From Hope to Despair and Back Again
They Played Well Enough to Envision a Run Past…
The Brewers for 7 innings last night looked like a club, although I shouldn’t really say that because I could only listen on the radio, so the Brewers sounded like a club that could perhaps at the very least challenge the mighty Dodgers. But then they didn’t. The real problem here is that they should have even given off that look to begin with. It was a magical run for this team over the final month of the season and fun as it gained momentum. Still there was that event where the actual season ended with a bit of thud in Denver to the tune of a weekend series sweep and squandering of an opportunity to at least force a playoff for the Division. Needless to say the painful aspect of last night was made altogether more painful due to the way the Brewers performed over the final month. Hope was there, rightfully so, that this team could do something never seen before period. Hope had started to build when Grandal went deep in the 1st and it was coming to fruition when Thames capitalized in the 2nd. Unfortunately there are 9 innings in baseball and the Brewers played 7 very effective ones. So what we got handed was a steady diet of hope until it ended and flipped just like that in the 8th.
Hader was backsliding to his post All Star Break form
This is not saying Hader is not effective any more because that is not true. He has some ridiculous numbers. None of which I can cite here because I don’t have the time to find them. Basically it seemed like that blown save against the Rockies was a harbringer of things to come. So to were the situations he was consistently putting himself in late in games. Walking batters and giving up hits leading to men on base with regularity. Eventually a hit was going to come and plate some runs. Grisham is hardly to blame for over commiting and commiting an error. The damage had already been done. The Brewers could win without an MVP hitter but under no circumstances could they withstand a falty arm out of the bullpen if they were going to advance into the real playoffs.
It was hard to read Uecker as the three runs came in…
To his credit Bob Uecker still does a great job calling games on the radio and I listen to them frequently. This game was bigger than the rest bigger than all the other 162 that had come before. He didn’t sound like it. He stuck to his consistent delivery and story telling. Still when things began to unravel in the 8th and I began listening more intently I expected Uecker to lose his cool because I was. I was somewhat put off by just how calm he remained as he made the call so nonchelantly: ‘and the ball goes under Grishams glove three runs are in…’. I desprately wanted a god damn’t! or something. I don’t know just how it made me feel.
Looking forward to the Brewers next year big questions…
Who comes back who goes I have no idea. Grandal, Moose? Could be a very different club but I do believe Stearns did us some favors in not going big for a starting pitcher. Woody is poised to have a great year and around that I think we can build a very good pitching staff and subsequent offense. From despair there is only one thing to turn to and that has to be hope.