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The Brewers didn't have a great chance of winning today's game in the late innings, but they certainly poked a hole in the inner tube by sending Cesar Izturis to the plate to pinch hit for Travis Ishikawa in the eighth. Despite entering the day as a .214/.214/.214 hitter in 2012 and a .240/.280/.291 hitter since the start of the 2009 season, Izturis has already been used as a pinch hitter four times in 2012.
If you need help doing the math, that means Izturis is on pace for roughly 34 pinch hit plate appearances this season. If he gets them, he'll almost certainly end up alongside some of these guys on the list of the worst Brewer pinch hitters of all time:
Jamie Quirk, 1977: A 23 year old catcher, Quirk hit .217/.251/.330 in 93 games in his lone season in Milwaukee. Despite his sub-.600 OPS he was used as a pinch hitter 30 times. He went 5-for-33 in those games for a .152/.152/.152 line.
Bill Voss, 1972: Voss spent eight years in the majors as an outfielder despite being just a .227/.298/.317 hitter. 1972 was his second season as a Brewer, and it didn't last long. He was used as a pinch hitter 17 times that season and hit .071/.188/.071.
Tim Johnson, 1977: Johnson was a light-hitting infielder who played his way to a .223/.274/.265 line over 405 games as a Brewer. In 1977 he was sent to the plate as a pinch hitter ten times, and went 1-for-13 in those games.
Paul Ratliff, 1972: Like Quirk, Ratliff was a backup catcher. 1972 was his last of four major league seasons, eleven of his 22 games came as a pinch hitter, and he went 0-for-11 and struck out seven times in those appearances.
Enrique Cruz, 2003: A failed Rule 5 experiment, the Brewers selected Cruz from the Mets and were able to keep him for a full season but getting just 76 plate appearances over a full season didn't turn out to be good for his development. Cruz pinch hit in 36 games and went 4-for-39 for a .105/.186/.128 line.
Both Voss and Ratliff were managed by Dave Bristol, who was fired midseason in 1972. 1977 was Alex Grammas' final season. 2003 was the first of Ned Yost's six seasons.