Sunday Sundries - week 7

The Brewers won the 3 game series against the Cubs, and came within a tiny amount of luck or execution of sweeping them out of Miller Park. Hopes of a winning week, or at least a 3-3 finish, were dashed when the Mets swept the Brewers in their weekend series. The Mets showed why many experts (and real fans) think they will beat the Cubs in a short series: pitching. There were other factors at play, but the Mets pitching, from the start of the games through the finish, looked better than the Cubs. Yeah, we didn't see Arrieta or Lester, but I'll take that Mets' staff top to bottom.

My hope was that the Brewers wouldn't be 16-28 after this week. They aren't; 18-26 looks OK from the perspective of last Sunday, but disappointing from the perspective of Wednesday.

BEST PITCHING STORY

Chase Anderson took a no-hitter into the eighth inning on Tuesday night, and had a one hit shutout in the ninth with two down and an 0-2 count on Jason Heyward. He allowed homers to Heyward and Kris Bryant, kindly exiting to allow Jeremy Jeffress to notch a save. Anderson wasn't dominant; the Cubs hit some balls very hard early that found Brewer gloves. But he threw strikes and gave the team a chance to win. That's all I ask of anybody not named Jimmy Nelson.

Honorable Mention: Junior Guerra is 3-0. His WHIP is 1.04. He beat the Cubs 5-3 on Thursday to clinch the series win, fanning 11 with 5 hits allowed in 7 innings of work. He has certainly done the job that I ask of starting pitchers not named Jimmy Nelson. I may have to revise my expectations of him.

BEST HITTING STORY

The Brewers didn't hit much this week, so there weren't a lot of contenders.  Hernan Perez played in 4 of the 6 games, hitting .417 as he went 5 for 12. He had no extra base hits, and only drove in one run, but did steal 2 bases. For the season he is hitting .300 and slugging .500. I guess playing 67% of the games is reasonable, but Aaron Hill is still riding his 3 homer game to regular playing time; time I'd like to see Hernan get a bigger slice of.

Honorable Mention: Goodness gracious. Not much to choose from. But I like Chris Carter, and he hit 2 more homers and drove in 5 runs on the week. And he struck out 12 time in 20 at bats. So his BA/BIP was .500, with a SA/BIP (is that a thing?) was 1.375. He can hit the ball hard and far. Just not very often.

IMHO

I have to keep reminding myself that the Brewers played the two best teams in the National League (although the Nats might argue). So 2-4 isn't horrible. The week had so many opportunities for a great week, though, and the Brewers just aren't good enough to convert opportunities at a high rate.

But in two or three years, a week like this could be 6-0.

POST OF THE WEEK

Some memes never die. Keon Broxton came back up this week, and roguejim clued us in about how that happened.

This is how I envision the conversation went