Opening thoughts:
- Clark, 0-for-4
- Weeks, 0-for-4, 2 K's
- Overbay, 0-for-4
Ugh. I guess this is what happens when a mediocre offensive team (sorry, that's what we've got, folks) runs up against an unknown pitcher who turns out to be pretty darn good. And all accounts suggest that Reyes could be better still.
Nice to see Hall in the lineup, producing as expected. I don't dispute that JJ Hardy is the shortstop of the future, or that Hall is below average just about anywhere on the diamond, but we've just gotta have that bat in the lineup. Especially when the 1-thru-5 isn't clicking, having Hall in the 6 or 7 slot is the same kind of protection teams like the Cardinals have advanced to the playoffs with. (Granted, seems like half the Cards starting lineup is on the DL, and Scott Seabol is hardly the protection that LaRussa would like to see behind Pujols & Edmonds.)
But, I'm not inclined to say much about this game, aside from kudos to Reyes, a bitter congrats to Cardinals fans for the great pitcher we're going to have to face a few times a year until 2010 or so, and a veiled threat: Prince Fielder is going to take this dude deep. Many times.
To the win probability graph:
Here are the individual Brewers' "contributions":
- Batting
- Clark, -12.0%
- Weeks, -9.1%
- Overbay, -9.7%
- Lee, -2.6%
- Jenkins, -6.2%
- Hall, +9.9%
- Branyan, -3.1%
- Moeller, -9.8%
- Davis, -2.1%
- Helms, +6.1%
- Durrington, +1.9%
- Magruder, +4.7% (the purpose of which, I'm sure, is just to make me feel bad for my comments after yesterday's game)
Pitching: - Davis, -9.9%
- Santana, +3.5%
- Eveland, -14.7%
- Lehr, +0.8%
All in all, not a good night. I'm a little bit glad I was at Yankee Stadium watching the Yanks/ChiSox game instead of following this one...it was bad enough to see the updates on the out-of-town scoreboard.
But you know I can't stay down for too long: with Sheets coming up next and the offense due, I'm ready for a blowout to bring us back within a game of .500 and some momentum headed into the weekend series with the Cincinnati Reds coming to town.
Question for you: after these two losses, are we still in the wild-card hunt? Being at .500 with positive momentum is a VERY different thing than being two below with negative momentum. The Astros have been helping by losing, but not every team ahead of the Crew is going to lose every night until Milwaukee gets their bearings back. What needs to happen to get us back in this race?
Cardinals stats follow the jump...
Cardinals stats:
- Batting
- Eckstein, -4.8%
- Taguchi, +3.0%
- Pujols, +11.8%
- Grudz, +20.2%
- Seabol, -16.1%
- Rodriguez, +4.6%
- Luna, +5.2%
- Mahoney, -15.2% (this dude's a double-play machine!)
- Reyes, -9.3%
- Nunez, +10.9%
- Marquis, +0.5% (this just wasn't nice. I mean, come on.)
Pitching: - Reyes, +15.9%
- Flores, +6.0%
- Tavarez, +5.2%
- Isringhausen, +4.1%