Very Emergency
Your worst fears about the 2023 Milwaukee Brewers all manifested Tuesday night.
And we are one, we come all undone
I hate to say I told you so, but the 2023 Arizona Diamondbacks represent the worst-possible matchup for this Milwaukee Brewers club.
They showed nearly every reason why Tuesday night, in front of a less-than-capacity American Family Field crowd. Were there not nearly good enough tchotchkes given away for the casuals otherwise too busy burning the knockoff Jordan Love jerseys they bought two weeks ago?
Brandon Pfaadt was not particularly sharp. The Brewers let him off the hook.
Corbin Burnes picked a poor time to start telegraphing, if not outright tipping, pitches. Corbin Carroll and Ketel Marte made him pay. Those weren’t cheapies; no, those were lasers deposited into the seats that looked very much like both knew exactly what was coming and what to do with them.
The officiating was atrocious, and this crew, which includes Alan Porter, Mark Ripperger and Dan ‘Free Hand Massages’ Bellino, could be one of the worst assembled in postseason history. The sheer number of replay reviews and overturns alone! Umpire Scorecards has Ripperger strongly graded; for once, I deeply question their game data, because there were many wide and high strikes.
But let’s also be very clear: umpires don’t hit into brutal double play after brutal double play. They don’t swing wildly at pitches headed for the dirt or well out of the zone. They don’t try being a hero when line drives will do (looking at you, 3rd and 7th inning Josh Donaldson).
Jesse Winker made his presence felt by tweaking his back after a pitch and then striking out in three. He did nothing, say, Garrett Mitchell couldn’t, a cardinal pinch hitting sin. And his inclusion on the roster, questionable to begin with, now looks like outright baseball ops malfeasance.
Per Craig Counsell in a pre-game media scrum: “[W]e have to pick the guy in a pinch-hit situation, who do we want up there? We just had to make that choice.”
And now, we stand at the brink with only Fred Peralta between the Brewers and the abyss.
The Diamondbacks looked like a team steeled after a season of playing against some of the best talent in baseball in the NL West. The Brewers looked much like the team that got swept by the Athletics, got blown up by the Giants and couldn’t get a winnable division locked down.
I have submitted here and elsewhere before that teams with real postseason aspirations pit themselves not against the clubs in their own division, but against the ones that likely will stand in their way at this time of year. The Brewers are not run this way, choosing to operate under the false assumption that what matters is merely getting to this point and then letting the chaos take over. For an organization that is so tightly hewn to data science, this is a steak-loving vegan-level of cognitive dissonance.
It hasn’t worked any other year they’ve gotten to this point. It didn’t work Tuesday night because it doesn’t work. The Brewers’ approach to pitching fundamentally doesn’t lend itself to sustainable October success — playing too cautious with starters in the front half of the season taxes the bullpen (see Payamps, Joel), leaving relievers less effective in the back half when starters are maxing out. Pitching’s new school may give a team five or six good innings, but those last three or four get really sketchy really fast. Especially when the offense is broken.
The Brewers finished this season with a 93 OPS+, but it is distended by that 16-run outburst September 22 (it was 88 not long before then). Take away the blowout wins (five or more runs either way) and the run differential is quickly upside down and by quite a bit. The team remains in a three-year-and-counting offensive nadir, punctuated with getting baffled by an unimpressive rookie starting pitcher and an utter inability to capitalize on very suspect Diamondbacks middle relief.
Credit where it’s due: the Diamondbacks took that Bob Nightengale gift and ran with it. If you were surprised by the Brewers’ lack of sustained offense and propensity to murder their own rallies to the point of needing its own serialized podcast, well, you must be new here. This is precisely who they are.
Moreover, the general body language from the Brewers Tuesday night was that of a team still reeling from losing one of their key starters. After William Contreras’ infield single and Christian Yelich’s critical TOOTBLAN at second, the only two Brewers to reach base were Willy Adames on an infield single — erased by yet another double play — and a beaned Mark Canha in the bottom of the ninth, sandwiched by cans of corn. That’s a team that has already signaled defeat. Speaking of Contreras:
This is not the time for the Brewers’ unquestioned MVP to run out of gas, especially on a team whose deficiencies have been in part masked by his ascendance and exceptional play at the plate. 2023 was by far Contreras’ busiest season in pro ball. There’s no reason to believe he won’t be fine going forward, but that is no comfort now.
Now, the Brewers need to fight for their lives — in a game that doesn’t tend to reward desperate teams — against a pitcher that has held the Brewers to a .392 OPS and ten total bases in 2023. (Small sample size, you say? .574 career OPS against. Still not great!)
It’s bleak, but if anyone has been paying attention to this ballclub throughout 2023, was there good reason to hope for something better?