Pink Bat Power Fail As Brewers Drop Another to St. Louis, 3-1
by Hangwith'em Rach on May 8, 2011 5:15 PM CDT
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W: Kyle McClellan (5-0)
L: Chris Narveson (1-3)
S: Fernando Salas (3)
MVP: Carlos Gomez (+.118)
LVP: Rickie Weeks (-.245)
Win Expectancy Graph and Star of the Game Voting
Happy Mother’s Day!
The Brewers offense went back into hiding today as Milwaukee fell to the St. Louis Cardinals, 3-1. Relief-pitcher-turned-starter Kyle McClellan held the Crew to just four hits and three walks over eight innings to pick up his fifth win of the season. The loss was the eighth in a ten game road trip for Milwaukee.
After breaking out with four runs yesterday, the Brewers seemed poised to get on the board early against McClellan with a little pink bat power. Milwaukee loaded the bases in the first inning and Carlos Gomez hit a one-out double in the second inning but no runs crossed the plate.
Chris Narveson matched McClellan through four innings but gave up a two-out, two-run double to Colby Rasmus in the fifth. The Cardinals added an unearned run in the sixth inning when a Casey McGehee miscue led to a two-base error to start the inning. The run would score after a sacrifice bunt by Yadier Molina and a sacrifice fly by Nick Punto.
The Brewers only run came in the ninth inning on a single by Craig Counsell. Prince Fielder led off the inning with a single and McGehee followed with a walk. After Yuniesky Betancourt and Jonathan Lucroy recorded outs, Gomez walked to load the bases. Counsell came in to hit for the pitcher and delivered one of the more epic at-bats of the season. He fought through a 13-pitch at-bat before delivering an in-field single. For a brief moment, it seemed that the Brewers might rally. And then Rickie Weeks waved at three Fernando Salas pitches and the rally—and the game—was over.
Milwaukee will try to find its offense at Miller Park on Monday as it begins a three-game set against the Padres. Hopefully it is hiding in Bernie’s mustache.
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At which point they'd be back to .500.
SIGH
Padres and Pirates are just the two teams to crank out a 6 game winning streak against, though.
fka "warwick5s"
Yeah, gotta start somewhere. They're going to need to get back to .500 at some point this year.
Tossing all other thoughts out of the window, this team is too talented to not be at least .500
Grillax people
by jmeks23 on May 8, 2011 8:19 PM CDT up reply actions 1 recs
Looks like he had two singles and a run scored today.
Applying pop culture to Brewers discussions since 2009, earning the nickname of "Our Little Abed".
Which would make him the MVP of the Brewers today.
So yeah, you might be right.
Applying pop culture to Brewers discussions since 2009, earning the nickname of "Our Little Abed".
Remember when we used to say "the offense is not the problem" with complete conviction?
by Ted Simmons Speed Camp on May 8, 2011 7:08 PM CDT reply actions
In a sense, it's mostly on Braun and Fielder
How many 10-game stretches were there last year in which Braun was 6-for-37 (.162) and Fielder was concurrently 5-for-36 (.139)? That’s pretty much it right there. Show me any team that has their 3-4 hitters go 11-for-73 (.151) over a 10 game stretch and I’ll show you a team that’s scoring few runs. As much as I sigh about Yuni’s offense and Gomez’ offense, the responsibility for this losing streak rests on the shoulders of Braun and Fielder.
I theorize that this season has demonstrated the concept of a “Quality Start” for the offense. I would imagine someone’s already done the work on this, but here’s my “Quality Bat” theory: A team that has 3 players with at least 2 hits/walks, including an extra-base hit, is going to score a few runs.
That is to say, a team needs 3 hot bats to score 4 or more runs in any given game. 8 singles across 7 players could score runs, but probably won’t. 4 singles, a HR and 2 doubles spread across the 1, 3 and 4 hitters will probably produce a lot of runs.
Last year the Brewers could count on 5 or 6 players to have a good chance of having a Quality Bat: Weeks, Hart, Braun, Fielder, McGehee and Edmonds. Many games 3 of the 6 would have a Quality Bat and most games would have 2 of the 6 which means the team only needed a Quality Bat from SS, C, P/PH for a solid offensive night. That also means that Braun and Fielder could combine to go 0-for-8 and the Brewers would still plate 4 runs, because Weeks, McGehee and Edmonds had good nights.
With Edmonds gone, Hart out and McGehee in a slump, the Brewers were left with only 3 players that could be counted on to have a Quality Bat. Braun and Fielder’s insane April meant the Brewers practically always had 2 Quality Bats between Weeks, Braun and Fielder. By random chance, Yuni, Gomez, Lucroy or Kotsay would have a Quality Bat. Now that Braun and Fielder uncharacteristically went ice cold, the Brewers needed 3 Quality Bats out of the rest of the lineup and that’s never going to happen.
Even with normal productivity out of Weeks, Braun and Fielder, the Brewers would probably need to find 2 Quality Bats most of the time from the rest of the lineup. Until Hart, McGehee and Tony Plush come around, the offense if the problem.
by ecocd on May 8, 2011 8:29 PM CDT up reply actions 4 recs
Woah
I'm a Prince Fielder honk.
Also, the LIONS! (tm)
by Dikembe Meiztombo on May 9, 2011 12:08 AM CDT up reply actions
any video of the counsell AB?
I left after the Brewers 8th. Me watching big men with pink bats doesn’t really satisfy Mothers Day requirements in my family.
You probably found it already,
but it’s up on the official Brewers site.
by Ted Simmons Speed Camp on May 8, 2011 8:49 PM CDT up reply actions
I had to go back and count the pitches to Counsell
Rock said 14 but the Brewers website said 13. It turned out to be a 13-pitch at-bat. Heckofa at bat.
by Hangwith'em Rach on May 8, 2011 9:24 PM CDT reply actions
Offensive woes
I hit on some of this in a post earlier today in a pre-game post, but I am very concerned about the offensive potential of this team, both in roster construction as well as roster usage (at least today).
First off, this team went into the season with significant offensive question marks at CF, SS, and C.
I think most agree that McGehee was a bit over his head, so a regression there is not a huge surprise either.
Throw in Hart’s injury, and all of a sudden, you are left with 3 true plus offensive players and that isn’t going to cut it.
Then, throw in a bench with a complete lack of pop, and you have real issues. When you need to go with Craig Counsell with the bases juiced in the 9th inning while down 3, it says a LOT about your roster.
Secondly, I am becoming more skeptical about Roenicke. We have things like insisting on hitting Gomez second. I realize they don’t have a great option there in terms of OBP, so at least just put a guy there that you want to get at bats. Gomez is not that guy.
I also thought it was a mistake to go with Nieves over Kottaras. It isn’t a significant issue, but Kottaras does have a little sock in his bat and on those days that you need to give Lucroy the day off, it makes a mediocre lineup even worse.
Today, I was NOT happy with benching Hart. I know he is scuffling but he isn’t going to work out of that slump on the bench. He is a guy who has proven he CAN be a plus bat. Playing a miserable offensive player like Kotsay and claiming that he is “playing well” (with his .660 OPS) is just not acceptable.
It is sad when you have as much confidence in some of your pitchers hitting as you do in about half of your lineup.
They are 10th in the NL in runs despite monster starts from Fielder and Braun…..and that falls on both Melvin and Roenicke.
I understand that you want to upgrade pitching and defense, but I just don’t see a winning offense here and I am worried about what happens when Fielder walks (or is traded). I see a LOT of offensive holes.
I'm not too worried about the offense on paper
Lucroy is possibly an above average catcher offensively, and even though Betancourt and Gomez aren’t great, every lineup is going to have some holes. And obviously Braun/Fielder is as good as it gets back-to-back. If Hart and McGehee hit like they did last season, it’s one of the better offenses in the NL.
The problem is nobody is hitting right now. The whole team is in a synchronized slump.
Ryan Braun: He loves it. -- Four pitchers in history with 8.5+ WAR and <250 IP seasons: Greg Maddux (age 29), Pedro Martinez (age 28), Roger Clemens (age 27), Zack Greinke (age 25).
Just out of curiousity
Why do you believe so highly in Lucroy? I think he will be a solid MLB average player at some point down the road, but that will be a combination of offense and defense.
Other than small sample size success, there isnt really a lot to suggest that he is going to be an accomplished hitter. And when I say accomplished, I mean above average for the position.
His scouting reports as a minor leaguer were pretty split between people who werent sure he would ever be a starting major league player, or if his bat would ever be very productive.
I’m not trying to knock the guy or your perception of him, I see him as a .265 – .275 kind of hitter, not a big obp, with maybe 10 to 15 hr with solid defense.
It sounds like when he says "possibly above average hitter"
he might just mean “55th percentile”
Applying pop culture to Brewers discussions since 2009, earning the nickname of "Our Little Abed".
I think a .310-.320 wOBA is a pretty safe expectation, and that's probably around average or above average for a catcher.
Ryan Braun: He loves it. -- Four pitchers in history with 8.5+ WAR and <250 IP seasons: Greg Maddux (age 29), Pedro Martinez (age 28), Roger Clemens (age 27), Zack Greinke (age 25).
Corey Hart's OPS is literally HALF of Kotsay's right now.
Hart does not have an XBH in 30 ABs. He’s struck out in over 1/3 of his ABs. He hasn’t drawn a walk.
I don’t think Kotsay is good, but today I was glad he started over Hart, and I haven’t changed my mind there. This team needs to try hard to win on a daily basis if they’re going to get out of this hole. Hart clearly doesn’t have his timing and coordination up to speed, and when NOBODY on this offense is getting the job done, we can ill afford to let Hart continue to have crap ABs swinging and missing at sliders away while a new losing streak is built. If Fielder and Braun are mashing it, then let Hart start over Kotsay.
This team is built on a bunch of streaky hitters, and normally, one or two of them are hot (or at least lukewarm). Right now every bat is cold, with the possible exception of Gomez.
Applying pop culture to Brewers discussions since 2009, earning the nickname of "Our Little Abed".
Well he hasn't batted Gomez in a few games first of all
As far as the offense goes, Braun and Fielder are in a huge slump right now, and they’ve been up in a lot of games with RISP and they haven’t gotten the job done on this road trip.
Hart and McGehee both suck right now, though McGehee had a nice day Saturday. The problem is McGehee seems to have opened his stance a bit, and now can’t reach any off-speed pitch thrown on the outside corner, particularly sliders. He shouldn’t be swinging at all of them like he is anyways, but being as open in his stance as he is, opens him up like it did to Billy Hall. Hart is a different story in terms of he didn’t have really any ST and didn’t get nearly enough time in the minors. He will probably turn it around, but I don’t think he’ll ever be as good as he was last year, which is why I wanted the Brewers to trade him, instead they gave him 40 million dollars.
Betancourt has at least driven in some runs, but he is a terrible player, and will likely not reach base even a third of the time. I’ll be satisfied if he can maintain a somewhat decent BA and get around 50 RBI’s. Lucroy has offensive potential, but has been off and on in showing it in the majors thus far. I think he’ll start showing it more as the years pass ( maybe in the next year or two) because he’s been a good OBP guy in the minors. CF will be a question mark all year. Gomez is an enigma. I really think if you looked up enigma in the dictionary you’d see him trying to stretch a double into a triple on the page, but he’s had his moments this year that make you think he’s coming around. Morgan will be another question mark once he’s back.
I really don’t think Weeks has been as good as he should be either thus far. He’s definitely had some good stretches, but his strikeouts are as bad as ever. Striking out 20% of the time or more is just not going to cut it long term. He’d be so much better in an RBI spot, where strikeouts are at least accepted a little more.
Anyways, now I’ve followed up your long post with an equally long one.
TL;DR Offense should be fine, but DOES have holes that likely won’t be fixed
Grillax people
LaTroy Hawkins live tweeting 'To Catch a Predator' is surreal but awesome.
Ryan Braun: He loves it. -- Four pitchers in history with 8.5+ WAR and <250 IP seasons: Greg Maddux (age 29), Pedro Martinez (age 28), Roger Clemens (age 27), Zack Greinke (age 25).
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NL Central Standings
| W | L | PCT | GB | STRK | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Cincinnati
|
26 | 20 | .565 | 0 | Won 1 |
|
St. Louis
|
25 | 22 | .531 | 1.5 | Lost 3 |
|
Houston
|
22 | 24 | .478 | 4 | Lost 1 |
|
Pittsburgh
|
22 | 24 | .478 | 4 | Won 2 |
|
Milwaukee
|
19 | 27 | .413 | 7 | Lost 1 |
|
Chicago
|
15 | 31 | .326 | 11 | Lost 11 |
(updated 5.27.2012 at 12:11 PM CDT)
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