Monday, July 27, 2009

Embarrassed to be a Brewers fan.

They are not even words to describe the crapfest that is happening on my TV right now. Brewers pitchers have given up two grand slams to the frickin' Washington Nationals. Both to Josh Willingham.

The Nationals are 30-68, have the worst record in baseball and we just gave up six runs to them in the fifth followed by seven runs in the sixth.

It has now been twenty-one games since we've won two games in a row.

From BCB: They are 1-12 in their last 13 day games, 4-12 on Sundays and 11-22 in day games overall. The Brewers are now 7-14 in their last 21 games, and haven't won either a series or a back-to-back games since beating the Mets on June 29 and June 30.

And to top it all off, tomorrow's announced starter is 2-7 with a 6.18 ERA.

J-S reporter Tom Haudricourt noted in his Twitter feed that that manager Ken Macha seemed surprised that reporters were surprised upon learning that Carlos Villanueva was being named starter.

Hell, Macha, even Villy himself was surprised:

Some of Villanueva's fellow bullpen mates told him Sunday that they read online he was a candidate to start, but Villanueva didn't believe it. He thought manager Ken Macha was just "taking some heat" off newly-promoted righty Tim Dillard, who was 10-4 with a 3.66 ERA in 19 starts for Triple-A Nashville.

Villanueva's tune changed on Monday afternoon, when he was summoned to Macha's office and handed the assignment.

"Yeah, it was [a surprise]," Villanueva said. "I really thought that [Dillard] was going to start. But he called me into the office and told me I was going to go tomorrow, and I'm just thankful for the opportunity."

Villanueva's longest outing this season was his 56-pitch, three-inning stint against the Pirates on July 20. He has thrown one inning or fewer in 37 of his 43 appearances.

Of course, Tim Dillard was just brought up and he has been kicking ass in the minors. His last outing was a one-hit, complete game shutout in which he faced the minimum number of batters and took just 65 pitches.

But clearly, he shouldn't start.

The supposed plan is for Villy to pitch 3 or 4 and Dillard to pitch 3 or 4, but I think everyone is hoping Villy's just a place-holder for a trade that we're waiting to happen.

Either way - we have tickets tomorrow night and it's the first time in a long time that I really don't want to go. Of course, they're Club Level tickets, so we're not turning them down, but that only means we'll be eating better food while we're ashamed to be there!

1 comment:

hawing said...

Yeah, apart from the infinitesimal chance that the Brewers are colossally calling someone's (whose?) bluff, the choice of CV is nothing short of baffling.

Honestly, it smacks of throwing in the towel. I can't fathom what point Ken is trying to make here.