Can the Brewers Make It On Top?
Courtesy of Reuters
The Brewers have lost the series to the Los Angeles Dodgers and are hoping to avoid the sweep tonight. They sit atop the division with a 2.5 game lead over the Chicago Cubs and the Cincinnati Reds, but it doesn’t look like it will stay that way for long.
This series loss to the Dodgers is expected, as the Dodgers were coming off a red-hot 8 game winning streak prior to the start of the series, and they are the much better team by far. The Brewers have been making mistakes, pitching as well as on offense and defense, which the Dodgers were able to take advantage of. Catcher William Contreras was called on catcher’s interference, loading the bases with only one out, resulting in a run being scored. Joey Wiemer miscued a fly ball, resulting in two runs being scored through the inning. These types of mistakes cost the Brewers not even the game, but an opportunity to stand a fighting chance.
They seemed to revert back to the Brewers of the first half of the season with a lot of miscued plays and an inability to score with runners on base. In this series against the Dodgers so far, they have the same amount of errors as they do hits, five. The Brewers are atop a weak division and if they want to be able to hold onto that top spot, they need to actually put up decent at-bats and pitches against good teams. Because so far, the story of the Brewers this season has been their ability to pitch well and then hit only against the bad teams, which is important, but with a rest of the schedule that is still fairly difficult, especially compared to their opponents’, they need to step it up.
Their next series is an opportunity to show that, against the Texas Rangers. Luckily for the Brewers, the Reds are playing a pretty strong Toronto Blue Jays, so even if they do struggle, likely so will the Reds. Unlikely for the Brewers, the Cubs are playing the Kansas City Royals, which will be a spot for the Cubs to gain some ground, along with their upcoming stretch against very weak teams. If the Brewers want to avoid that, they can’t play like this, they need to play well. The Rangers have strong starting pitching, which the Brewers aren’t facing in full, but they also have a lineup that absolutely rakes, which the Brewers don’t. The Brewers can’t just rely on Christian Yelich to come in clutch when they need it, they need to hit as a team, moving the line along to get people on base. To succeed and make it into the postseason, the Brewers are going to have to start playing a lot better against a lot better teams.
