Fortunes turn for Brewers, Reds on late call
March 31, 2011Two close calls went against the Brewers in a 7-6 loss to the Reds on Opening Day. One didn't hurt them, and the other most certainly did.
Axford Check
March 31, 2011
With the obvious disclaimers about 1 game of Pitch f/x data, which can vary a bit from park to park.
Axford's fastball velocity average today was 94.2, which is right on his 94 average last season. His hardest fastball was 95.4. The slider and curve were also right in line with his velocity from last year. Normally, I'd look into the differences in break between this year and the past year, but there's a major sample issue here-- Axford threw all of 1 curve and 2 sliders in his 21 pitches.
Last year Axford split up his fastballs, curves, and sliders 62%/ 18%/ 17%. That's something somewhat rare for a hard-throwing reliever, most are more heavily reliant on the fastball. Not tough to see the difference between last year, and today, when he threw 85% fastballs-- and got a swinging strikeout on the only curveball he threw all day. That would seem to be the root of the problem, and Rock may have actually hit it right on the head when he went on and on about Axford needing to have the confidence to throw a breaking ball behind in the count, and it didn't look like he had that today.
You can browse the pitch chart yourself, this link should work (from Brooks Baseball). It really looks like he did work the corners reasonably well, but he just left a couple of fastballs up and they hit the fastballs hard-- possibly because they could reasonably expect it to be coming.
I'm not too worried about Axford. Despite the fact that he didn't get all the spring training innings he probably should have gotten, his stuff looked very sharp, and he just didn't have the feel on the breaking balls yet. I hope he gets at least an outing in a not high-pressure situation to get some confidence in those breaking pitches and I think he'll be fine. Hopefully the Brewers go into the ninth Saturday with a huge lead and they can run him out there to get that work in.
There are certainly scary parallels to Turnbow, but I have plenty of confidence in Axford to have a solid year. Whether it was catcher or pitcher, someone needs to encourage him to get the breaking balls going and he should be able to get things working fine. If McGehee makes a big defensive play, we're not talking about this today.
Ninth inning unravels for Brewers vs. Reds
March 31, 2011John Axford surrendered four runs in the bottom of the ninth inning, including a game-winning three-run homer to Ramon Hernandez, and the Reds scored a stunning 7-6 win on Opening Day at Great American Ball Park.
Reds 7, Brewers 6: Ron Roenicke’s comments
March 31, 2011
Here are some of Ron Roenicke's comments following the game, as seen on FS Wisconsin:
When asked why he argued the call on the ninth inning blown fielder's choice that loaded the bases:
"Out of the baseline. Well, you know, it's hard for me to see where the guy starts. It's not on the line where the basepath is, it's wherever that guy starts. So he creates his own basepath. And if he started back behind the bag, then where he ended up probably was more than the three feet. But I couldn't...I don't know where he started.
"Casey (McGehee) thought where the guy started, he said he took a step to him and reached out."
On Axford:
"The last couple of outings they've liked the way he's thrown the ball. The velocity was there today, you know, he threw a couple of good breaking balls, and it's just a matter of him spotting the ball a little better, but his stuff was good."
On Gallardo's outing:
"I thought he threw the ball great. I did. I think early, he wasn't using his off speed stuff as much, gave up a couple there. Once he started going to the curveball and mixing up speeds better, I thought he threw the ball great."
On what he'll say to Axford:
"It depends. I'll swing by him tomorrow, and I'm gonna just say a little something but, I'll swing by tomorrow and see how he is, but it's not...I don't want to make a big deal out of it. Yes, it's a tough way to start but we have a long season to go and I don't want him worried about it."
162-0 No Longer In Sight As Brewers Open Season With 7-6 Loss To Reds
March 31, 2011
W: Logan Ondrusek (1-0)
L: John Axford (0-1)
HR: Rickie Weeks (1), Carlos Gomez (1), Ryan Braun (1), Drew Stubbs (1), Joey Votto (1), Ramon Hernandez (1, walkoff)
Well, after today we all know how good we are at cursing.
Rickie Weeks set the tone for a great 2011 campaign early today by homering on the game's seventh pitch, becoming the first Brewer ever to lead off the season with a long ball. Then, before the dust had settled, Carlos Gomez hit another to give the Brewers an early 2-0 lead. The Brewers expanded the lead to 6-3 and, going into the ninth, it looked like John Axford was going to slam the door for the first win of 2011.
Unfortunately, it wasn't that easy. The Reds loaded the bases with no one out in the ninth against John Axford and, after striking out Jay Bruce and giving up a sac fly to Jonny Gomes, he surrendered a three run walkoff shot to Ramon Hernandez to ruin the day.
All told, Ryan Braun had the Brewers' best offensive day, reaching base in each of his first four plate appearances with two walks, a single and a home run. The Brewers' 1-5 hitters combined for seven hits (including all three home runs), five walks and five of the six runs. Mark Kotsay and Yuniesky Betancourt batted sixth and seventh and went a combined 0-for-7. Kotsay also kicked a couple of puppies and invented a new disease before being lifted for a pinch hitter.
Yovani Gallardo's outing got off to a bit of a rough start today, but he rebounded for a pretty solid performance. He needed nearly 60 pitches to get through the first three innings but worked efficiently through the middle of the game to pick up his first quality start of the season. All told, he allowed two runs on seven hits in six innings, walking three and striking out four.
Don't look now, but Kameron Loe is on pace for 162 appearances. He pitched the seventh inning today and allowed a solo shot to Joey Votto, but struck out the other three batters he faced. Takashi Saito pitched a scoreless eighth in his Brewer debut.
Back-to-back jacks by Weeks, Gomez historic
March 31, 2011Rickie Weeks and Carlos Gomez delivered back-to-back home runs in the Brewers' first two at-bats of 2011, sparking a three-run rally in Milwaukee's regular-season opening inning for an early lead against the defending National League Central champion Reds.
Game Thread #1A
March 31, 2011Where we'll discuss the bottom of the first inning.
Brewers will juggle catchers with Lucroy out
March 31, 2011While No. 1 catcher Jonathan Lucroy continues working back from a fractured finger, the Brewers plan to split time between backups Wil Nieves and George Kottaras based on performance, manager Ron Roenicke said Thursday.
Opening Day prep a whirlwind for Roenicke
March 31, 2011Rookie Brewers manager Ron Roenicke was too busy before his first Opening Day to be nervous about it. Roenicke, a first-time skipper after 11 seasons on Angels manager Mike Scioscia's coaching staff, jumped between coaches' meetings, pitchers' meetings, catchers' meetings and hitters' meetings on Thursday
Uecker healthy, ready to call Crew’s 2011 slate
March 31, 2011Bob Uecker is calling his 40th consecutive Brewers Opening Day game on Thursday and revealed that, if not for one fortuitous doctor's visit, his streak would be over.