Sunday Sundries - week 10

Week 10! Holey Moley! A 4-2 week is a good week, and was SOOOOOO close to 5-1 that you have to feel pretty good about the team right now. The dreaded west coast trip is upon us, though, and it isn’t just the fact that game times are weird...two of the teams are very good.

The line-ups that the Brewers pitching staff faced from Oakland and the New York Mets were severely depleted by injury, but you still have to be impressed by the Brewers’ pitching staff. In 55 innings, they allowed only 45 hits and 15 walks. That’s a 1.09 WHIP. Team ERA was 2.79. That will generally win you some games.

BEST PITCHING STORY

In a week chock full of good pitching, it’s hard to ignore what Zach Davies did. He won his two starts, going 13 innings and allowing just 5 hits and 4 walks. His WHIP of 0.69 is dominant. He struck out 12. He varies speeds on all of his pitches, so it must seem like he has about 10 different ones to the opposition. His delivery appears effortless (and usually throwing around 85 mph, it kind of is). He will have his games where his location isn’t as precise, or hitters guess better, and he will get hit, but it sure is fun to watch him work right now.

Honorable Mention: Chase Anderson is hard to ignore, but I’m going with Will Smith. The big lefty, coming back from his knee injury, appeared in 4 of the 6 games, working 3.1 innings. He allowed one hit and 1 walk for a WHIP of 0.60. Small sample size, but it sure is nice to see him effective right out of the shoot. Beats the alternative, as it were. His velocity is still down to last year, and perhaps with the knee brace that’s where it will sit, but his location has been very good.

BEST HITTING STORY

Scooter Gennett has found his stroke again! He went .400/.456/.762 for the week with 2 doubles, a homer, and 5 rbi. His homer and one of the doubles came off of lefties, and Craig Counsell even started him against Steven Matz, the Mets’ ace lefty. Scoot had 2 hits in that game. It is looking more and more like he will be a regular second baseman somewhere in the bigs...will it be Milwaukee?

Honorable Mention: Chris Carter showed why we will put up with the down periods. He drove in all 5 runs in a 5-4 win to start the week against the A’s, and ended the week with a .286/.375/.762 slash. His 3 homers and 7 rbi led the team, and he drew an encouraging 3 walks. He still struck out 7 times...but that’s who he is.

IMHO

This was the week that the Brewers finally gave up (at least temporarily) on Wily Peralta. Ironically, it came after a 7-3 win for Wily in which he belted his first major league homer - and it wasn’t a cheapie.

But it wasn’t really all that good of a start, and with Matt Garza coming off of the DL a spot was needed. The schedule isn't heavy coming up, so a 6 man rotation made no sense, and Peralta’s opportunities out of the pen would have been sporadic at best. Colorado Springs may not be the best place to find your stuff, but that’s where Wily finds himself. Location, location. location...the fastball must be down and with sink; the slider needs to be on the edges and down.

I have serious doubts as to whether we will ever see Wily in the Brewers’ rotation again. He has pitched consistently poorly (very poorly) for about a full season now, with no spark of improvement to give hope. Of course, injury might bring him back, but despite what the Brewers are saying about needing Wily to succeed going forward, my guess is that they are making contingency plans to do just that.

COMMENT OF THE WEEK

The Brewers drafted 41 players this week, and about 2000 of them seemed to be college pitchers. Four of their first 21 selections were catchers.

Frst round selection Corey Ray, the speedy outfielder from the University of Louisville, received the most attention, of course.  Derek, JP, and Kyle kept us up to date on draft doings here.

With a plethora of young pitching available, the pick drew a mixed bag of responses, but I’ll go with a positive one from Taterwithbacon:

Great pick, I think he has one of the highest ceilings of the positions players, if not the highest

He just happened to be a college bat, most guys you say have the most potential are in high school so people get to dreaming. Ray strikes me as a high ceiling high floor pick, safe but a pick that wasn’t made for the floor like Jungmann was, this was a pick made for that crazy athletic potential.

37 steals without getting caught is ridiculous by the way that takes talent and smarts.

The pitching staff will face better hitting this week, although the Giants are a bit banged up...and again with the A’s. But pitching on the road can be a different animal. Who’s stayin’ up late with me to watch?