WARNING: RANT COMING
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: it’s August, and the Milwaukee Brewers are reeling.
Sure, they made things better this afternoon by salvaging the last game of a three game series vs the suddenly relevant again St. Louis Cardinals. But for a team that led the National League in wins to close out the first half of the year, a 6-10 August now has them 3.5 games back in the NL Central race, and on life support in the NL Wild Card chase, which features five teams within two games of the one-game playoff.
With 36 games left to play, one thing is for certain: the Brewers are going to have to find a way to play better baseball. They need to play more consistently, and fast, or they will face missing the postseason for the 7th straight season. For a franchise that acknowledged and publicly invited high expectations to begin the season, missing the playoffs would leave everyone in the organization with egg on their face, and unleash a fiery fanbase that is tired of buying tickets at the pace of a large market team, only to watch their small market team fade when the stakes get high.
If you came here looking for my typical unapologetic “baseball-is-a-long-season” optimism, I’ve got news for you: that Rob is long gone. [Editor’s Note: That’s exactly what I came here looking for, now I fear the Brewers are doomed!]
It’s not that I don’t think it’s possible for the Brewers to turn things around and salvage the season. Despite metaphorically mashing the panic button, I still acknowledge the basic facts: there’s a lot of baseball left. [Editor’s Note: phew!]
That said, as someone who allows the successes and failures of a baseball team to dictate whether or not my day was “good” or “fine”, I’m sick of the Brewers August woes. SICK OF IT!
I’ve seen this movie so many times, and I’m sick of the ending. The Brewers don’t just slump in August, they implode.
Need examples? How about Corey Knebel’s epic 9th inning collapse vs the Pirates last Thursday. It not only left the Brewers on the losing side of a game where they took a two-run lead into the 9th, but also cost them an injury to newly acquired Joakim Soria, who will now spend almost 20% of his time (at a minimum) in a Brewers uniform on the DL.
Or how about Craig Counsell’s refusal to pitch Josh Hader and Jeremy Jeffress in one-run games when the Brewers are down, despite GM David Stearns loading this team up with home run hitters at the deadline so that, in theory, they’re able to win close games with one swing of the bat. The Brewers are the only team in Major League baseball with two relievers that rank in the top 10 for ERA, and yet entering play today, nobody on that list had appeared in fewer games in August than Josh Hader (4) and Jeremy Jeffress (5).
Then there was Saturday’s debacle, which featured a frustrated manager getting tossed in the second inning, and a national baseball insider (citing an anonomyous player as a source) suggesting that Brewers players were confused and frustrated with GM David Stearns moves at the deadline. What have I been saying all year? The Brewers needed to add a starting pitcher at the deadline to make this team competitive. Did they do that? No. The result: the Brewers rank dead last in the NL in pitcher ERA in August with a whopping 6.39 clip.
And it’s not like the offense has been doing their part either. While they rank 6th in the majors for home runs hit in August with 23, they rank 15th in runs scored with just 70, and rank 6th in majors in strikeouts with 140. When the Brewers have lost this month, they’ve lost big – by an average of 5.1 runs. Even if you take out the 16 run loss to the Dodgers on August 2nd, the Brewers have lost the other 9 games this month by just under four runs.
It’s not good, folks. It just isn’t.
It’s not that I’m not still holding out hope that this team can turn it around and make a run. Trust me, I am. But quite frankly, I’m just tired. For once in my post-college graduate life, I’d like to see a Brewers team finish strong when the pressure is on. Despite having nearly none of the same players from the 2014 team on this roster, it feels exactly the same. It’s like two trains heading straight into one another, in slow motion, over the course of two months. Despite everyone involved in the entire fiasco going, “Hey, stop those trains before someone gets hurt!” We’re all just sitting here, dying on the inside, waiting for the inevitable crash so we can all say, “Welp, what a shame that was.”
I’m over it. If the Brewers want to change my mind, and the minds of most (but not all) of their frustrated fans, they can do it by winning. There are no more excuses. And before you go feeling sorry for anyone in that organization, just remember: they asked for this.