Excuses, Excuses

I've been meaning to post about the spectacular collapse the Brewers managed to manufacture this weekend, but I'm pretty sure I couldn't do it without being extremely bitter and sarcastic and I'm trying my best not to be a fair weather fan.

Let's face it, it's a young team. We weren't going to walk our way easily into the playoffs or the World Series.

There are two months of baseball yet and I haven't completely given up hope. Series like we played this past week are angering and heartbreaking, but you know, I'm still going to 3 Brewers games this week.

That being said, losing a 5-0 lead and 6-0 lead is so ridiculous that Little Leaguers would be forced to run sprints for such an incredible meltdown.

That being said, I guess it's time to fix some things and keep moving forward. Whether or not the Cubs overtake us is really of no consequence. We have two months of games to play and we need to focus on October. It really doesn't matter what happens between now and then in terms of who is in first and who is in second.

Today’s talk of the possibility of trading for Eric Gagne really left me wondering about the thoughts going through Doug Melvin’s head.

Should we have acquired Gagne, we would have then had 5 pitchers on our staff who collectively would be expected to notch 13 or so outs. We would have two set-up men (Derrick Turnbow and Scott Linebrink) and two closers (Francisco Cordero and Gagne) plus lefty specialist Brian Shouse, who often appears for one out a game. That’s a lot of roster room to use up on situational pitching.

Extra inning games have been common enough lately and whenever we go into bonus baseball the question comes up about pinch hitting and position switching and it’s often pointed out that there aren’t a lot of options – between the guys who’ve already pinched, not wanting to use the backup catcher and a stocked bullpen, there aren’t a lot of roster spots left to choose from.

Now the supposed reasoning behind stocking up on pitchers is to give our overworked bullpen a rest.

I have two issues with that statement.

#1 – it sounds like a too little, too late excuse for this weekend’s abysmal pitching performances. It smacks of the same hollow excuse that came out after Johnny Estrada performed so poorly in Cincy. These comments from Melvin and Yost sound like hollow excuses for their players sub-par performances.

#2 – it’s avoiding the actual issue. If the bullpen is overworked it is because our starters have been unable to provide quality starts. So the problem here is the starting 5, not the bullpen. They wouldn’t be overworked if we didn’t need them for 4 innings every game.

Of course, all of this is working upon the assumption that the bullpen would be performing better if they were rested. I’m not sure I accept that as fact. Every one of the guys coming out of the bullpen struggled at various points during the first half, long before the overworked excuse could really come into play.

The final problem with the whole bullpen and trade scenario is that we already brought in Scott Linebrink, supposedly to ease the overworked bullpen. Except that sources are saying Linebrink himself was already overworked before we acquired him. He didn’t ease our situation, he just added another tired arm to the bench.

I do see that they have a point about the tired bullpen. In 58 1/3 innings since the All-Star Break, Brewers relievers have issued 30 walks and starting pitchers have made it past the 6th inning just 5 times (3 by Capuano) (from jsonline.com)

Also from jsonline.com:

In large part because the starting rotation has forced manager Ned Yost to cover three and sometimes four innings per game out of the bullpen, his relief corps has shown signs of fraying since the all-star break. In 18 games over that span, the bullpen is 2-7 with a 6.02 ERA...

The last trip, in particular, was ugly for the bullpen. While the Brewers were going 2-6 in Cincinnati and St. Louis, the relievers were 0-4 with three blown saves and a 7.40 earned run average. In 20 2/3 innings, the bullpen allowed 30 hits, eight walks and 17 earned runs.

The Brewers lost four games on that trip in the opponents' final at-bat. Had they merely split those games, they wouldn't have frittered away all but a half-game of their lead over Chicago in the National League Central (the lead is back to one game after the Cubs' loss Monday to Philadelphia).

Including Linebrink, the Brewers have six relievers who have made at least 42 appearances. With the exception of Brian Shouse, a finesse pitcher who doesn't place a lot of stress on his arm, each of those relievers has a much higher ERA since the all-star break.

Carlos Villanueva, a 23-year-old right-hander pitching exclusively out of the bullpen for the first time, has suffered the most dramatic downturn. He compiled a 2.83 ERA before the break but has a 9.58 ERA in eight outings since.

Turnbow, whose heavy workload (52 appearances) was a big reason for the Linebrink trade, has seen his ERA go from 3.40 before the break to 8.59 afterward. Inheriting a 5-4 lead in the eighth inning Sunday in St. Louis, Turnbow was charged with four runs in one-third of an inning, though Villanueva allowed three of those runs to cross the plate.


Jeff Suppan hasn’t had a quality start since June 12.