Game Thread (4/18/2022): Pirates (Thompson) at Brewers (Lauer) - 6:40 PM CDT

[Eye Black]

[stalton]

The one advantage of a condensed schedule as a fan, are fewer days without baseball.  Onto those P-rats!

[magnoliacrew]

If Vogelbach (26PA .292/.346/.458/.804) and Gamel (32PA .231/.375/.385/.760) were still with the Brewers they would be our 2nd and 3rd best batters as statistics currently stand. 

[MVP2110]

I never expect a sweep but no reason we shouldn't take 2 of 3 from Pittsburgh with Burnes and Woodruff pitching 2 of the 3. We face 3 righties this series so I'll be curious how Counsell utilizes his lineup. Would expect Cutch to maybe get his 1st day off sometime this series.

[Brewcrew82]

7 hours ago, magnoliacrew said:

If Vogelbach (26PA .292/.346/.458/.804) and Gamel (32PA .231/.375/.385/.760) were still with the Brewers they would be our 2nd and 3rd best batters as statistics currently stand. 

Good thing stats mean squat at this time of year. I, for one, will never lose sleep over "losing" these two. I'm actually feeling weirdly confident that we will score a good # of runs in this series. 

[timpep]

I think this is a great series to get some momentum and confidence going. I'm expecting some crooked numbers, and I won't say the word yet, but I'm getting ready to do some spring cleaning, if you know what I mean!

[KeithStone53151]

4 hours ago, magnoliacrew said:

If Vogelbach (26PA .292/.346/.458/.804) and Gamel (32PA .231/.375/.385/.760) were still with the Brewers they would be our 2nd and 3rd best batters as statistics currently stand. 

Yeah we'd definitely be better off if we completely swapped rosters with the Pirates. I mean, they are 5-4 we are 5-5. Clearly they are the better team.....

[magnoliacrew]

16 minutes ago, KeithStone53151 said:

Yeah we'd definitely be better off if we completely swapped rosters with the Pirates. I mean, they are 5-4 we are 5-5. Clearly they are the better team.....

Yes, thank you. That was exactly the point I was trying to make. 

[HarryDoyle]

6 hours ago, magnoliacrew said:

If Vogelbach (26PA .292/.346/.458/.804) and Gamel (32PA .231/.375/.385/.760) were still with the Brewers they would be our 2nd and 3rd best batters as statistics currently stand. 

If they were still with the Brewers their stats wouldn't be nearly as good.

[SeaBass]

Good thing we don't have Paul Goldschmidt (.458 OPS, $26M per year). Those poor St. Louis fans, I almost feel bad for them.

[owbc]

It's nice to see Vogelbach having some success in a small sample. He was an easy guy to cheer for and has a better approach at the plate than Tellez (although Tellez clearly has the higher ceiling of the two and was the right one to keep). 

[homer]

Thompson was pretty bad against lefties last year:

[Brewcrew82]

Y

15 minutes ago, owbc said:

It's nice to see Vogelbach having some success in a small sample. He was an easy guy to cheer for and has a better approach at the plate than Tellez (although Tellez clearly has the higher ceiling of the two and was the right one to keep). 

Yeah. I view Tellez as sort of a 2018 Aguilar at this point. Obviously, it's very early in the season and much can change, but he's been strong in about half a season's worth of at-bats with the Brewers. 

[magnoliacrew]

5 minutes ago, homer said:

Thompson was pretty bad against lefties last year:

Honest strategy question. Counsell has another staggered lineup today (L,R,L, etc). I realize that the logic is trying to disrupt the effectiveness of bringing in relievers because they have to face an opposite hand batter next in the lineup. But looking at these splits, why not stack left handers at the front? You'll probably get go through the line up about twice with at least 5 left handers stacked at the top. You can always PH when they bring in a left handed reliever. Seems like you would increase the odds of scoring early.

[Eye Black]

7 hours ago, magnoliacrew said:

If Vogelbach (26PA .292/.346/.458/.804) and Gamel (32PA .231/.375/.385/.760) were still with the Brewers they would be our 2nd and 3rd best batters as statistics currently stand. 

Their new [old?] hitting coach, Andy Haines, seems to be doing wonders for them in Pittsburgh. 

[NBBrewFan]

27 minutes ago, magnoliacrew said:

Honest strategy question. Counsell has another staggered lineup today (L,R,L, etc). I realize that the logic is trying to disrupt the effectiveness of bringing in relievers because they have to face an opposite hand batter next in the lineup. But looking at these splits, why not stack left handers at the front? You'll probably get go through the line up about twice with at least 5 left handers stacked at the top. You can always PH when they bring in a left handed reliever. Seems like you would increase the odds of scoring early.

Option B is repeat option A no matter how many times until, hopefully, it works.

[willie key]

4 hours ago, KeithStone53151 said:

Yeah we'd definitely be better off if we completely swapped rosters with the Pirates. I mean, they are 5-4 we are 5-5. Clearly they are the better team.....

The whole pirates roster were former brewers?

 

 

[bulldogboy0733]

Yelich hitting three drains my hope for any kind of offense explosion. The fact is there are no real good answers but man. Depressing. That Dodgers lineup has 6 guys who would hit three for us. How do you compete with that?

[Brewcrew82]

11 minutes ago, bulldogboy0733 said:

Yelich hitting three drains my hope for any kind of offense explosion. The fact is there are no real good answers but man. Depressing. That Dodgers lineup has 6 guys who would hit three for us. How do you compete with that?

Thankfully, the postseason is pretty much a crapshoot these days. Just get in and you have a chance. But more offense would of course be welcome.

[nate82]

Seems like the Brewers are being more aggressive on the first pitch.   

[homer]

dang, that was a nice throw. Nice job, Kolten

[BruisedCrew]

23 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

Thankfully, the postseason is pretty much a crapshoot these days. Just get in and you have a chance. But more offense would of course be welcome.

It might become less of a crapshoot in the new format. 
 

Teams that have to play a best of 3 series while the top 2 division winners are sitting back and setting up their rotations might be at a pretty distinct disadvantage. 
 

Even if they survive that series they might stress their top starters and relievers doing it. 

[nate82]

Just now, homer said:

dang, that was a nice throw. Nice job, Kolten

If Hayes was closer to the bag he would of been out.  

[Brewcrew82]

Well, at least Yelich still knows how to draw a good walk!

[SomewhereInTime]

Just now, Brewcrew82 said:

Thankfully, the postseason is pretty much a crapshoot these days. Just get in and you have a chance. But more offense would of course be welcome.

One thing that always made it a "crapshoot" was only four in each league getting in (I'm not really counting a WC game loser as any different than a one game playoff loser).  Regardless of the sport #1s lose to #4s and #2s lose to #3s all the time.  With the exception of 2020, you never actually had a postseason series between a good team and a bad team.