Brewers Pitchers Pillaged by Pirates

I love the Brewers. God knows I bleed Brewer blue, and way too much of my salary is spent on baseball tickets. But not even I, who would probably walk on hot coals for a playoff spot, can deny the source of the stench that's been emanating from PNC Park for the last two nights. Quite frankly, the Brewers are stinking up Pittsburgh. It pains me to say that, but sadly, it's true.

Our pitching staff has been decimated by the worst team in the NL Central, the third worst team in MLB, for two straight games. The Pirates are 16 games under .500 for Pete's sake! Once again, I'm left scratching my head. How can the Brewers win the season series against Philly, a team that is a definite contender for the NL East, split the season series with the Mets, the team leading the NL East, and then get drubbed so soundly by Pittsburgh? And against Victor Santos to boot? Santos pitched like crap when he played for us, and we have probably the best pitching coach in baseball in Mike Maddux. Now suddenly Santos is unhittable? Of course, if memory serves, Santos doesn't melt down till after the All Star Break. So when we face him again in July, August and September, we should be able to beat the crap out of him.

It's embarrassing to admit, but I went into the first game of this series almost feeling sorry for Pittsburgh because they were playing so badly and losing so much. I almost felt bad that we were about the sweep them in their own park. Then my Brewers got their assess handed to them. I guess that will teach me to get cocky about my team, huh? I'll have to remember this when we play Florida and Kansas City. More importantly, the team needs to remember this when they play against Florida and KC.

But seriously, I don't think our guys are getting cocky. The pitching situation has simply taken its toll. The boys held their heads above water as long as they could, and now I think our pitchers are starting to drown. Doug Davis's meltdown on Monday forced Mike and Ned to raid the bullpen early in the game, and when Jorge de la Rosa left the game in the 3rd last night, Ned had to do it again. Our bullpen has been forced to eat up 14 innings in the last two games, when usually it would only be six to eight. We do have a solid bullpen, but they are simply overextended lately because of our lack of dependable starters. Of course, I'm excluding Chris Capuano from that statement. He is nothing if not dependable.

Jorge de la Rosa showed some nasty stuff last night to start off, but he started to struggle in the third inning, when he got tagged for five runs. Jorge has been a reliever thus far this season, and according to Bill and Daron, hasn't quite gotten the knack of how to make adjustments when he's facing the lineup for the second and third time. It looks like they just figured him out and started to pound him. Then again, it could have been the blister that developed on the middle finger of his left hand. Since he pitched so well to start, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. This time. Ned Yost said after the game that we will be seeing Jorge start again in five days.

It looks as if the pitching woes are starting to affect the rest of the team. "We were a little flat," Brewers catcher Damian Miller said. "It's tough when you fall down. You can't come back every time. When you fall down by nine runs, you can't help but get deflated. You still have to play with intensity, it's just not as easy."

Apparently, that excuse isn't going to fly with manager Ned Yost. "You can use any excuse you want to be a failure," Yost said. "We can sit back and say, 'Woe is us. We don't have Ben [Sheets], and we don't have Tomo [Ohka] and we don't have Rick Helling. Bull," he said defiantly. "Somebody else needs to pick up the slack, and let's go."

Chris Mabeus started off strong, pitching a scoreless first frame for the Brewers in his major league debut on Monday, but he got rattled after giving up a home run. "After I gave up the home run I started thinking way too much," Mabeus said. "I started thinking about the home run more than anything."

Jeremi Gonzalez was ok in his first outing as a Brewer, also on Monday. He gave up only three hits in his three innings of work, but two came around to score. He struck out three, but also walked two. Not great, but he could be an option for a starter should the need arise.

On a higher note, Joe Winkelsas has been pretty reliable in his outings. He's been doing exactly what was expected of him, which is induce ground ball outs. In fact, he's induced 11 ground outs versus only two fly outs. In his 4.2 innings of work, he's surrendered only five hits and two earned runs. It's great to see him doing so well, and taking full advantage of this opportunity. Keep it up, Joe!

Unfortunately, it's not just the pitching that's been flailing lately. Rickie Weeks is back to his old ways, sadly, making two errors in two consecutive nights. Had you all gotten to read the post that was erased due to technical difficulties, you would have seen that I commended Rickie on not committing an error in almost two weeks. Guess I spoke too soon.

The Crew's bats have been silent lately as well. The Brewers have managed only 16 hits in the last two games combined, 11 on Monday and 5 last night.

Hopefully the tide will turn tonight when leftie Chris Capuano takes the hill against right hander Ian Snell. Chris is currently 11 for 11 in quality starts, and the team is 7-4 when he pitches. The statistics look good for tonight's game, but they looked good for the last two as well. There's a lot of pressure on Chris right now to live up to the title he's earned of "streak stopper." He seemed pretty confident this morning on his call in radio show, when he assured Bob and Brian of 102.9 The Hog, "Don't worry, we'll get 'em tonight." I certainly hope so. Until next time, go Brewers!