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Strat-o-Matic Simulation: Play Pirates, Feel Better

Iconic baseball sim company Strat-o-Matic is helping fill our baseball void by running a simulation of 2020 baseball, and I am writing up the Brewer games.

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Recovering nicely from a demoralizing sweep at the hands of the Mets over the weekend, the Brewers nearly swept the Pirates across three games, taking the first two and losing the last by a hair. Durnitall, I really wanted that sweep. You just want to beat guys like Derek Holland, you know. Even if the little tiny moustache is long gone.

Welp, this Strat version of the Brewers still isn’t a very good team. However, boy-oh-boy, when I look over at OOTP, hey, these guys look like stars. Bottom line: Crew won this series, on the road, and climbed into third place in the division. Better.

Tuesday, April 21st, in Pitt: Brewers 3 (10-13), Pirate 2 (9-14)

Last year whenever we played the Pirates my biggest impression was that they seemed to have an endless procession of professional hitters who we just couldn’t get out. They wouldn’t hit home runs—Josh Bell was the least of my worries—but they kept whacking balls into the outfield. Bryan Reynolds, Colin Moran, Adam Frazier, Kevin Newman… oh man. Then I’d look at their actual stats, and hey, they weren’t actually too special. But against us? Barrellin’ the ball, boys.

This game was a little like that—not least because, as usual last year, despite all that, we won. We couldn’t get Newman out—he went 3 for 3. Moran and Frazier had hits. Their team outhit us 8 to 6. But the aforementioned hits were singles; they only had one extra base hit, a triple by Jarred "he’s still around? And starting??" Dyson.

It was Josh Lindblom who was today’s "pitch to contact" star, walking none in his five plus innings while singles sailed past his ears. Unsettling as this was, it was also a big improvement: his ERA sunk all the way down to 6.56. Meanwhile, Trevor Williams always seems tough on us, and after Keston Hiura cleared Christian Yelich with a two run first inning homer, Williams maddeningly shut us down through the seventh. We have a way of making mediocre Pirates look like budding breakout guys.

However, the Brewer bullpen has been its strength, and Brent Suter (2.19 ERA), Freddy Peralta (0.68), and Josh Hader (0.87) pitched uneventful, shutout seventh/eighth/ninth innings, giving us our opportunity to win. I’ve been making lots of fun of Eric Sogard, he of the sub-.100 batting average, but he gave us the winning margin, doubling home Omar Narvaez with two outs in the ninth off Keone Kela. Yay!

Wednesday, April 22nd, in the most beautiful stadium in the bigs: Brewers 7 (11-13), Pirates 5 (9-15)

This was not as close as the score indicates: we beat ‘em up. This was the kind of game many Brewer fans probably expected/feared this season: lots of offense, scary but adequate pitching.

Ol’ Sogard, proudly upholding the law of averages, continued to break out of his slump, going 4-for-5 and raising his BA to .174. Other guys added ten other hits. Our barrage was unrelenting, and, for Pirates fans, undoubtedly infuriating: it was our turn to look like irrepressible professional contact hitters. Eleven of our fourteen hits were singles, and we went 8-for-14 with runners in scoring position.. Chris Archer and Nick "Is My Arm Still Attached?" Burdi were our main victims.

Meanwhile, Eric "Steady As She Goes" Lauer was just-good-enough again, pitching five innings, giving up three runs, two earned (our defense has been execrable), and getting his second win. The Pirates, in contrast to us, went 3-for-17 with runners in scoring position. That’s a heck of a lot of runners in scoring position.

Anyhoo, we were up 7-3 in the ninth, and Craig Counsell thought that was enough to go the easy route, but Angel Perdomo disabused us all of that notion, giving up two runs and only getting one out, forcing Couns’ to call on Hader for his eighth save of the year.

Lauer said it best: "I was a little good, a little bad, and a little ugly. I was just giving us a chance to win" (this is an actual Strat-generated quote).

Thursday, April 23rd, in d’Burgh: Pirates 4 (10-15), Brewers 3 (11-14)

Holland against Adrian Houser. The Brewers are scoring mnostwo (Polish for "a ton of") first inning runs this year—which has made the many losses even harder. As now seems usual, we got up 2-0, on consecutive triples by Yelich and Hiura and a two-out double by Jedd Gyorko.

However, our tenuous starting pitching was again unreliable. Adrian Houser (0-4, 5.46) is, let’s face it, officially having a bad-looking sophomore slump. Very uncomfortable—with Woodruff still out, Houser is essentially supposed to be our number one starter. Tenuous. Yes. The unbearably competent Reynolds led off the bottom of the first with a single, stole second, and scored on a single by the inevitable Moran. Houser worked around a runner in scoring position in the second, then surrendered solo shots to that damned Reynolds and Josh Bell in the third. Uncharacteristically, Counsell let Houser pitch into the sixth, and Dyson, no doubt taking revenge on me making fun of his light skills above, bombed one into the bleachers. Sigh.

Meanwhile, the Brewers batters entered a long, long, quiet, afternoon nap; Holland, Richard Rodriguez, and Kyle Crick held them to zero runs for the second through eight innings.

Pinch hitting in the ninth, Sogard doubled (hey! average up to .191!) off of Kela, and Brock Holt promptly singled him home to bring the score to 4-3. However, Kela equaled Hader’s eight saves by getting Manny Pina, Ben Gamel, and ‘Zo Cain without trouble to end Brewer hopes of a sweep.

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Harvye Hodja also reports on (real) sumo at SumoTalk.com, and says stuff at IronRiverReview.org.