This was the weekend of a major showdown between two of the better teams in the National League. But what happened on Friday was that ‘Winter Met The Brewers’. Mark Twain hit the nail on the head when he said, ‘The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco.’ Amen to that, Mr. Twain.
On Friday at the lovely AT&T Park in the City by the Bay, inside the park the temperatures dropped as the breeze picked up. It honestly felt like winter was breaking in after a warm, if not hot, summer. And with it, the Milwaukee Brewers played as if they were upset with their mothers who said they had to get out of the house and play, even if it was cold outside.
By the Fifth inning, jackets are pulled up around the neck and gloves were on. Hot cocoa was one of the most delightful drinks of the night. For the Brewers, their starting pitcher and his long reliever gave up 142 pitches in four plus innings, an incomprehensible amount of throws that were punctuated with balls rather than strikes. The pitches were flying everywhere, beneath the catcher, around the catcher, over the catcher’s head but rarely over the plate.
Some fans in the stands who made their way in life by getting autographs of the visiting players and selling them, said the Brewers seems very focused and serious about this game. They were not giving many autographs. In fact the only Brewer who did was the manager, Ron Roenicke. That is a bad sign as the Crew lost the game 13-2. It was one of the worst played games this team has ever played.
Scooter Gennett looked sloppy. The temporary shortstop Elian Herrera looked exactly like that…temporary. Carlos Gomez just couldn’t catch anything. Even Gerardo Parra came over to talk about the tricky winds at the ballpark and how it affected playing center field after Go Go let two triples fly over his head, something that rarely happens. And in addition, he had a really bad throw to home (rather than to second to keep the Panda to a single) made for a continuation of the flood gates lifted for the benefit of the Giants.
Lucroy suffered behind the plate, first with a fast ball in an area you do not want a fast ball to hit and then just couldn’t get either of his first two pitchers to settle down.
Yet, for all of their frustration, the Cardinals lost to the Cubs and the Brewers who looked perfectly dreadful after a day off this week, were still in first place of the Central Division of the National League. Perhaps this team should not have a day off in any given week following a week in which they had two days off.
Everything lookout out of sinc. And the punctuation on this story was the sad sight of seeing Rickie Weeks wait until the last of the batters to take batting practice. Here was one of the best hitters in the league before he suffered those injuries. Now, even though he is reduced to a back up role, he should be playing at second because Scooter simply does not seem up to playing in the big games without making errors.
It was a long night at the ball park. And the funny thing about it was that when you walked outside, it was much warmer than inside and the Brewers were no longer looking like a little league team. And they were still in first place. Go figure.
Oh well, that’s why they call it a marathon.
Play Ball!
overtheshouldermlb 