Bertz

This game should *really* be a loss. Woodruff is really good and Lester is obviously cooked. The Brewers have a really good offense against lefties and an atrocious one against righties. And on top of that because of offdays and blowouts the Brewers haven't had to use their good relievers since last Saturday. I have a very modest goal for tonight's game: keep it close enough that the Brewers have to use their good relievers, hopefully have at least one of them throw like 40 pitches and be done for the rest of the weekend.

It would, uh, be nice to get two innings from Colin Rea tonight. No worries, I'm sure Ildemaro Vargas or Dan Winkler will definitely contribute to the the win.

I really want Hoerner to succeed. This team needs a fast guy who's also good at things besides just being fast.

Rea getting optioned is... something? I wonder if it's to stretch him out?

He's a top 30 guy. Considering Jose Martinez has already sent down that's...not great.

Becoming pretty intrigued by Adam. He was a high K, high BB, low GB the last two years. That can be useful depending on exactly how high the Ks and BBs are, but you sort of top out as a 7th inning type because you inevitably have a dong problem. But this year he's added a slider (or possibly a second curve type), and now he's getting ground balls AND the Ks have gone up significantly. It's early, he's only thrown 8 innings, but he's starting to look like he's a thing. I wouldn't hate if they tried him in a high leverage spot or two to see how he holds up.

I think if the team finishes this week strong, let's say 3-2, the division is over. As CW11 posted, it already takes something like 15 of 20 for another team to catch us, and it becomes even tougher if we take care of business in the H2H games. It can happen, it's basically exactly what happened in 2018, but it's long odds made even longer by the H2Hs between the Brewers and Cards. I mentioned this in the GT last night but I think the big thing is staying ahead of the Braves. The #2 seed in the NL is going to get one of the Marlins, Giants, or Rockies. The #3 seed is going to get the Phillies or the 2nd place team in the Central. The Phillies especially are scary, as Nola and Wheeler is probably the best 1-2 punch in the NL.

Win 3 of the next 5 and the division is basically in the bag, barring some nonsense where the Cards or Brewers end the season on like a 15-2 run. The big thing is passing the Braves. The number 2 seed in the NL is likely going to get one of the Giants/Rockies/Marlins. The 3 seed is looking at the Phillies or Cards. That's a massive difference.

Get ready to lose 1-0

Cards are losing game 1 late and game 2 is a pretty lopsided pitching matchup in the Twins' favor. Would really love tonight to figure out Mahle and/or have Mills figure out how to miss bats

While there are real problems with the offense, they've also been BABIPed fairly hard the last month or so. Looks like they're getting it all back in one game.

i honestly don't care at all about the playoffs. first of all, we all know they aren't going to win. and even if they do, they'll have done it while going 31-29 or some horsefeathers, and it will never mean anything. the only thing they could have done this year that would have actually meant something to me would have been to buck all the stupid trends and play good baseball for 60 games. i didn't have any real hope for this until the stupid 13-3 start tricked me into thinking things were different. The rest of the NL sucks/is average, get lucky and hope someone bounces the Dodgers early and we have a shot. They very likely lose round 1 or 2 but whatever. This is a weird season, but they still will be playing playoff baseball and that’s exciting enough for me whatever the format and regular season record. Yup. Padres are legit now too, though still way worse than the Dodgers. Every other contender is in the same boat as us or worse. The Braves rotation is basically Fried and pray for rain. The Phillies' rotation is similar to ours but the bullpen is still trash even post reinforcements. The Mets have been ravaged by injuries and opt-outs. We know what's wrong with all the Central teams. No reason to pack it in, when for as historically great as the Dodgers are it's still fairly likely they get crapshooted before we would even face them I am pretty pessimistic about going for it next year, but that's obviously a thing you don't worry about 'til November.

2016 is the last year that Lester had an above average fastball by velocity. That year he threw hard pitches (4 seam, sinker, cutter) 82% of the time. This year, down more than 3 MPH from that heyday, he's still throwing "hard" stuff 74% of the time. To be fair he has substantially cut down on his 4 seamers, but IMO he really needs to embrace his offspeed stuff if he's going to have any chance at being a decent starter going forward.

That sucked, but forcing them to burn Gallegos is big. Woodford and Reyes also probably can't go after last night

Jason Adam might be a thing. He's been impressive since his most recent recall

That was about as good as the first inning of a five game series could possibly go

Sharma had floated Brailyn coming up yesterday and then retweeted himself about an hour ago... Edit: Annnd nevermind

The Last Comic Standing guy?

Considering I took the over on 10.5 for this game I wouldn't hate it... Also, while that was a BS last strike, that was still probably Kimbrel's most efficient outing as a Cub?

LOL what the horsefesthers was that

13/17 before today, so 13/18 now. Break even is I believe 2/3 so it hasn't really helped or hurt them that much Edit: Forgot there were 2 CS today, but 13/19 still doesn't tell a different story