2021-08-18: Brewers (Peralta) at Cardinals (Flaherty) [Brewers win, 6-4 in 10 innings -- Freddy leaves game with shoulder discomfort; Bullpen covers 8 masterful innings as Crew completes comeback in extras]

[AdvantageSchneider]

Bury them tomorrow. With 9 more against them they won't be dead yet, but let's make them crawl out of the grave to catch us.

 

The Cards are 12 back. We have 41 games left they have 43. If we play .500 ball the rest of the season, which seems incredibly unlikely the cards could win 3 out of 4 and still not catch us. The division is over. We've won.

[BruisedCrew]

Have to say, watching the scant division hopes of the Reds and Cardinals get slowly crushed this week has been nice. I bet being a Reds fan over the last month has been excruciatingly frustrating as they weren't able to gain any ground even while scorching hot, and are getting buried now that they've cooled off considerably.

 

I have a friend that I exchange messages with regularly who is a Reds fan, and I think his feelings are pretty typical of the fan base. At the All Star break after the Reds won 6 of 7 from the Brewers at AFF, they were feeling pretty good about their chances in the division. Those hopes had some cold water thrown on them after the Brewers sweep at GAB, and they were frustrated as the Reds couldn’t gain ground even while having a good month. But, that frustration has been eased by the fact that the Padres collapse has put them squarely in the wild card race. I sent him a message on Sunday saying that, as the Brewers played the Cardinals, Reds fans would have to decide whether they wanted help in the division race or the wild card race. His response was “I’ll take both”.

 

I haven’t contacted him this week; I’m sure the two losses to the Cubs were pretty demoralizing to all Reds fans. Winker is on the IL, Castellanos has not been hitting well since his return from the IL, and Votto’s outrageous hot streak may be waning. Without scoring a lot of runs the Reds have problems.

[young guns]

 

Not as bad of a score as I would expect, but man what a huge zone he called.