The Brewers will not get to the postseason playing like this. That much is quite evident.
ST. LOUIS – The National League standings Saturday morning will show the Brewers sitting in the second wild-card spot, a game behind Philadelphia and a half-game ahead of St. Louis.
But do the Brewers feel like a playoff team to you at this point? The Phillies continue to win and the Cards continue to win even more than Philly. The Brewers? They continue to cede ground.
The 5-2 loss to the Cardinals on Friday night at Busch Stadium gave the Brewers a 5-9 record in the month of August. Going back to the all-star break, they are 13-13. Going back even further to July 8, when they were a season-high 18 games over .500 (54-36), the Brewers have gone 14-20.
Simply put, this cannot continue. Not if the Brewers want to end their seven-year playoff drought, even if it's merely the second wild-card berth and winner-take-all game on the road.
What has happened to this team, you ask? Well, nothing good, that’s for sure. The offense still sputters, even after adding the bats of Mike Moustakas and Jonathan Schoop, who has been a massive flop (.392 OPS in 14 games) since coming in a trade with Baltimore.
The starting pitching, which exceeded expectations for so long without a “name” pitcher in the rotation, is starting to sag. The bullpen, so dominant in the first half, is springing leaks, left and right.
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In other words, the Brewers are playing losing baseball of late and it has to stop or a first half of good deeds will go for naught.
“There’s another game tomorrow; there are 38 games left,” manager Craig Counsell said. “We’ve got to keep plugging along and keep trying to play good baseball. That’s the bottom line.
“We’re in a little funk right now where we’re not matching anything up. We didn’t score enough tonight. We’re playing from behind in some of these games. We’ve got to try to reverse that.”
The Brewers have stuck with rookie Freddy Peralta, despite his tendency to put the team behind in the first inning. He tried a different warm-up routine, getting loose in the weight room before throwing in the bullpen but the Cardinals still jumped on him for two runs in the first.
“Overall, Freddy recovered and gave us six good innings (three hits, three runs) but we’ve got to get to the bottom of the first inning,” Counsell said. “It’s getting pretty regular that we’re struggling in the first inning.
“In this game, he really got going. It’s a shame. The first inning in this one is what cost him. It’s not an easy answer to it. It’s something we’ve got to continue to work on.”
The No. 1 beef from the Complaint Department of Disgruntled Fans remains the same: Why didn’t the Brewers pick up help for their starting rotation before the July 31 trade deadline? They said they tried but couldn’t make a deal, and thought the price was too high for some of those who were traded.
Like it or not, the Brewers are not going to match up with the starting rotation of the Cardinals, which is the strength of their club and will get even deeper when veterans Adam Wainwright and Carlos Martinez return from injuries. That means the offense is going to have to pick up the slack and get to the bullpen with leads.
Which brings up the other major frustration of fans – why Counsell does not use all-star relievers Josh Hader and Jeremy Jeffress unless the game is tied or the Brewers are leading. When his team pulled within 3-2 in the eighth inning, Counsell sent Jordan Lyles out for a second inning and watched him load the bases for a two-run double by Kolten Wong that assured there would be no comeback.
These games obviously are huge, especially with the Cardinals clawing at the Brewers’ heels, but Counsell said he will not alter that bullpen strategy.
“If we’re going to go on a good stretch, those guys are going to be critical for stretches like that,” he said. “That’s how we’re going to win. We’re going to win by getting a lead and putting those guys in the game. That’s how we’re going to go on a good stretch.”
Counsell also defended his decision to keep Lyles pitching in the eighth, despite being in trouble from the very first batter.
“Jordan’s got to pitch in those situations,” he said. “He’s got to get through that inning, and he’s certainly capable of getting through that inning. We’ve got seven guys down there and we’ve got a couple of guys struggling a little bit that we have to be cautious with.
“We’ve got to keep these guys fresh for when we have leads.”
Obviously, if the Brewers were winning, that strategy would not be called into question. But the Brewers aren’t winning, so frustration from the outside only grows.