I need your help in dealing with the emotional roller coaster

[TooLiveBrew]

The problem I am having is that every time we lose a series, it really feels like we have just been eliminated and the whole season is over and wasted. I go through this whole routine in my mind where the Brewers have already lost their playoff chance, clinched a losing record, lost a bunch of angry fans, and it now becomes 26 years since we made the playoffs.

 

Each game is supposed to be 1 out 162, but why does every tough loss feel like elimination? It's weird how the mind works.

All I can tell ya, AJAY, is that - to me - I know it feels much more like "They're supposed to do that" after a W, while a loss (especially the blowing of leads that's happened lately) feels like a failure. If wins felt more like victories, as they actually technically are, there'd be more of a balance - but as you say, the human psyche somehow functions differently

 

[pitchleague]

There may have been some that saw us more of division winners in 2007 and World Series contenders in 2008, but I don't think anyone was really projecting worse.

There were plenty of people projecting worse. At any rate, division contenders and playoff powerhouses in 08 with a Series in 09 seemed right by me. These guys are young.

 

the only thing about this, seriesfinale and adam, that bothers me (nothing wrong with your post, just the idea bugs me) is that this sounds alot like the Indians in the mid-90s and the Indians in the early 2000s. Both clubs were stacked with young talent and were projected to win titles. Where did it get them? A celebration to honor an AL championship team in 2022 (wonder if Albert "don't call me Joey" Belle will show up?) like we have for the '82 Crew. With both of those Indians teams they had the talent and it didn't happen and then the window of opportunity slammed shut for a few years.

I wonder if we'll get right back into contention in just 2-4 years after the current Brewers' window of opportunity closes in 2009-2010-ish or if we'll have to wait a good long while again. Yeah, we have better ownership now so we probably won't have 15 years in between winning seasons, but will Mark A. still be around then? who knows?

 

 

 

 

[Oldcity]

It has been exhausting lately, no doubt. But I've taken a much-needed mental break from the Brewers, and I somehow find myself with a somewhat positive attitude. Avoid getting swept and get Sheets back healthy, and they have a shot. Why not look at it that way?

[craigharmann]

Ajay, the best thing to do to deal with the emotional roller coaster is to drink. It soothes all. Another way is just to realize that all teams have up and down periods. Right now, we've been going through the down period, but hopefully, starting tonight, we get on a roll. The best part is the division sucks, and we're only a game and a half out. And just think about this. If the Brewers win the division, everything else goes away, doesn't it? It doesn't matter if they had some serious losing streaks, they won the division! Let's have fun, and pull for our team with all of our hearts. We haven't been able to do this at this point in the year, well....for a long time. Too long!

[AJAY]

Sorry to revive this thread, but I am having serious mental issues again.

 

I know you can't win them all, especially when you are on the road. But I just feel like after 25 years, shouldn't this team finally turn the corner and start to pull away a little? It just makes me sick to be tied again with the Cubs. I am just so terrified of blowing this division to a team that I absolutely can not stand. Is it asking too much to sweep a bad team on the road once in a while? Is it asking too much to do something special at PNC Park for once in franchise history?

 

What a difference 24 hours makes. Just yesterday I was planning out which sports bar I was going to be watching the Brewers playoff games at . . . and now I am dreading a painful collpase.

 

I feel like my hair is about to fall out.

[hawing]

Well, AJAY, after Friday's game probably few of us felt upbeat about the Brewers, yet they turned that series around pretty decently.

 

I realize that proves nothing good about Tuesday's and Wednesday's games, but it proves nothing bad either. One game at a time, the good lord willing, things will work out.

 

Sorry, that's all I have tonight. (I felt like someone should try.)

[DougJones43]

Is it asking too much to sweep a bad team on the road once in a while?

The Brewers have never really shown any ability to win on the road during Yost's tenure. They're 28-44 on the road this year, and once again have played poorly at PNC Park. There was never really any reason to believe that this road trip was going to be much different than most of the previous ones. My advice to you, AJAY, is to expect the expected. With this team, that seems to be pathetic play on the road. If they actually do alright on the road, look at it as a pleasant surprise. If you expect a sweep, you're going to be let down in a big way.

 

The Brewers probably have about a 50/50 shot to make the playoffs. Keep that in mind. If you feel like "we should be in but we're blowing it", that's not really accurate. The Cubs are easily as good as the Brewers. The Brewers are lucky to still even have a chance at the playoffs. In the AL, they would have been done a long time ago. It is what it is. Milwaukee is tied for 1st place. Maybe they'll make it, but you have to prepare yourself for the relatively high probability that they won't.

[dadofandrew]

Young teams often struggle on the road. Games like tonight are especially easy to take, they were up against a pitcher who looked good and several line drives right at Pirates, Not much you can do about either.

[owbc]

Young teams often struggle on the road. Games like tonight are especially easy to take, they were up against a pitcher who looked good and several line drives right at Pirates, Not much you can do about either.

Agreed.

 

I thought tonight's loss was easy to stomach. I'd rather lose 9-0 than 1-0. Losing the division lead isn't nice, but I expect this team to bounce back today, just as they have done the entire season.

[Baldkin]

I don't know, last night they looked over anxious. 0 BB out of the starter, and they don't score any runs. I don't think that's a coincidence.

 

Hopefully their approach will change tonight.

 

At least I had MNF to watch last night http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

[rluzinski]

Is it asking too much to sweep a bad team on the road once in a while?

 

Once in awhile, sure. To ever expect it is for a given series is to set yourself up for disappointment, however. Even if we wish to believe that the Brewers are a true 90 win team (if not for their road WOAHS), the Pirates are still on pace for 72 wins themselves. Not very good but not that bad either. A 90 win team is expected to beat a 72 win team about 61% of the time on a neutral field and about 57% of the time on the road. The odds of a sweep? 19% or about once every 5, 3 game series. The odds of losing the series? About 39%.

 

Of course, none of that explain why the Brewers NEVER sweep anyone on the road. I'm just trying to provide a little perspective for this series, though.

[Fike85]

The good news is that the Brewers have taken 2 of 3 at Houston twice this season, which is encouraging.

[Crewin06]

The feeling that is getting me sick to my stomach is watching players that I felt would be really good and staples of this franchise take huge leaps backwards.

 

I have to admit I thought the future for this team was rediculously bright.

 

Then I watched our #2 pitcher, a former all star, a former 18 game winner get pulled from a rotation that was horrible at the time.

 

our highest paid player in franchise history post back to back aweful months.

 

Dave Bush who I thought was going to be riduculous for us self implode.

 

Villanueva play so bad that he got sent to the minors.

 

Bill Hall regress to the point to where Gabe Gross is a significant upgrade at the plate.

 

Ricky Weeks who was once considered the best prospect in the organization play his way out of the majors for a short period of time.

 

The most frustrating part about this year is that we didn't really have any major injuries. The players we have been depending upon to be our future have just fallen off the map.

 

Bill Hall

Chris Capuano

Ricky Weeks

Dave Bush

Jeff Suppan

 

I expected all-start type seasons out of those 5 guys and Now I don't know if 3 of the 5 will be on the team next year.

 

I hate to be cynical but with the performance those 5 guys gave this year downgrades my expectations of the next 5 years from dynasty to praying for a World Series appearance.

 

With the way the season has turned out, can you imagine where the Brewers would be if 3 out of those 5 guys would have played up to expectations?

[rluzinski]

If you expect every player on a team to match their expectations, you will be disappointed 100% of the time. Every year on every team, some players do better than expected and some do worse. Hall has been a disappointment. Weeks has been somewhat of a disapointment (hard to get to down on a guy with a .369 OBP). Prince and Braun has been a god. Hart has been great. Overall, the offense has been much better than expected.

 

As for pitching, much of the troubles have to do with bad, bad defense but guys like Suppan, Bush and Cappy aren't really all-star calliber pitchers to begin with.

[Crewin06]

If you expect every player on a team to match their expectations, you will be disappointed 100% of the time. Every year on every team, some players do better than expected and some do worse. Hall has been a disappointment. Weeks has been somewhat of a disapointment (hard to get to down on a guy with a .369 OBP). Prince and Braun has been a god. Hart has been great. Overall, the offense has been much better than expected.

 

As for pitching, much of the troubles have to do with bad, bad defense but guys like Suppan, Bush and Cappy aren't really all-star calliber pitchers to begin with.

Are you really serious??

 

The defense is to blame for Suppan's, Bush's, and Cappy's train wrecks. Is the defense really that much worse than last season?

 

Overall I would say the Outfield Defense is a major upgrade with Hall and Hart in place of Caballo and Clark and the Infield Defense is worse with Braun and Estrada instead of Miller and Koskie/Bell.

 

Maybe Prince, Braun, and Hart are having better season's than expected. However I was guessing that one day they would produce how they are producing today.

 

All I know is that Bush's, Suppan's, Cappy's, and Hall's serious regressions this season are very concerning for me. Maybe you expected 6 of the Brewers expected top 10 players to struggle. However I did not. I am not saying that I am suprised that some players failed to live up to expectations. I am just suprised at the number of players and how far they fell from the expectations.

 

 

[TooLiveBrew]

Soup hasn't really regressed much, he's just a ground-ball pitcher with a poor defense playing behind him. All in all, his numbers haven't been off that much from career norms. If you're willing to look beyond W-L record, ERA, and other basic stats, you'll be able to see this rather clearly. That was rluz's point on the pitching staff, I think. Honestly, if you expected more than this from Soup, you must have assumed that his performance in the NLCS was in line with his career norms, as opposed to simply being a couple of great performances at the right time.

 

Capuano has suffered from some terrible D, as well. Both Cap & Bush have been hit harder this year than in years past, though - which obviously stinks. However, both have had decent to good BB/K rates, which is very important for a pitcher. They, like Soup, are gb pitchers, and our D has not been kind. This doesn't explain everything away, but it is a significant factor.

 

Hall hasn't really regressed too much, either, but I don't mean to say he hasn't been disappointing this year. His ISP is above league-average, his LD% is fine, and it's no real cause for concern in terms of the future. Keep in mind he missed significant time with the high-ankle sprain. He's still on pace to set a career-high in 2Bs, and surpassing 15 HRs is a very reasonable goal at this point. While that's obviously nowhere near his 35 from '06, keep in mind that may well be Hall's career high, and a bit of an outlier. He's a legitimate 25ish HR/yr. guy, and in CF, that's really valuable. His D will likely get better as he literally never played OF (ever) before this season - and has had to tackle the toughest spot in the OF.

[rluzinski]

The fact is, all preseason projections I saw pegged the Brewers for between 75 and 85 wins and they are going to probably fall right in line with those projections. I personally figured 85 wins. Unless you expected the Brewers to win 95+ games, how can you argue that the net performance of the individual players have been disappointing? Some players have done worse and some better.

 

As for defense, the Brewers defense has been absolutely terrible, especially the infield defense. They were expected to be bad before the season started and they have not disappointed. That has a profound effect on the pitching staff, especially for ground ball pitchers. Hardballtimes.com calculates the defense has converted 47 less outs than an average defense of the the season. Using the .8 runs/play value, that works out to 38 runs!

 

Baseball fans have a tendency to undervalue defense or even flat out ignore it. I know I did only a few years ago. I realize now that defense is terribly important to a pitcher. For a guy like Suppan (puts a lot of balls in play, groundball pitcher), defense makes or breaks him. When he was signed, I and others warned about the effects going from an above average to below average infield defense would have on him. His K rate is about the same and his walk rate actually improved but his BABIP (batting average of balls in play) jumped up over 20 points! Kind of weird for a guy with a career .300 BABIP to all of a sudden throw out a .323 BABIP, no? The bad defense should get a significant portion of the credit for that. How could it not?

[Team Canada]

You know, in between the gulps of Maalox, it's good to ponder this fact: It's mid September. The Brewers are one game out of first. Every game means something.

 

Enjoy it.

[Klements Bratwurst]

For me, I kind of feel that the odds are really stacked against us. Grant it, we are only one game out of first place, which on paper looks great. But we are two games back in the all important win column. If the Cubs had off for the next two days, and we had to play, we would have to go through the gauntlet twice and win both times, just to forge a tie to get back to even in the standings.

 

Now I wouldn't feel so bad about being two games back in the win column if the Cubs had a terrible stretch of tough games remaining. They have the Reds and Pirates at home, and then the Marlins and Reds away to close the season. If this is a race to 85 wins, the Cubs have a decent headstart compared to our upcoming roadie to Houston and Atlanta, then home against St. Louis and San Diego.

 

Does anyone else feel that the Crew will be in it to the very end (even doing OK on the upcoming road trip) but only to end up a bit short because they have to now rely on the Reds, Pirates, and Marlins to rough up the Cubs? I know they should have taken care of business on their own, and shouldn't be in this position, but that is past now.

 

I guess the only thing I can hang my hat on is how well the Reds and Pirates have played here in the second half (since August at least), here are the records since August 1st of the remaining teams that both the Cubs and Brewers play:

 

CUBS:

Reds W23 L19

Pirates W24 L21

Marlins W16 L26

 

Totals: W63 L66 (.488 PCT)

 

BREWERS:

Astros W19 L24

Braves W20 L22

Cards W20 L25

Padres W25 L18

 

Totals: W84 L89 (.486 PCT)

 

Maybe I feel better now by looking up the numbers. With that said, the Brewers and the Cubs are playing teams of about equal strength when you look at the last month and a half of games or so. Clearly, though, the Pirates, Reds, and Marlins are not very good teams collectively as a whole, but down the stretch, they have done some damage.

[tomwopat]

http://www.hardballtimes.com/gifs/nlcentralwins.gif

 

The amount of whitespace between the Brewers and the rest of the division early on is the most depressing part.

[Klements Bratwurst]

I forgot about the 24-10 start until you brought it back up! Just kidding. I pressed the mental reset button a few weeks ago and felt "good" about where we are now in the standings. I wish I felt better though!! The question I have is when does this "goat" curse start to take effect? Where is Bartman these days? We need them on the roller coaster!!!

[hawing]

Where is Bartman these days?

 

Well, remember, Bartman didn't become a factor until "five outs to the WS" in 2003. If something's going to go wrong for the cubs, there's still ample time for that.

[Ennder]

My primary goal for the team this season was playing meaningful ball deep into september to get the team that pennant race experience. As long as we don't just tank this next road series we will have achieved my primarly goal.

 

My secondary goal was for the young players to grow and improve and stay healthy. This secondary goal has mostly been met. Gallardo looks like the real deal, Hardy stayed healthy for a full season and even put up good numbers. Hart stayed healthy and proved he could play every day. Braun showed more than I expected and Fielder grew into the player I hoped he would be 2 years from now. Villanueva is showing that he belongs in the rotation long term. Weeks is the only question mark for me and even he has turned it on this past month.

 

The season has had a lot of ups and downs but to me it has been a success. I hope we make the playoffs but I'm not going to be crushed if we don't.

 

Fielder

Weeks

Hardy

Braun

Hart

 

That is a great core to an offense that we control for a number of years still. Sure it stinks defensively but oh well you take the good with the bad.

 

Gallardo, Villaneuva and to a lesser extent Parra gives me hope that we can build a strong rotation over the next two seasons.

 

The filler players might change but the team has the core of a future division winner and that makes me happy no matter what happens over the last 2 weeks.

[Nearsighted Views]

I've been laying low lately. I don't like Yost but I'm kind of sick of the discussion and at this point in the season and analyzing seems pointless right now as it's go time and you simply have to play well to win. I follow every game very closely and I've been pretty even keel which has been hard for me as this is my first pennant race as a fan. I was doing really good until tonight.

 

When I see the Cubs win like they did tonight, I want to kick a puppy. Not a regular one either. One of the really cute ones with really big eyes. Anyways, my hate for that team is getting in the way of the enjoyment. If this race were with any other team in the Central, I would love every second of it. The thought of having to see those fake tan, backward hat, loud, obnoxious, bandwagony rich and arrogant fans strut around is almost intolerable to me. MP will be almost unattendable during Cubs games next year. My brother-in-law is one of those fans that can't name you 5 relievers on the Cubs and still mispronounces Theriot but has his son decked out in Cubs gear and wears the hats and jerseys and says "Go Cubbies" every chance he gets.

 

Anyways, that's the part of the emotional rollercoaster I need help with. Not how to deal with the fans--that has been discussed ad nauseum on this board--but how to deal with my hatred. I know hate is a wasted emotion that eats you from the inside out and I would like to surrender and release but I can't.

 

Please help me. Help me tip my cap when they win a game like they did tonight. Help me realize that it's the team's play that has the Crew a game back and not lucky bounces and bad calls.

 

Help me be a better fan.

[logan82]

When I see the Cubs win like they did tonight, I want to kick a puppy. Not a regular one either. One of the really cute ones with really big eyes. Anyways, my hate for that team is getting in the way of the enjoyment.

I completley felt the same way in July. I was more of a Cubs hater than a Brewers fan. I was happy whenever the Cubs lost no matter wether the Brewers won.

 

Brewers lose, Cubs win, puppy kicking.

Brewers win, Cubs win, angry.

Brewers lose, Cubs lose, sort of happy.

Brewers win, Cubs lose, happy.

 

If it really bothers you that much the best thing to do is not look at the Cubs scores. That is the only thing that worked for me. I know it is much tougher to do now than a month ago, but you have to do something to enjoy the season.

 

I have lots of relatives in Illinois, but I am lucky they are all Sox fans.

 

Is there anybody who thinks that we are this upset, as fans, if somebody besides the Cubs is in first? Not me.