Albert Pujols has had talent surrounding him in St. Louis, but really, there’s a reason why his teams win so often, and he displayed that at Miller Park tonight. Pujols put together a historic performance, going 4-for-5 with three doubles and a homer, effectively accounting for seven (three runs scored, five RBI, one of which was himself) of the Cardinals 12 runs. From the Milwaukee perspective, enough said.

That put the Brewers in a bad enough spot; it didn’t help that Shaun Marcum was off his game again. Perhaps one could argue that, on this night, Pujols would have rocked even Bob Gibson circa 1968. But Marcum remains a different pitcher over the past month than the one who laid claim to “staff ace” status in April and May. Thanks to a 4 IP, 5 ER performance, Marcum has now allowed 30 runs in 33 innings on 46 hits and a 19-to-12 strikeout-to-walk ratio. As Marcum pitched his 210th inning of the year, it simply seemed more and more like his arm is dead.

Marcum tried to rely on his fastball (21/72 four-seamers, 31/72 two-seamers), didn’t throw the changeup much (11/72), couldn’t throw the changeup for strikes (3/11), and didn’t have enough of a difference between the fastball and changeup (average MPH of 86.9 and 81.5 respectively). That kind of difference works for Felix Hernandez, but he throws his fastball in the mid-90s and his changeup around 89. When the ability to change speeds goes for Marcum, the ball leaves off the bat of Albert Pujols (or Jon Jay, or Yadier Molina).

The Brewers have lost the home field advantage, as will be the cry around Wisconsin sports talk radio. But the Brewers have won at least one game in every series at St. Louis this season, and one win in St. Louis swings the home field advantage back to the Brewers. Game Three in St. Louis has the potential to be the game of the playoffs, as two staff aces coming off an excellent series (Yovani Gallardo, 14 IP, 3 ER) and the best and start of the postseason so far (Chris Carpenter’s Game Five shutout in Philadelhpia) square off at Busch Stadium.

MLB has been telling legends are born in October for the last month or so. If you want a due date, it is October 12th.

We have witnessed one of the best games in Division Series history.

Where do we start? The fantastic pitcher’s duel between Ian Kennedy and Yovani Gallardo? Both pitchers tossed six excellent innings under tremendous pressure. Gallardo’s only blemish was a home run off the bat of Justin Upton. Kennedy’s night could have gone much, much worse had he not gotten big outs in key situations, escaping a bases loaded situation in the fourth and and only allowing one run as the Brewers put the first two on in the sixth.

Nyjer Morgan was incredible again scoring a run, doubling, and of course adding the game-winning RBI. As great as his enthusiasm has been for the team, city and state, I just hope that his excellent on-field season doesn’t get lost in the shuffle. More postseason games like this will help. Morgan wasn’t very productive in this series, but you wouldn’t know it if you asked him: “What struggles? It’s baseball, man.” The depth of that quote should not be lost on the discerning reader — whether Morgan is simply referring to how little four games means or how much more there is to, you know, everything than just baseball, it’s a line that deserves some thought, regardless of how you view Morgan/Plush/Hush/Gumbel/Tombstone and now Clutch.

John Axford blew his first save since April 18th. But things could have gotten much worse, as the Diamondbacks still had two on and nobody out with Justin Upton on deck after the tying run scored. Axford showed why he was such a shutdown closer in the regular season over the next three batters, striking out Aaron Hill, inducing a weak grounder from Upton, and retiring former Brewer (and Danny Trejo stand-in) Henry Blanco to end the inning. Axford’s performance in the 10th was excellent, as he sat down Paul Goldschmidt, Chris Young, and former Brewer (and one of my favorite players of the time) Lyle Overbay to give the Brewers another chance to end it. The “blown save and win” for a reliever is always kind of an oddity — usually, it’s failure bailed out by the team’s success — but Axford bounced back fantastically from his ninth inning stumble and ended up instrumental to the victory.

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It doesn’t take much of a trained baseball eye to see something was off with Shaun Marcum against the Diamondbacks on Tuesday night. Pitches were left in the zone; pitches were inside when they were supposed to be outside. Command and control were limited, and when command and control are limited even someone with Stephen Strasburg’s velocity and breaking stuff would struggle. Shaun Marcum? Forget about it.

Kameron Loe was warming in the fifth inning. Shaun Marcum just got the break of his life when Justin Upton didn’t crush a ball against him, even if he did botch the potential double play. Then, the Brewers walked the left-handed Miguel Montero (a questionable decision in itself) to bring up the righty-righty matchup with Paul Goldschmidt. With Kameron Loe watching in the bullpen, Marcum gave up a grand slam to effectively put the game out of reach.

Here, we need to explore a simple question: why do managers leave starting pitchers in for so long?

The answer isn’t as simple as “starting pitchers are better than relievers.” Because they aren’t — they might be more talented, but they aren’t better at preventing runs. Starting pitchers had a 3.94 ERA this season; relievers check in at a mere 3.59.

Clearly, there is something else at work. Specifically, it is the fact that although relievers have better results, they can only pitch so many times over the course of a few days and only so many times over the course of a 162 game season. Especially with only six relievers in the bullpen, one short start and the entire bullpen gets overworked quickly.

But this is the playoffs. There are only four starting pitchers, meaning an extra reliever, typically one who can go multiple innings. There are plenty of off days. And, more importantly, every win is hugely important, and playing for the future doesn’t help nearly as much as it does in the regular season.

In the playoffs, you have to take the best chance you have at recording every single out. The best chance at scoring every run. But Ron Roenicke left Shaun Marcum in for some unfathomable, incorrect reason — because you just don’t pull pitchers in the fifth; because you don’t pull pitchers when they just recorded an out.

For the record, I believe Loe should have been brought in to face Justin Upton. But getting the shut down right-hander in against Paul Goldschmidt is just as good of an opportunity. Loe holds righties to a .601 OPS. Yes, Marcum has a .566 OPS against righties this year, but he clearly wasn’t on top of his game and his career numbers show a much more even split, as typically is the case for changeup specialists.

Loe gave up a run on two very poorly hit balls after being summoned from the bullpen, both coming against right-handed batters. The same kind of poor luck could have struck had he faced Goldschmidt or Upton as well, and the conversation could be moot. But I can say with certitude that Kameron Loe had a better chance of holding the Diamondbacks scoreless in the fifth inning. Whether or not it was a leash too long or some other poor reasoning from Ron Roenicke, he made a mistake Tuesday night in leaving Marcum in to face Paul Goldschmidt, and it cost Milwaukee any chance to hit their way back into the game.

The Milwaukee Brewers won game two in the sixth inning. If 666 is the number of the beast, then 6 is the inning of the beast mode.

After Zack Greinke — who alternated between excellent and putrid, with three home runs too much putrid — received a quick hook in the sixth inning, it was up to Takashi Saito to hold serve in a 4-4 game. Saito, in my opinion, has had a massively under-celebrated career. In six career big-league seasons (after racking up 87 victories, 48 saves, and a 3.80 record in 14 NPB seasons), Saito has recorded an ERA of 2.18 and hasn’t ever posted a single-season ERA above 3.00. His FIP is a solid 2.65 and he owns a tremendous 3.8 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

Saito did his job despite giving up a one-out double to Chris Young (which arguably could have been caught by Nyjer Morgan in center field), inducing a weak tapper in front of the plate from Ryan Roberts and then striking out Gerardo Parra with a barrage of high fastballs. It was a key inning for Milwaukee, who needed to bridge the gap to Francisco Rodriguez in the eighth inning and couldn’t necessarily count on any quick offense with Jerry Hairston Jr. and the bottom of the lineup coming up.

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Yovani Gallardo didn’t throw a perfect game. Ian Kennedy and the Diamondbacks held the Brewers to eight hits on 31 at-bats. It wasn’t, at least technically speaking, a perfectly played game.

I wouldn’t change a thing.

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Despite a rough start, the Brewers recovered well before dropping an arguably even rougher series at the Washington Nationals. Let’s take a look at where Milwaukee stands early on.

Record: 7-8 (T-14 MLB, T-8 NL, T-3 NL Central)
Runs Scored: 56 (21 MLB, 11 NL, 5 NL Central)
Runs Allowed: 61 (T-11 MLB, T-8 NL, 1 NL Central)
Run Difference: -5 (17 MLB, 9 NL, 3 NL Central)
Batting (wRC+): 91 (17 MLB, 8 NL, 4 NL Central)
Pitching (FIP-): 113 (24 MLB, 13 NL, 5 NL Central
Defense (DER): .717 (13 MLB, 6 MLB, 1 NL Central)

Game flow from Baseball-Reference:

As the game flow so expertly shows, the Brewers played a very inconsistent brand of baseball over their first fifteen games. Unfortunately, that inconsistency makes it difficult for us to truly get a handle on how the team is doing at any given point in time. And, if the fans that I know are any indication, it’s probably not great for the blood pressure either. All said, though, this team is playing very much like a .500 team. Perhaps that’s not surprising – the 2010 version of the Milwaukee Brewers were basically a .500 team after dumping Trevor Hoffman and Jeff Suppan, and the trade-off between adding Shaun Marcum and losing Corey Hart is about even.

The offense right now has been a relative disappointment even apart from the early woes with runners in scoring position. The usual suspects in Ryan Braun, Prince Fielder, and Rickie Weeks are all performing exceptionally well, but after them, only Nyjer Morgan is even an above average hitter. Yuniesky Betancourt and Carlos Gomez have been terrible as expected, and right field is only useful when Morgan roams it. Mark Kotsay and Erick Almonte have a combined 60 wRC+, which, to be fair, is mostly due to Almonte’s complete incompetence but isn’t furthered by Kotsay’s regular brand of incompetence. Catcher has been acceptable between George Kottaras and Wil Nieves and should be helped by the return of Jon Lucroy. The Brewers must have expected more, however, out of Casey McGehee, who enters play on Monday night with a weak .273/.319/.364 triple-slash line which can only be partially excused by his go-ahead home run against the Cubs last Sunday. The lineup should recover, as McGehee isn’t this bad and Hart’s return will mean fewer plate appearances for Almonte and Kotsay (and ideally, the exit of Almonte).

The pitching staff has done well to allow only 61 runs in 15 games, but it would be remiss to declare their work pristine. The 7.4:3.4 strikeout-to-walk ratio is very solid, but Brewers pitchers have hurt themselves by allowing 18 home runs already. Looking forward, we shouldn’t be too worried. Although a 39.6% fly ball rate is high, it’s not abnormally high, and the Brewers’ 11.8% HR/FB rate should decrease and settle somewhere around 8-9%. Looking back, though, these home runs have cost the team games, most notably in the first game of the season and in the doubleheader on Sunday. Overall, the team is in good shape. Marco Estrada has shown himself to be a very capable 6th starter. Chris Narveson appears to be taking a step forward nobody on the team could expect, striking out over a batter per inning so far. Shaun Marcum has settled in quite nicely since a jittery first start. Randy Wolf recovered nicely in his most recent start as well. Yovani Gallardo has struggled a bit early on, but also has the best game of any Brewer yet this year, a complete game shutout to earn the first victory of the season. When Zack Greinke returns, and we’re not far from that day, the Brewers will have one of the best rotations in the league. The bullpen is a bit shallow right now without Takashi Saito, but the impending return of LaTroy Hawkins should soften the blow, and John Axford has recovered quite nicely from his disastrous opening outing. Sergio Mitre and Kameron Loe have been mostly useful as well, although the team needs Zach Braddock to turn things around in a hurry.

The defense is important to note here. The team has been doing a fine job of turning batted balls into outs – a far, far better job than last year, when they had a DER below .680 (fewer than 68% of batted balls turned into outs). I suspect that a large part of this is that the pitching staff is no longer composed of soft-tossers and Yovani Gallardo, which may mean that the fielders aren’t forced to field as many difficult batted balls. It could simply be random variation this early into the season as well. Yuniesky Betancourt certainly does not pass my eye test, but much of this has been compensated for by the solid defense of Gomez and Morgan in the outfield and the relatively low amount of ground balls induced by the Brewers pitching staff. At this point, it’s hard to make any concrete conclusions except that we should be happy with the team’s defensive performance so far.

The Brewers now enter a three-game series with Philadelphia before returning home for series against the Astros and Reds. The team closes the month in Houston for three games and then heads on a tough road trip to Atlanta for four games and St. Louis for three. It will be important for the team to come out treading water after that trip. By that time, Greinke and Hart will be back and the team should be at nearly full strength. If the team is within two games of the NL Central lead, as they are now, by that point, I will feel very good about Milwaukee’s chances to return to the playoffs for the first time since 2008.

If there was any doubt that Jake Odorizzi is the top pitching prospect in the Brewers system entering tonight’s start against Cedar Rapids, it should be gone now. Odorizzi threw the first eight innings of a combined no hitter tonight for the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers, striking out 10 batters and walking one. Pitch count concerns led to Adrien Rosario replacing Odorizzi in the 9th, and Rosario finished the game, walking one but preserving the no hitter.

Odorizzi’s numbers with the Timber Rattlers are absolutely eye popping. In 116 innings pitched, Odorizzi has now struck out 130 batters, while walking only 37, and allowing only 7 home runs. This start should push his FIP below 3.00 and will move his ERA down to 3.34. Prior to the season, Baseball Prospectus prospect guru Kevin Goldstein (subscription required for full article) said the following about Odorizzi:

14. Jake Odorizzi, RHP: He has advanced command and control for his age, but Odorizzi’s stuff has yet to take the expected step forward.

Looks like the step forward is there. I’m not sure that Odorizzi can be an ace – it’s never smart to project that – but Odorizzi is certainly a pitcher to be excited about, and his rise this season is a much-needed boost to a relatively bare Milwaukee Brewers farm system.

As a side note, the Brewers played today. They lost 5-3. Dave Bush was bad. Casey McGehee was good.

It’s really unfortunate that the debacle that was the 9th inning of today’s game will go on to overshadow the excellent performance of Lorenzo Cain as well as the very solid pitching performance turned in today by Randy Wolf.

However, if you look at the Leverage Index at the bottom of the graph, you’ll see why. The plate appearances in the 9th inning were, far and away, the most important plate appearances of the game, even if it shouldn’t have been that way. Ryan Braun misplayed a ball in left field, making up for a couple solid plays that he made earlier in the game. Then Wolf was removed from the game, and John Axford struggled. Axford allowed a double and a hit by pitch before things really turned ridiculous.

After a Yadier Molina strikeout brought up Aaron Miles up with two outs, I was sure that the game would be over. John Axford is a good Major League pitcher and Aaron Miles is Aaron Miles. However, Miles made solid contact in the direction of the first base bag, which is good enough to get a ball past Prince Fielder. That error brought in the second run of the game, leaving 1st and 3rd with 2 outs for Colby Rasmus, who Axford promptly walked on four pitches – it’s possible that we saw Axford’s limit as far as pitches thrown in two appearances, as he threw 45 pitches between Tuesday night’s game and Wednesday’s game.

For that reason, it just may have been the correct call to bring in a new pitcher into the highest leverage situation, non-extra innings division, in baseball – two outs, bottom of the ninth, bases loaded. I would’ve rather seen almost any other pitcher in the bullpen in that situation, as Hoffman has been among the most hittable pitchers in baseball this year, and it’s not as if he has avoided walks well either. Still, there is margin for error when facing a hitter such as Brendan Ryan, who has a .284 OBP this year. Ryan almost took Hoffman’s first pitch down the left field line for a base hit that surely would have won the game, but it landed barely foul. Then, Hoffman made two pitches that looked quite hittable, but Ryan fouled off the first and swung right through the second – fittingly, one of his trademark changeups.

So that’s how Hoffman reaches 598 saves, by coming into the single highest leverage situation in baseball and getting the job done. Not exactly how I would’ve drawn it up, but adds up to a Brewers victory and a series victory over the Cardinals, even though I was left shaking my head and laughing at the events that led up to it.

There are a few other talking points from this game as well – particularly a solid start by Dave Bush and the solid offensive performances from Casey McGehee and Lorenzo Cain. However, one thing that I continue to be amazed by is the ability of John Axford to post solid, multiple inning outings in the closer’s role this season. In his ninth multiple inning appearance of the season, Axford recorded a five out save,

Perhaps the best part about the presence of Trevor Hoffman and this illusion that the Brewers present of “closers by committee” is that it gives Ken Macha license to use Axford outside of typical “closer role” situations. The most recent example of this, besides last night in the 8th, is when Macha brought Axford in with the game tied in the 9th on the road in Colorado. At that point, the leverage index was 2.34 – a perfect setting for a relief ace. Axford would remain in for the tenth, an inning with a 3.68 leverage index, and shut the door. That’s tremendously valuable, as evidenced by the .386 WPA Axford accrued on the game.

Axford was similarly valuable in Tuesday night’s game. Although his outing started out shaky, with the run-scoring wild pitch, Axford got past Jon Jay and Matt Holliday to escape the 8th with a one-run lead. The WPA when Axford entered was a lofty 3.94; at the start of the 9th it was a still-high 3.35. Again, Axford was the WPA leader for the Brewers, with a +.301 mark on the night.

I certainly don’t expect Ken Macha to be around next year, and I can certainly understand the reasons why he will probably not be brought back. I’m concerned, though, that the next manager will not be so willing to use Axford in unorthodox situations such as tonight. It will be a huge loss for the Brewers and this bullpen, both in terms of flexibility as well as the loss of Axford’s sheer talent in these big spots. Right now, though, let’s just enjoy it while it lasts, because John Axford is having a special year in his first as the Milwaukee Brewers closer.

Barry Enright is an interesting pitcher. Entering tonight, he had a 2.81 ERA despite a wholly average profile. Tonight, he somehow limited the Brewers to only 3 hits on 18 balls in play. He didn’t look that fantastic, but the Brewers just couldn’t mount anything even resembling a rally. The only run for the Brewers, perhaps even more shockingly, came on an Alcides Escobar home run, his third of the season.

Manny Parra held the Diamondbacks to only one run, but six walks in less than six innings is utterly unacceptable, and Parra was extremely lucky to escape relatively unscathed, although this might simply be some regression to the mean. One particularly encouraging sequence, however, came in the fourth inning, after two walks and a double loaded the bases for the Diamondbacks. A big inning seemed inevitable, until this happened.

M Parra M Reynolds 4 0 123 1-0
Mark Reynolds struck out swinging.
M Parra S Drew 4 1 123 1-0
Stephen Drew flied out to center (Fliner (Fly)).
M Parra R Ryal 4 2 123 1-0
Rusty Ryal flied out to right (Fly).

To be able to get through the next three batters, including two very solid hitters in Reynolds and Drew, looked like it would be key. Still, the six walks led to a high pitch count from Parra, forcing the Brewers to go to the bullpen relatively early. Miguel Montero took Chris Capuano deep to go ahead for good in the 8th, as the Brewers couldn’t get past Sam Demel in the ninth.

The Brewers lineup shows that it really needs Ryan Braun and Corey Hart. However, Lorenzo Cain continues to impress, both at the plate and in the field. Even though the Brewers won’t be going to the playoffs this year, young players like Cain give us reason to watch as the season drags into the dog days of summer.