Brewers In Big Trouble

The Milwaukee Brewers are in serious trouble of falling out of the NL Central race as they head out West for a big road trip starting today at Arizona. The Brew Crew were America's darlings this season as players such as J.J. Hardy and Prince Fielder made the All Star Team. Fielder also recently made the cover of ESPN the Magazine. Now their dream season is about to fall apart.

They were sitting pretty all season in first place until last week when the Cubs took over first place. With the Cardinals and Cubs fighting for first, the Brewers are now on the outside looking in. The demise of the Brewers is in part due to their lack of quality starting pitching. Their big free agent, Jeff Suppan, has fared poorly all season and their ace, Ben Sheets, has been injured and won't be back until the end of this month. Chris Capuano continues to lose and pitch poorly and they have lost his last 16 starts.

Yesterday was a great example of what has gone wrong for Milwaukee. With home runs by Bill Hall, Ryan Braun, and Fielder, the Brewers jumped to a 5-0 lead over the Reds. Capuano cruises along through 5 innings until he gets hammered again. Disaster always follows him around the 5th or 6th inning in every start as he starts to give up homers, hits batters, and loses command of the strike zone. The Reds rallied to tie the game until Hardy hits a homer to give them the lead at 6-5.

Manager Ned Yost keeps reliever Scott Linebrink in the game in the 8th even though he has Derrick Turnbow available. Linebrink loads up the bases and pinch hitter Javiar Valentin is up next. Valentin is hitting .213 when facing a lefty. So what does Yost do? Does he bring in a lefty reliever or keep Linebrink in the game? Unfortunately for the sellout crowd, he stayed with Linebrink who gave up a 2 run double to Valentin as the Reds go on to win 7-6. Criticism of Yost is at an all time high. The fans are disgruntled and calling for his head. He is as popular in Milwaukee as Bud Selig is in San Francisco.

Although the team is in a downward spiral, the fans in Milwaukee should not despair too much. They should be grateful that they are in a pennant race this late into the season, which you can't say for a lot of teams. With youngsters like Fielder and Ryan Braun, this team leads the National League in home runs. The best solution for them is to try to hold on until Sheets can return and pitch every fifth day. For now, the only way for them to start winning is to try to outslug opponents.

Friday Night MLB Recap and Analysis

The evening games in the West Coast have all just started as the games in the East Coast have all gone final.

The Mets won this afternoon in Chicago 6-2 as reliever Guillermo Mota got his first win of the year. Mota, who has been struggling ever since he came back from his steroids suspension,has pitched well his last few outings after a terrible beginning to his season. Carlos Zambrano was going for his 15th win of the season but failed.

The Yankees defeated the Royals as expected 7-1. Wang got the win. Is this guy a model of consistency or what? This guy is a joy to watch pitch.

In other important games, the struggling Tigers lost again. I told everyone that this team is in trouble and their freefall continued again tonight. Lefty rookie Andrew Miller gave up a grand slam to Juan Uribe and took the loss. Mark Buehrle got his 9th win. Buehrle is one of the best lefties in the league.
The Tigers did not have Gary Sheffield in the starting lineup once again as he is battling a shoulder injury.

In a irrelevant game, the Reds destroyed the Pirates 13-4. What has happened to Ian Snell? He was considered to be one of the more promising young pitchers in the league before his recent slide. I think it could be more mental than physical with Snell and the losing has gotten to him. The Pirates are going nowhere and obtaining Matt Morris probably won't help them in the standings.

The Brew Crew defeated the Phillies 2-1 in a great pitching dual between Kyle Kendrick and Yovani Gallardo. Gallardo is a phenom. He has made fans forget about Ben Sheets who is on the disabled list. Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun both had rbi singles. Francisco Cordero and Derrick Turnbow came in to shut out the Philies in the 8th and 9th innings. If you guys haven't seen the new ESPN magazine with Fielder on the cover, Fielder talks about his youth and how he hit a home run in Tiger Stadium when he was a chubby 12 year old boy. The article also mentioned that he has not talked to his father, Cecil, in three years. Braun is one of the better young hitters in the league right now. He plays a great third base too. Just ask Moises Alou, who got robbed of a hit a few days ago by Braun.