06/29 - Brewers (Ford) @ Twins (Reed)

[scotty po fan]

How Sad.....at least get us to 10 DJ

[mothershipconnection]

Watching DJ in the 9th has been like watching a train wreck. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/mad.gifhttp://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/mad.gif

[danzig6677]

Unreal

 

Hunter couldnt lay off a slider to save his life and they go up and in with 2 strikes and hit him.

 

Talk about stupidity

[squarepusher]

Looks like Curtis's trade value just went up...

[Frisbee Slider]

Well...a nice job by Brady getting into scoring position....in vain

[scotty po fan]

You gotta be kidding me

[squarepusher]

What's worse:

 

- Yost's decision to keep DeJean in the game

- DeJean's boneheaded coverage of first base / not throwing home

[Frisbee Slider]

Ouch.

[CoopTheGreatest]

End of Message.

[brewmann04]

Infield hit scores the winning run

this kid a loss makes you so F---ing Mad.

 

DEJEAN IS HORRIBLE AND IT ABOUT TIME

THAT NED TRIES SOMEONE ELSE.

CURTIS STRIKES OUT THE SIDE AND DEJEAN BLOWS A 2 RUN LEAD PATHETIC.

I WAS NEVER A FAN OF DEJEAN AND IF THEY TRADED HIM I FOR ONE WOULD BE VERY HAPPY.

I KNOW THIS TEAM IS NOT GOING ANY WHERE BUT JEEZ THEY NEED TO WIN A GAME GOING INTO THE 9TH WITH A 2 RUN LEAD

[clancyphile]

Pulling Matt Ford after only 62 pitches.

[nikip43]

I was reading the messages as my play by play...skipped to page two happy as a fiddle, and then it ended "ouch"....eek, what happened????

 

AAH yes, Blown save, blown opportunity, blown win, just blowin'

 

Never can underestimate the power of a great bullpen, and frankly, Kolb/Leskanic/VLDS/Estrella/DeJean...wheres the greatness.

 

Speaking of Johan Santana, if the Crew somehow did aquire him (or a player like him), Id be all for leaving him in the BP. A strong force to bring into the game is sooo important, espeically with a young pitching staff (next few years). Guys will be on pitch counts, and Yost and Co. need reliable arms in the pen to go to in pressure situations...which by the way, will increase in pressure as the team gets better.

 

I feel that any team shoping a middle relief guy thats young and only needs some work would be a good investment. Think Franklyn Germain (sp) of the Tigers, hes young and inconstant, but don't think he won't become a solid force for Detroit in a few years.

 

Bullpen is bar far the best investment a team can make. While they pitch about 1/3-1/2 the games innings, the make very little money.

 

Invest in a bullpen, and loses like this will become an all too distant memory....oh, they'll occur, but not as often

[batman]

Kolb is decent-to-above-average, Vizcaino is showing improvement (and when he's at his best, he's nearly unhittable), De Los Santos is very good against left-handers, John Foster has pitched well, Kieschnick can eat up innings and is generally effective, Leskanic is on fire and pretty much "game over" if he gets it over the plate, Estrella is a groundball machine and is throwing incredibly well, and DeJean is struggling but above-average when he's on his game.

 

I don't think the bullpen is the problem.

 

~Bill

[nikip43]

a lot of your evaluations seemed to say "incredibly" or "on fire"

 

so let me ask you a question...would our bullpen "not be a problem" if we were 3 games back in the NL central?

 

NAME G W-L-Sv-Hld IP K/9 WHIP ERA

Paul Shuey 26 3-1-0-6 31.1 7.8 0.89 1.15

P. Quantrill 39 0-1-2 0-10 34.1 5.2 0.93 1.57

G. Mota 32 2-2-1-6 46.2 8.5 1.03 1.93

Eric Gagne 39 1-2-29-0 39.1 15.8 0.71 2.06

Tom Martin 34 0-1-0-11 23.0 8.6 1.13 2.74

(ESPN.com statistics)

 

LA Manager Jim Tracy does all his worrying with his offense...but when its time to turn to the bullpen...where CAN he go wrong? Only Leo Estrella and Matt Ford wouldn't look out of place in this bullpen.

[batman]

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

a lot of your evaluations seemed to say "incredibly" or "on fire"

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

Um, actually only two. I said Estrella was pitching incredibly well and Leskanic is on fire. Do you care to dispute those observations? I feel pretty confident making those assessments.

 

You listed 5 Dodgers' pitchers... the Brewers have 7/8 relievers. Moreover, the Dodgers get consistently-strong starting pitching and thus throw less innings. It's not really a fair comparison.

 

That said, I'll take Estrella, Leskanic, De Los Santos, and DeJean before Shuey, Quantrill, Mota, and Martin. It's not exactly fair to compare any of the Brewers' pitchers to Gagne. And the Vizcaino of last year is the best of the non-Gagne bunch. Throw in Kolb, who has pitched well, Foster, who has done the same, and Kieschnick, who can eat up innings and hit better than any other pitcher in the league, and you've got yourself a solid bullpen.

 

On a team without the money to splurge on anything other than necessities, the bullpen should be the last of our concerns. Starting pitching, yes. Hitting, yes. But relievers? Not really.

 

~Bill

[mothershipconnection]

Why is Leskanic not getting at least a portion of the save opprtunities? I'm a fan of DJ's, but Leskanic has been great this year. Plus, being on the trading block, his value could make a jump if he's placed in save situations and pitches the way he has. We could then market him as a closer and set-up man, seemingly making him more valuable.

[nikip43]

Ill stand by my viewpoint and Ill let you have yours

 

Milwaukee has a weak bullpen

 

Yost has left pitchers in games longer than he should have for the very same reasons that he can't trust what hes got to work with

 

Ill agree that Milwaukees pen is stronger than those of other teams in last place, but whenever this team starts competiting for division titles...theres no way guys like VLDS or Kolb are going to cut it (in my opinion)

 

Dotel-Wagner

Stanton-Rivera

Mota-Gagne

 

some of the strongest 1-2 punches in the past few years all belong to winning teams

 

Now it is my own belief that the bullpen is the most underated part of a team and that the key to success is via the relievers, but I can see others arguements

 

I think a future bullpen led by Neugie and Diggins is a great start...the Crew would be foolish to try and bring these kids back as starters when they could turn into dominating releivers...again, my opinions

 

All in all, the Brewers will continue to blow saves due to lack of quality men in the pen...and while Im not a fan of Milwaukees releivers, you won't here me pin a loss on one particular pitcher/play

[igor67]

I agree at this point nikip that Nuegie and Diggins should be looked at as future relievers. And they could be potentially dominant guys. But the rotation is still relatively more important because it's harder to fill than a bullpen. I think the Brewers pen is OK. If Yost had sent Vizcaino down a while ago to get some rest and refind himself the numbers would look a lot better and getting everyone else a little more regular work would help them too.

[rluzinski]

Aweful loss. Just handed it to em really. Why can't Dejaun atleast pretend he's watching runners on base??

[mls4]

Was anyone else at the dome this weekend? Friday night was fun, but overall it was tough to see all the times they couldn't get runners in from scoring position, especially from 3rd base with less than two outs, it seems like they strike out 90% of the time in that situation. I can't get the "ROTLTTO" link to work but the numbers can't be too good. I wonder how they compare to other teams. Even when they did score runs they were depending on 2-out hits. Pods saved us twice this way on Saturday, or we'd have been shut out. We had the leadoff runner on 6 straight innings at one time on Saturday, and they only scored him once. Maybe it's not as bad as it seems, and it's probably been like this all year, but being at the games it's just more frustrating.

[deeswan]

mls, like most bad teams, the Brewers offense is streaky. Some days they get hits with RISP like crazy and others they struggle and leave a lot of guys on base. On days when the offense struggles it's important that the pitching staff keep the team in the game until the offense can put together some runs. Against the Cubs the Brewers did that, winning 2 games in their final ABs. Against the Twins yesterday, they didn't do that. Do you blame the bullpen? Not exclusively, because the Brewers certainly blew other scoring chances in the game. The frustrating part for me is that they made some great plays in the 8th to hold the lead, then its given away in the 9th with a BB and a HBP contributing to the final loss. The opposition is going to hit, rally, and beat the Brewers late sometimes, I just don't like the fact that this loss seemed to be more due to Brewer mistakes.

[PrestigeWorldwide]

I didn't see this mentioned anywhere else; I apologize if I missed it. Did anyone else have a problem with Richie's throw (lob?) to Dejean covering first? I played first base in high school, and was taught only to flip the ball to the pitcher underhanded when I was within a few feet of the bag. Otherwise, I was taught to throw overhand in a shortarm motion (kind of like throwing a dart). I was also taught to get the ball to the pitcher before they got to the bag to avoid them having to catch the ball and step on the bag at the same time. It looked to me that the ball arrived right when Dejean tried to step on the bag, which is why he missed the the base. If Richie would have thrown it on a line to Dejean, Dejean could have caught the ball before getting to the base, then would not have had to slow down and instead could have sprinted through the base. Has anyone received any coaching in professional baseball as to how to properly execute this play? I would be interested to find out if Richie played it how he was taught.

[rotoherb]

I think one person mentioned this but the biggest problem I had with the 10th inning was the complete indifference the Brewers had to Rivas when he was on first base. I don't think DeJean even looked over there once and Rivas could have stole second base standing up. Didn't they realize that Rivas was the winning run? That just wasn't smart baseball at all.

[hardytheman]

the 10th inning was the most horrendous baseball I have seen from the crew this year, barring their terrible start.

 

DeJean didnt once look over or throw over to first with Rivas being the WINNING RUN.

 

Yost or Maddux didnt call time and head out to speak to DeJean about it, as it wasnt the first or second pitch he ran on. Where was the coaching there. Terrible.

 

Sexson throw was terrible as well. He was 15 feet from the bag, it looked like he was pitching in my limited arc softball leauge.

 

DeJean is the least athetlic pitcher on the team so I doubt it would have made a difference, Did he even touch the bag.

 

 

Terrible game yeserday. If this team is anything like the Brewers of the past decade, they will be 20 games under fairly soon. HEARTBREAKER it was.

 

I am not a happy guy today.

[mls4]

I agree also- Sexson really took his time on that play, and I think DeJean was expecting the throw sooner. I didn't understand letting Rivas take 2nd base either, on what seemed like defensive indifference. We didn't seem to play smartly in the tying rally in the 9th either. My wife (Twins fan) said it was payback for the bad umping, especially when we nailed two runners in the 8th. (Pods was safe at home earlier on the same play?) Did anyone notice if those were the right calls by the umpires? And did Gardenhire have legitimate gripes on balls and strikes in the 3rd when he got ejected? My wife was sure the Brewers were getting every close call from the umps and the Twins deserved to win the whole time.