Results tagged ‘ Astros ’
Brewers (5) vs. Astros (2) 8/20 — Tastes Great, Less Filling
Tastes Great:
I got to go to my first Brewer game of the year finally. Went with my dad and two younger brothers. We grilled out before and played catch in the parking lot. Had pretty good seats down the third base line. A fun day was had by all.
J.J. Hardy–Pretty much the lone bright spot on the day for the Brewers. Had 2 of the Brewers 4 hits, including the 7th inning home run that gave them some breathing room.
Rickie Weeks–Did exactly what you ask of a leadoff hitter: got on base. And scored 3 of the runs, including manufacturing one with a stolen base and then taking a base on a sac fly.
Bullpen–Again came up big today. 4 innings and only 1 hit allowed. Gagne got in some trouble, but you really can’t blame him for a bunt single, a phantom HBP call, and an error. He came up big and pitched out of it.
Less Filling:
Bill Hall–Mr. Golden Sombrero himself. For those that don’t know (like my wife, Hi Honey), a Golden Sombrero is when one player strikes out 4 times in one game. Which is exactly what Hall did. Billy has now struck out in 6 straight at-bats over the past 3 games and seen his batting average fall to .223. He’s hit .143 with a .464 OPS in the month of August. Just terrible.
Manny Parra–Manny got the win and allowed only 2 runs, but that didn’t tell the whole story about how he pitched. 94 pitches in those 5 innings and 10 baserunners (6 hits, 4 walks). Not good. He has to be able to pitch through at least 6 in these kinds of games to save the bullpen. Manny may be running into the wall a bit as he’s pitched a lot more innings this year than he has in the past. Unfortunately it looks like the Brewers won’t really be able to limit his starts being in the middle of a playoff push. People talk about skipping Bush or Suppan’s start, but I think it is Manny we need to look at. His innings need to be limited so that when he does pitch he can be sharp and maintain his health going into next year.
Brewers (2) vs. Astros (5) 8/19 — Tastes Great, Less Filling
Tastes Great:
Jason Kendall–Seems to be picking it up lately. Got three hits today, and has seen his average climb back up to .250 after today’s game. It’d be huge if he could get that up around .265-.270 by season’s end. Its hard to have a hole in your lineup these days, especially since he doesn’t hit for any power.
J.J. Hardy–Doubled in the Brewers first run and also reached on a walk. Looks like J.J. might be getting hot again after a couple cold spells. Hopefully Yost doesn’t take him out in the middle of a hot streak this time.
Mike Cameron–A couple hits including a run scoring double. Gotta ride this hot streak while it lasts. Just hope he has one more left in him before the season ends.
Bullpen–Threw three innings of scoreless ball to keep the Brewers in the game. Unfortunately bats couldn’t do anything to get back in it.
Less Filling:
Ben Sheets–Only made a couple bad pitches, but those ended up costing him. A two-out triple to Michael Bourn on a hanging curveball and a two out home run by Geoff Blum on a meat fastball did him in. If Ben’s given up runs lately it seems like only a couple pitches have done him in. I’m not sure if he’s trying to be perfect, or not focusing in key spots, or just putting too much pressure on himself after CC’s gems but he needs to get it straightened out.
Gabe Kapler–To be fair to Gabe, he shouldn’t be hitting third. But as it is he struck out twice with the bases loaded and stranded 6 key runners out there.
Brewers offense–The Brewers had hits in only 4 innings of the game, but got all 10 of their hits for the game in those 4 innings. They also had a walk and an error by Houston in those innings, yet were only able to come out of it with 2 runs after making two outs on the bases and leaving 9 men on base in those 4 innings!!
Dale Sveum–I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a guy get thrown out by 50 feet like Cameron did on the hit to right. And there was only 1 out with the meat of your order coming up. No idea what Sveum was thinking there. Absolutely terrible decision-making.
Brewers (9) vs. Astros (3) 8/18 — Tastes Great, Less Filling
Tastes Great:
CC Sabathia–Had to work a little harder to get outs, but came through with another sparkling performance. Plus he added a couple big runs with his bat. Not something that you plan on with any pitcher, but when they can make positive contributions at the plate it is only a good thing.
Corey Hart–Narrowly missed a two home run day but “settled” for three hits including a double and home run, 3 RBI, and 2 runs scored. His average is slowly creeping back up toward .300. If Corey can pick up some of the slack if Braun misses more time that would be huge.
Ray Durham–3 hits including a couple doubles and also drove in 3 runs. Its good to know that if Weeks can’t go, we don’t have to rely on Counsell every day at second.
Jason Kendall–2 for 3 with a walk and 3 runs scored. His hits weren’t exactly screamers, but they got the job done.
Less Filling:
Ned Yost–Apparently he’s trying to maintain a permanent place in the Less Filling section. I hate to bring it up since we’re winning, but is Ned Yost’s brain freezing up like it did down the stretch last year? First he brings Shouse in to start the 9th inning on Saturday instead of your closer Torres. Then he inexplicably pitches to Manny Ramirez in the 7th inning yesterday. And now he throws CC out there to run his pitch count up to 130 in the 9th inning of a 7 run game. I mean what benefit comes from putting CC out there again? It saves the bullpen? Haven’t we heard over and over how rested they are lately? So you’d rather have CC run the risk of getting burnt out than Mota pitching on a ton of rest? He allowed CC to load the bases twice in the 9th inning of a blowout win, yet didn’t take him out. Its these kinds of in-game decisions that he started screwing up last year when the pressure got on in August and September, and it looks like its starting again.
Brewers (6) vs. Astros (11) 7/27 — Tastes Great, Less Filling
Tastes Great:
Ryan Braun–Another 3 for 5 with another home run. Superlatives exhausted.
Rickie Weeks–On base 2 of his 5 plate appearances and scored 2 runs. We’ll take that every day.
Less Filling:
Jeff Suppan–Cruising right along then hit the wall in the 5th. Is he pitching himself out of the rotation for a while?
Ned Yost–How the hell do you allow your starter to give up 7 runs in the 5th inning? And then trot him out for the next inning too? It was like Ned decided once the Brewers got behind that he was going to give up on this game and save his bullpen for the Cubs series. What an asinine idea…..and manager.
Seth McClung–He’s been much better this year as a starter than a reliever, and showed that again last night. Failed to keep the Astros in check to allow for a potential comeback.
I really hope Sunday’s game about the 4th inning wasn’t the high water mark for this season. At that time the Brewers were tied with the Cubs in the standings and up 4-1 on the Astros in the game. The Cubs meanwhile were down 5-0 to the Marlins and in danger of being swept at home. Within a half an hour the Cubs were winning, the Brewers losing, and first place just out of reach.
Brewers (6) vs. Astros (4) 7/26 — Tastes Great, Less Filling
Tastes Great:
Ray Durham–Welcome to Milwaukee Ray Ray. A couple doubles, a walk, 3 runs scored.
Ryan Braun–Stud! Only went 1 for 2 but had a couple sacrifice flies and then of course the big fly in the 7th to tie it up.
Corey Hart–Awoke from his week long slumber to finally do something positive for the team. Doubled in the 8th to set-up the winning run.
Bill Hall–Had a nice approach trying to hit the ball the other way to move the runner over, and managed to get a hit to score the winning run. Later scored to give the Brewers an insurance run.
Less Filling:
Dave Bush–Coming off multiple quality outings in a row, wasn’t nearly as sharp. Credit Ned Yost some for screwing him up with this whole “pitching platoon”.
Brewers (9) @ Astros (6) 6/12 — Tastes Great, Less Filling
Tastes Great:
Brewers Offense–Once again the Crew got the bats going big time, including a three home run second inning that staked them to a nice lead. Fielder, Cameron, and Hart all delivered shots in that inning. The key one was Hart’s homer with two out and two on. Sheets had drawn a walk to extend the inning and give Hart that chance.
Tack-on runs–Tack-on runs have been hard to come by for the Brewers at times, but they were able to add some big ones in this game. Kapler hit a bomb in the 9th to give them even more room. Braunie also had a nice day going 2 for 5 with an RBI, a run, and two steals.
Ben Sheets–Once again proved why he’s the ace. Didn’t have great stuff and was playing in a crackerjack park, but worked through 7 innings and put the Brewers in a solid position to win the game.
Less Filling:
The bullpen–Seems to be really hit or miss lately. Either they’re great and give up no runs, or they get smacked around for multiple runs. Mota allowed two in his inning of work and Torres allowed one in the 9th. Again, good thing we were able to add those tack-on runs throughout the game.
Brewers (1) @ Astros (6) 6/10 — Tastes Great, Less Filling
I apologize for the absence the last few days. We’ve had some very severe flooding concerns in our area. Our house is fine and not close to the river, but the city has had a lot of very major flooding. We were without power from Sunday night to Tuesday afternoon.
Tastes Great:
Seth McClung–A solid start for Seth. He’s really solidified his spot in the rotation.
Ryan Braun–Hit his 17th homer of the season to plate the only run for the Brewers.
Less Filling:
The offense–Ok, we all know Oswalt is a great pitcher, but he’s struggled this year and it always seems that the Brewers turn around the fortunes for whatever pitcher they face. Oh, and did I metion 11 strikeots and NO walks taken?
Julian Tavarez–Hmm….didn’t I call his blowup in one of my last blog entries? Not only was he getting hit hard, but he compounded things himself by throwing away an easy play to first.
Mike Cameron–Hard to imagine that we would have seen him here because of his defense, but that misplay on a liner at him cost the Brewers a bunch of runs. It ends up it probably wouldn’t have mattered anyway since the offense only scored one run, but those are the defensive mistakes that don’t show as errors that the Brewers make too much.
Brewers (6) @ Astros (8) 5/4 (12 innings) — Tastes Great, Less Filling
GRRRRR……….breathe, breathe, breathe
Tastes Great:
Mike Cameron–in two games since landing on the Less Filling list he’s hit 3 home runs. The two yesterday were big. Still predict a .250 average with lots of K’s though.
Ben Sheets–this is why Bennie is an ace and so important to this team. Despite once again not having his best stuff and a largely non-existent curveball he still gutted through 6 1/3 innings and put his team in a position to win the game. If it was one of the young guys like Villy or Parra they woulda been done in the 3rd. Ben is a “professional pitcher” and knows how to win. Now he just needs to stay healthy or we can kiss any chance goodbye. Oh, and he needs to learn how to run the bases and slide:)
Corey Hart–guy just keeps raking. Two more hits yesterday. About the lone bright spot on the team over the last couple weeks.
Less Filling:
Gagne–I’m not sure how much longer I can defend this guy.
Late inning offense: Here’s an examination of our offense split by innings–
In innings 1-6 the Brewers are 9th in the league in runs scored and have a .251 BA and .728 OPS.
In innings 7+ the Brewers are 11th in runs scored despite all the extra innings and have a .236 BA and .702 OPS.
Meanwhile the Brewers opponents have a .268 BA and .761 OPS in innings 1-6.
They are at a ******** .274 BA and .803 OPS in the 7th inning and after.
Umps–Wow, a rough one for the men in blue or gray or black or whatever they were wearing yesterday. Sheeter was safe easily at home and they blew it. Guy was out at first in the 9th easily and they blew it. Gagne was getting squeezed something awful in the 9th too. Of course they did blow the call at second on the hit into the outfield in favor of the Brewers.
Brewers (2) @ Astros (6) 5/3 — Tastes Great, Less Filling
Tastes Great:
Not a lot to cheer about in this one. Corey Hart did go 2 for 4 raising his team-leading batting average to .309. He’s the only Brewer regular hitting over .300. How sad.
Less Filling:
Ah, didn’t I have this conversation with last nights starter Carlos Villanueva? Manny Parra simply is not getting the job done at a Major League level. His longest outing of the year in six starts is still only 5 1/3 innings. And he went over 20 pitches per inning again tonight, throwing 93 pitches in only 4 innings of work. He was cruising right along until the dreaded fifth inning when he allowed the first 6 batters to reach base without recording an out. In that fifth inning he gave up back to back homers to the pitcher and the light-hitting leadoff guy. Unfortunately right now we don’t have any other options. We need him to be able to pitch six innings.
Inconsistent bats –This offense is so up and down it is ridiculous. Only 5 hits today, although they did manage six walks as well. Ten of these baserunners were on in the first 5 2/3 innings, but only managed two runs out of it. One measly baserunner in the last 3 1/3 innings. I had a little diatribe yesterday about Maddux being to blame for some of the pitchers inability to go deep into games, and I really think you gotta blame Skaalen too for the inconsistency, high strikeout totals, and poor clutch hitting of this team. Just like Ned he doesn’t hold the guys accountable. Every quote you hear from him is how the guys are doing so great and working so hard and making such progress and very close to breaking out. Umm…yeah, its not happening there Jim. Maybe you should have addressed Billy and Weeks and the bunch striking out too much a long time ago.
Not necessarily Tony Gwynn’s fault, but why did he pinch-hit with the bases loaded and two outs in the sixth? He isn’t a run producer. He is a table-setter. This year TGJ is batting .200 with runners on base, and .571 with no runners on. In his career he bats .247 with runners on and .268 with no runners on. Oh, but its a righty-lefty matchup. So what, use Counsell then, or think outside the box and use your best hitter off the bench Kapler.
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