just ask the 2018 and 2019 Cubs;)

 

What it takes is for the trailing team to just get on absolute fire and take full advantage of winning the remaining head to head matchups they have with the team they are chasing.

 

Sort of. The Cubs went 16-12 in September in '18, with a 5-game lead I'm guessing that would win a division about 99% of the time. And the Brewers didn't really go gangbusters in the two series with them; they went 4-2, making it even harder to believe. And there was a tiebreaker game, so anything less than just scorching play from MKE and they would have held on. I think most people forget how dicey that last DET-MKE series was too. The Brewers very nearly lost both of the first 2 games.

 

The Saturday game against the Tigers was one of my favorites of the hundreds of Brewers games I’ve been to since Opening Day 1970. The Cubs lost in the afternoon, meaning the Brewers could move in to a tie for first. Talk about a playoff atmosphere. The Tigers jumped ahead 3-0, but Yelich got them back in the game with a 2 run HR in the third. When he hit his second HR to break a tie in the 7th, the crowd was roaring, and didn’t stop as Knebel and Jeffress closed it out. I think they both struck out the side.Good times.

[BruisedCrew]

The "if the Brewers just go .500 the rest of the way, then..." scenarios are interesting, mathematically undeniable, and help quantify the value of the cushion. But, as others have mentioned, it is not that uncommon for a team to lose a lead of this size at this time of the year. That can be either because "just going .500" doesn't always happen (remember how the Brewers lost a 5 game lead in the wild card race in virtually no time in 2008 and needed the Mets to collapse the last week just to crawl back in), or because another team puts together the kind of hot streak that seemed so improbable just a month earlier, or some combination of the two.

 

The example I use goes back to 1982. On August 20, the Brewers had a record of 69-50 with a 4 game lead over the Red Sox and a 7.5 game lead over the Orioles (who had a record of 61-57).On that date, you could have said, "If the Brewers just go .500 to get to 92-70, the Red Sox would have to finish 27-18 and the Orioles would have to finish 31-13 just to tie them".

 

The Brewers then won their next 3 games to extend their lead over the Red Sox to 6 games, while the Orioles also won 3 to stay 7.5 back. Those 3 wins by the Orioles were the start of a streak in which the Orioles won 17 of 18 games to cut the Brewers lead to just 3 games with 26 games still to play. The Brewers had won 13 of 19 games (they were not choking) and had seen their 7.5 game lead over the Orioles shrink to 3 games. The Red Sox were also hot and stayed just 4.5 games behind.

 

Over the next two weeks the Orioles got as close as 1 game, trailed by 2 going into the last week, and by 3 going into the historic final weekend when they beat the Brewers 3 in a row before Don Sutton and Robin Yount combined to produce the Brewers first ever division title.

 

The bottom line is that the Orioles, who were 7.5 games behind and with a record only 4 games over .500, amazingly finished the season 33-11 (.750). The Brewers did much better than "just finish .500" (26-17), and they needed every one of those wins to hold off the Orioles.

 

This is just one example, but one that was quite stressful for anyone who was emotionally invested in seeing the Brewers win a division title. So, I consider it more a matter of personal experience, not paranoia, to not take anything for granted and consider every game important until something is mathematically decided.

[pitchleague]

I remember that so well, too! And I was only 10 years old! It was amazing how well the Brewers played and it didn't matter; the Orioles played out of their gourd and caught the Brewers quite easily.

 

I agree. I'm not even close to leaning back comfortably in my chair. I doubt that will happen until they actually clinch.

[igor67]

A big reason for the discrepancy is how one frames the question. There are a lot of historical examples to find, because when we look back we are seeing the chances of a team losing a big lead to the entire field. Keeping in mind throughout most of Brewers history they played in a much larger division (7 teams in the old AL East) means 6 different teams have a chance to get hot enough and/or the contending team to fall off enough. More divisions with smaller teams collectively has made the phenomena MORE likely (since now 6 different teams might end up with a big lead), but with fewer teams in a division it is actually somewhat less likely to have a big lead now than years ago.

[rickh150]

I remember that so well, too! And I was only 10 years old! It was amazing how well the Brewers played and it didn't matter; the Orioles played out of their gourd and caught the Brewers quite easily.

 

I agree. I'm not even close to leaning back comfortably in my chair. I doubt that will happen until they actually clinch.

 

We have seen how quickly things change. The Cubs this year with all their pieces went from 1st to 4th in a month, down 12 games. The years 2014 and 2017 seem to really bring up bad memories of us blowing games (8 by Axford, 7 by KRod, and more) and not hitting in Aug/Sept. In 2012, we had so many blown saves of Axford, then KRod. That was a 95 win team with a 2011 Axford.

 

No, in my mind the race is favorable to us, but the 90 to 95% odds we win the division seems way too high. In my mind, it’s more like 70-75%. With the walking COVID and uncertainty on our team, it feels less than that.

[wibadgers23]

Brewers play in St. Louis from September 28 - 30. If we don’t clinch the division at home beforehand, doing it in St. Louis in front of their fans would be sweet.

[BruisedCrew]

Of course, probably the all time turnaround belongs to the 1969 Mets who trailed the Cubs by 10 games on August 13 and won 38 of their last 49 to win the division by 8 games. The Cubs finished 18-27, but even playing .500 wouldn’t have been good enough to hold their lead.

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

Next ten games will see the Crew with a schedule advantage (3 SF, 4 CHC, 3 PIT vs 3 PIT, 1 CLE, 3 ATL, 3 PHI for the Reds). Be nice to add a game or two over that span because I'd expect the Reds to gain ground the rest of the way. I'd put the most likely scenario as Brewers winning by 4ish games, but the last 50 of an MLB season always feel wild. Wouldn't be surprised if this got closer than that.

[BruisedCrew]

Next ten games will see the Crew with a schedule advantage (3 SF, 4 CHC, 3 PIT vs 3 PIT, 1 CLE, 3 ATL, 3 PHI for the Reds). Be nice to add a game or two over that span because I'd expect the Reds to gain ground the rest of the way. I'd put the most likely scenario as Brewers winning by 4ish games, but the last 50 of an MLB season always feel wild. Wouldn't be surprised if this got closer than that.

 

That advantage obviously doesn’t start until next week. If the Brewers can avoid losing ground this weekend I would consider that a win.

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

Next ten games will see the Crew with a schedule advantage (3 SF, 4 CHC, 3 PIT vs 3 PIT, 1 CLE, 3 ATL, 3 PHI for the Reds). Be nice to add a game or two over that span because I'd expect the Reds to gain ground the rest of the way. I'd put the most likely scenario as Brewers winning by 4ish games, but the last 50 of an MLB season always feel wild. Wouldn't be surprised if this got closer than that.

 

That advantage obviously doesn’t start until next week. If the Brewers can avoid losing ground this weekend I would consider that a win.

 

Agree.

 

Just mostly thinking big picture, trying to avoid the day-by-day emotion swing.

[rickh150]

If the Cardinals want to make their move, their next 19 games are the following….10 against Pirates (yep), 4 against Royals, 3 against Brewers (13 more over the rest of season!), and 2 against Tigers.

[BruisedCrew]

Tracking the blocks of 26 games described in the first post, the Reds are off to a quick start. They go 4-0 against the Pirates to the Brewers 3-3 against the Pirates and Giants to knock 2 games off the Brewers lead.

[BruisedCrew]

Next ten games will see the Crew with a schedule advantage (3 SF, 4 CHC, 3 PIT vs 3 PIT, 1 CLE, 3 ATL, 3 PHI for the Reds). Be nice to add a game or two over that span because I'd expect the Reds to gain ground the rest of the way. I'd put the most likely scenario as Brewers winning by 4ish games, but the last 50 of an MLB season always feel wild. Wouldn't be surprised if this got closer than that.

 

That advantage obviously doesn’t start until next week. If the Brewers can avoid losing ground this weekend I would consider that a win.

 

Agree.

 

Just mostly thinking big picture, trying to avoid the day-by-day emotion swing.

 

I don’t have problems with day to day emotion swings. I’m always mad.

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

If the Cardinals want to make their move, their next 19 games are the following….10 against Pirates (yep), 4 against Royals, 3 against Brewers (13 more over the rest of season!), and 2 against Tigers.

 

Definitely keeping an eye on the Cardinals.

 

Padres too. Obviously, I want the Brewers to win the division. The WC is a backup, but it's so much better than missing out on the playoffs altogether.

 

Plus, it would be really sweet to have Woody and Burnes combine to no-hit the Dodgers at Chavez before Freddy and a bullpen day (then back to the top of the rotation!) crush the Giants.

[DHonks]

Guessing Peralta, Ashby, Lindblom, and Burnes vs the Cubs

[BruisedCrew]

Guessing Peralta, Ashby, Lindblom, and Burnes vs the Cubs

 

Before the Covid issues hit, it looked like the Brewers were perfectly set up to have Burnes, Woodruff, and Peralta pitch against the Cardinals and Reds while still giving starts or stacked starts to Anderson, Hauser, and Lauer and keeping the other 3 on a reasonably regular routine. That might not be possible anymore without giving too many starts to emergency starters.

[DHonks]

Guessing Peralta, Ashby, Lindblom, and Burnes vs the Cubs

 

What’s frightening about these games is that throwing fill in starters with a depleted bullpen behind them really negates the advantage the Brewers would usually have against teams like the Cubs and Pirates. I don’t want to count on giving up 7 runs in the first inning and coming back to win.

 

There’s nothing that can be done about it, but if the Brewers don’t win at least 4 or 5 of these 7 games it will feel like they are using more ground.

 

First of all, our bullpen should start returning to full strength during the Cubs series. Another positive is that it’s normally not possible to give a guy 10 days of rest during August. I think the team will be stronger in Sept and Oct because of this. It’s frustrating we’ve lost 3 of 4 and probably could have won all 4, but so be it.

[igor67]

An only modestly paranoid Giants fan could pretty easily convince themselves that the Giants just got super lucky and if they had been facing the playoff Brewers bullpen they would have lost all 3 games.