Padres 3, Brewers 0
April 30, 2010
W: Clayton Richard (1-2)
L: Dave Bush (1-2)
S: Heath Bell (7)
HR: Scott Hairston (3)
MVP: Ryan Braun (+.067)
LVP: Casey McGehee and Alcides Escobar (-.113 each)
Win Expectancy Graph and Star of the Game Voting
SBNation Coverage
I hate west coast road trips. I'm tired, so I'm going to bullet point the offensive positives from tonight's game:
- ...
Brewers sticking with starting rotation
April 30, 2010The Brewers will continue to use three left-handers in a row in their starting rotation, even with their day off set for Monday.
Fielder ties Yount with consecutive game streak
April 30, 2010First baseman Prince Fielder played in his 208th consecutive game Friday night, tying Robin Yount for the fourth-longest streak in club history.
Edmonds’ back steadily improving
April 30, 2010Brewers outfielder Jim Edmonds, who injured his back Wednesday in Milwaukee against the Pirates, is improving and could be back in the lineup over the weekend.
Game Thread #23: Brewers (9-13) at Padres (14-8)
April 30, 2010Here's a silver lining, folks: Last season's Brewers were already 5 games under .500 on April 18, when a 1-0 loss to the Mets dropped them to 3-8. With a win tonight, they'll avoid dropping to that level for the entire month of April.
With all of that on the line, clearly MLB Network couldn't let a game of this magnitude go untelevised. A nationwide audience* will be watching tonight as these two behemoths collide.
* - Residents of the Brewer and Padres blackout zones will see the Nationals and Marlins on MLB Network and (hopefully) this game via their local outlets.
Current Series
Padres lead the series 1-0
| Thu 04/29 | WP: Wade LeBlanc (2 - 0) LP: Doug Davis (0 - 3) |
0 - 9 loss |
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Milwaukee Brewers Friday, Apr 30, 2010, 9:05 PM CDT Clear. Winds blowing in from left field at 10-20 m.p.h. Game time temperature around 60.
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| Sat 05/01 | 7:35 PM CDT | |
| Sun 05/02 | 3:05 PM CDT | |
Follow us after the jump for tonight's pitching matchup, lineups and more on tonight's game!
Clayton Richard (0-2, 3.75 in 2010) enters play today with the sixth-lowest ERA among pitchers who have thrown at least 20 innings without winning a game:
| Pitcher | ERA | W | L |
| Tom Gorzelanny | 2.45 | 0 | 3 |
| Zack Greinke | 2.56 | 0 | 2 |
| Kevin Millwood | 3.38 | 0 | 3 |
| Shaun Marcum | 3.44 | 0 | 1 |
| Jonathon Niese | 3.68 | 0 | 1 |
| Clayton Richard | 3.75 | 0 | 2 |
He's also the only winless starting pitcher on the Padres. He's coming off arguably his worst start of the season against the Reds on Sunday, where he allowed three earned runs on seven hits and four walks, striking out just one in 5.1 innings of work, and allowing his only home run of the season.
According to FanGraphs, his fastball is in the low 90's (91.3 avg) and he'll mix in a slider, cutter and changeup. The slider is his best pitch, worth roughly +1.28 runs per 100 attempts. The cutter is his only below average pitch, and is worth nearly -6 runs per 100. He faced the Brewers three times last season but never before, so no Brewers have faced him more than nine times. Ryan Braun is 1-for-9 with a lonely single, and Prince Fielder has gone 2-for-9 with a home run.
He'll face Dave Bush (1-1, 4.84 in 2010), whose B-Ref page is sponsored by SgtClueLs. As such, we'll blame our friend Sgt for Bush's worst outing of the season last time out, a 3.2 inning, nine run (seven earned), ten hit performance where he allowed four home runs to the Cubs. Before that, Bush had been pretty good (a 2.41 ERA over three outings), so hopefully the rough start was just an aberration.
According to FanGraphs, Bush is using his slider more often this season (17.2% of pitches, up from 7.9% last season and 4.8% for his career), and it's not a good decision. The slider has been worth -4.66 runs per 100 attempts. His velocity is also significantly down (86.1 mph on his average fastball this season, down from a 88.8 career average). All three of his major pitches are below average at this point, but his curveball is the best of the three: He's using it 20.6% of the time and it's worth -0.2 runs per 100 pitches.
David Eckstein is the only current Padre who's seen Bush ten times: He's hitting .389/.450/.389 off of him in 20 PAs.
Lineup:
2B Rickie Weeks
CF Carlos Gomez
LF Ryan Braun
1B Prince Fielder
3B Casey McGehee
RF Corey Hart
C Gregg Zaun
SS Alcides Escobar
P David Bush
Here's something I don't say often: Jeff Suppan ate some innings yesterday, so the bullpen is relatively fresh today:
Jeff Suppan pitched 4 innings (65 pitches) yesterday.
Manny Parra pitched 3 innings (49 pitches) Wednesday.
Claudio Vargas pitched 2 innings (32 pitches) Wednesday.
Trevor Hoffman pitched 1 inning (23 pitches) Wednesday.
Todd Coffey pitched 1 inning (18 pitches) Wednesday.
Carlos Villanueva pitched 1 inning (14 pitches) Wednesday.
LaTroy Hawkins pitched 1 inning (10 pitches) Wednesday.
Enjoy the game!
Uecker’s heart surgery a success
April 30, 2010Brewers radio broadcaster Bob Uecker underwent successful heart surgery Friday. The procedure lasted six hours and Uecker will remained hospitalized for 5-7 days.
Ueck’s Surgery Goes Well.
April 30, 2010Ueck's Surgery Goes Well.
Tom H. reports that the six-hour procedure was a success, and that Ueck is resting in the ICU.
Friday’s Frosty Mug
April 30, 2010
Some things to read while protecting your stinger.
If you didn't stay up late with us last night, you didn't miss much. The Padres scored four runs in the fourth and five in the fifth, and the Brewer bats never came to life in a 9-0 loss. As The Bucky Channel noted, the Brewers got about what you'd expect from a game where Doug Davis and Jeff Suppan each pitched four innings.
With that said, if you missed last night's game, here are two things to know from it:
- Both Suppan and Davis allowed several runs, but I'm not sure runs alone are a fair indication of either's performance. Neither pitcher was hit exceptionally hard - the Padres had seven straight singles at one point, many of the "blooper" and "bleeder" variety.
- With that said, I've seen the loss attributed in several places to bad luck, and I don't think that's fair either - even if most of those hits hadn't fallen in, the Brewers still would've needed to score to have a chance, and they were shut out by Wade LeBlanc (who has now allowed just one earned run in 17.1 IP this season) and Tim Stauffer, who hasn't been scored upon in 13 innings.
So, in short, the pitching wasn't as bad as you might expect, but no one else was any good, either. Doug Davis vented his frustration to Anthony Witrado after the game.
With the loss, Looks Like I Picked the Wrong Week noted that the Brewers are 5-11 and have been outscored 109-65 in games not involving the Pirates.
Other notes from the field:
- Wade LeBlanc, Oscar Salazar and Yorvit Torrealba are leading FanGraphs' Star of the Game Voting.
- CoolStandings dropped the Brewer playoff chances to 14.8%
- It was a little too cool for it last night, but @notkenmacha is hoping the west coast weather will allow Rick Peterson to finally shed the jacket at some point.
- No Brewers were hit by pitches last night, but Doug Davis did hit David Eckstein, sparking a flurry of activity over at Plunk Everyone.
- Dave Cameron noted that the Brewers aren't playing many close games this year.
- Baseball Brew has a list of former Brewers working for the Padres, including former Brewer catcher and bench coach Ted Simmons.
As expected, Trevor Hoffman received a day off yesterday. With that said, Ken Macha clarified the reason for it, acknowledging that Hoffman will remain in the closer role for the time being. Gaslamp Ball has some Hoffman quotes from a local sports radio appearance (FanShot).
In the minors:
- MLB Daily Dish has an interview with Jake Odorizzi.
- Rattler Radio reports that Kyle Heckathorn, Nick Bucci, Damon Krestalude and Odorizzi will pitch for Wisconsin over the next four days, with Maverick Lasker, Del Howell and Efrain Nieves pitching in relief.
While the Brewers are in San Diego, my thoughts (and likely many of yours) will be back in Milwaukee, where Bob Uecker's heart surgery is expected to be performed today. Hopefully we'll have good news soon.
It's been overshadowed a bit by this week's news about Uecker, but I'd like to take a moment this morning to also send out best wishes to Brewer bullpen coach Stan Kyles, who underwent prostate cancer surgery yesterday in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
Also, congratulations to Casey McGehee and his wife Sarah, who gave birth to their second child, daughter Cooper Reece, yesterday (FanShot). McGehee is expected to rejoin the team today.
Despite being in the middle of a discouraging stretch of games, the Brewers are still doing well at the ticket office: They sold their 2 millionth 2010 ticket yesterday. I would guess that if this team doesn't improve soon ticket sales for late-season games will begin to decline...but even if they do, the team is probably in position to sell roughly 2.7-2.8 million.
On Power Rankings: Yahoo bumped the Brewers down two spots to 24.
Elsewhere here, if you haven't been visiting the comments or FanPosts sections lately, you've been missing out on a lot of great photoshop entries. After popular demand, nullacct has created a Photoshop Archive for you to go back and remember your favorites, or experience them for the first time.
Around baseball:
Angels: Claimed infielder Kevin Frandsen off waivers from the Red Sox.
Diamondbacks: Placed pitchers Kris Benson (shoulder soreness) and Leo Rosales (sprained foot) on the DL. (h/t AZ Snakepit)
I usually do my best to steer way clear of politics in this space, but since this issue actually seems to have a direct impact on baseball I'll mention it. Jeff Passan of Yahoo has one of the more thorough stories I've seen on Arizona's new law requiring all foreign citizens to carry their passport and work visa at all times, and its potential impact on the Arizona Diamondbacks, Summer League and the Cactus League.
Today's headscratcher line of the day comes from Astros beat reporter Brian McTaggart, who tweeted the following:
#Astros shortstop Tommy Manzella is turning heads with his defense. And it's not surprising.
Wait...what?
Happy birthday today to 1992-99 Brewer manager Phil Garner, who turns 61.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going back to my cereal.
Drink up.
Davis, Brewers peppered by Padres
April 30, 2010Doug Davis remained winless on the season after he was touched for five earned runs in four-plus innings in the Brewers' 9-0 loss to the Padres on Thursday night.
Padres 9, Brewers 0
April 29, 2010
W: Wade LeBlanc (2-0)
L: Doug Davis (0-3)
MVP: Ryan Braun (+.052)
LVP: Rickie Weeks (-.066)
Win Expectancy Graph and Star of the Game voting
SBNation coverage
Doug Davis and Jeff Suppan combined tonight to form Failbot 2010, with assists from Craig Counsell's bad fielding and an ill-timed Brewers offense. The Padres proved that a team really can get 9 runs off of 13 singles and a couple of errors. The entirety of the scoring occurred during the 4th and 5th innings. Davis had his escape kit going throughout the first three innings but ran out of rope in the 4th. Craig Counsell started the inning with a fielding error which Davis followed by a walk to Kyle Blanks. The Padres followed that with five consecutive singles, scoring 4. Davis was left in to start the 5th but gave up two more singles, leading to an expected Jeff Suppan appearance. Blanks literally hit a single off Suppan that bounced off his foot. 4 singles later, the Padres racked up another 5 runs. Suppan settled down after the 5th to eat up 3 perfect innings, striking out 5.
According to this tweet from the Padres' official Twitter account, the seven singles in the fifth inning tied the team's all-time record for consecutive singles.
As you can tell via the WPA listed and linked up there, this wasn't a very productive night for the Brewers. They wasted 9 hits, with Fielder, Weeks, and Counsell being unable to get any runners in scoring position around to score. This was also a bad night for basepath errors. In the first inning, the Brewers lost a nearly sure chance of scoring when Carlos Gomez took a long lead off second base and was picked off by Wade LeBlanc. (Aside: LeBlanc has picked off 5 baserunners this year; one can attempt to run off him, but I really wouldn't try. LeBlanc gives credit to the coaches for making the calls and claims he doesn't have a good move, but results may prove the lie.) Ryan Braun followed that pickoff with a double. Braun was also called out in the 4th trying to go from first to third on a Corey Hart single. Four of the Brewers' nine hits were doubles, but other than in the first inning they just couldn't string them together. It didn't help that Doug Davis failed at advancing runners in the fifth, either, striking out on a foul bunt.