The St. Louis Cardinals. They may have lost Tony LaRussa and Albert Pujols but I haven't lost the hate that I have for them. Lance Lynn? Lance Berkman? Lance Bass? Lance Armstrong? Lance Burton? Lance Henriksen? Lance Crouther? (Dat's Pootie Tang! Baby, I'm going to sine your pitty on the runny kine! Cole me down on the panny sty. Sa da tay!) Why do they have so many Lances on their team? And aside from Pootie Tang, I can't stand anyone them. How do the Cardinals gather a team a players that no one else either wants or has never heard of and put together a successful team? It's absolute lunacy. And the fact that they did it right in our face last year en route to yet another World Series Championship makes me sick. So when the Brewers made their first road trip down to St. Louis I tried to get as far away from Busch Stadium as possible. In fact, I even went to Michigan (albeit Upper Michigan) to get another state away from the chaos that was soon to unfold. And how did I know this series was going to be bullshit? Because Yovani Gallardo was starting Game 1. Nothing against him, and in fact he's my 2nd favorite player (behind Rickie Weeks) because he is a Mexican like me. Of course he's real Mexican while I am born-again, but that doesn't help him against St. Louis. In his career he's like 1-9 with a 7+ ERA versus the Cardinals, outrageously worse than against any other opponent. The Cardinals went nuts and scored 8 runs in the 3rd inning and the rest of the series was just downhill from there. I normally like to watch every inning of every game so that I have a good grip on the team but I was glad to have missed these ones. There was nothing redeeming about the start to this roadtrip and it looks like we're gonna be chasing the Cardinals all season long as they are the front runners to win the NL Central. God help us all.
The Brewers salvaged a game in the series and left town for San Diego without getting swept, which seemed to give them a little momentum against one of the worst teams in the National League. Surely they should take 2 out of 3, right? Surely you must be joking. No I'm not, and don't call me Shirley. It's hard to sweep any team no matter how bad they are. And it's even harder to be the visiting team and sweep the home team at their own ballpark because of all major sports, homefield advantage means the most in baseball. Just look at Petco Park. It is probably the biggest ballpark in all of baseball and a team like the Brewers who are built for Miller Park, a smallish field with controlled conditions thanks to the roof, will be swinging for the fences trying to hit homeruns out here. And out here is where homeruns go to die. Unless your name is Ryan Braun. He crushed the BeJesus out of not one, not two, but THREE homeruns, becoming the first player in the history of Petco Park (the home of the Padres since 2004) to do that. The Brewers scored more runs in Game 1 of this series (8) than they did for the entire 3-game series in St. Louis (7). Hell of a way to start out the series. But apparently they used it all up in Game 1 and failed to score in the next 2 games, getting shut out in Game 2 and 3 and losing in embarrassing fashion to the Padres. This was really rough and tough to stomach because I was technically losing sleep over it. Since San Diego is on the West Coast, the games don't start until like 9pm Central Time so by the time they are over it is well after midnight. And while I stay up that late anyway, it still didn't make it right that I was sitting there watching the offense completely fall apart and phone it in. That was inexcusable. I don't really have anything else to say about this series except for what I wrote the day after the games which you can read below.
Friday April 27 - Sunday April 29. Milwaukee Brewers vs St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium. Games 20-22 of 162. I had the good fortune of not being able to watch/listen to these games. This is a departure from usual as I watch every game or follow along (and would not have turned off the 13-1 game in the 3rd inning no matter how ugly it was.) But sometimes life is more important than Brewers baseball, and I was up in paradise Raging for Timmy. Up there the Brewers don't matter. But now I'm back home and have to face the stat line and box scores. After 6 games vs. St. Louis we have a 2-4 record against them and look completely outmatched in all ways. The worst of which is pitching. Their offense pounds us like a ____________ (insert your favorite punch line here) and the worst of which is Yovani Gallardo, who now holds a 1-10, 8.00+ ERA against them in his career. Now there's a chance (law of averages) that he's due to turn it around, but if I was Roenicke I would plan my rotation so he wouldn't face them. That's baseball suicide. But to sum it up - just a real sour series. Cardinals 13, Brewers 1. Cardinals 7, Brewers 3. Brewers 3, Cardinals 2.
Monday April 30. Milwaukee Brewers vs San Diego Padres at Petco Park. Game 23 of 162. I'm getting old man. Either that or I just don't really care anymore. I couldn't make it through the whole game last night. I watched it, but I was in and out. Maybe I raged too hard this weekend. Maybe I don't make the Brewers a priority in my life anymore. Who knows man. I feel the same way that I felt all of last season (until the last week of September) - indifferent. This is me shrugging my shoulders and saying "ehh." Brauny hit 3 homeruns and they beat a bad Padres team but who really cares. The offense and pitching outside of that is stagnant and they need to amp it up to get me to give a hoot. My life is just a big ball of nothing. So there's just a lack of excitement in all I do. Hell of a way to start my last week of 30. I need to change my life and fast. This crap is getting tired and the Brewers need to follow the same model. But I have to live life and work for minimum wage. They play a game and make millions. They shouldn't suck. Brewers 8, Padres 3.
Tuesday May 1. Milwaukee Brewers vs San Diego Padres at Petco Park in San Diego. Game 24 of 162. With as bad as the starting pitching has been this year, you hate to mishandle a great start. Marcum should be commended for his 7 inning, 0 run performance. But that is going to be expected out of him because he is a great road pitcher at the ultimate road ballpark (Petco) against a bad offense. But what people will remember from this game is that Mat Gamel hurt his knee and left the game (results as of today are unknown) and K-Rod once again blew a game and gave up some runs. Since we don't know about Gamel I'll save it for another day. So K-Rod. He was supposed to be one of the bright spots of 2012 because we have him all year instead of half like in 2o11. But so far he is 0-3 with a 6.57 ERA. That is unacceptable. I understand he's gonna have some off games here and there, but while we are struggling to score runs and win games this early in the season, the late game blunders are magnified. That's a game that should have been a win, but lest we forget we scored 0 RUNS! Can't win that way. Padres 2, Brewers 0.
Wednesday May 2. Milwaukee Brewers vs San Diego Padres at Petco Park. Game 25 of 162. Soup pitched great! That echoed through my head all game. JEFF FREAKIN' SUPPAN. The same man who was tarred and feathered and run out of town by the villagers holding torches and pitchforks. How did he throw 5 scoreless innings against us? GD it man. But that's not the worst part about the past few days. Mat Gamel is out for the season with a torn ACL which further decimates the already anemic offense. And then Brauny doesn't finish the game. And we get shut out for the 2nd consecutive day. 0 runs. Goodness. It's like we're in hell. Oh no, it's the 2012 Milwaukee Brewers season but I can't imagine hell being much worse. Nothing is going right now but at least we're still hanging around .500. That could all change when we play the San Francisco Giants. If we can't beat Jeff Suppan and the Padres, how are we supposed to beat Lincecum, Bumgarner and Cain of the Giants? A 2-4 roadtrip could turn sickening real fast. Padres 5, Brewers 0.
Son of bitch. Shit. Well that was fun, right? I was on the verge of vomiting up my delicious dinner after Jeff Suppan held us scoreless but I was somehow able to keep it down. I consider it a minor miracle because Suppan has been the bane of every Brewers fan's existence since mid-2007. It's a subject for another day, but Suppan owes all of us some money because he basically stole from us by not even living up to 25% of that contract. So when we couldn't even score against a 37-year old washed-up pile of garbage it kind of signaled the end of days. And while a lost Brewers season isn't nearly as bad as Armageddon, to die hard fans like me this shit is life. I live, breathe, think, love, eat, drink and talk Brewers baseball. I'm consumed with it. So I'm going to keep doing it if the season goes in the tank. But my audience keeps dwindling as more and more people join the "done club." It's still early May so there is time to turn it around, but they have to at least show some kind of life and promise to keep the fans interested. Right now there is no West Bend Silver Lining outside of trading away Greinke and K-Rod and restocking the farm season for the future. While it certainly isn't to that point right now, it definitely is heading there if the Brewers don't do a full on U-turn. But the clock is ticking and the minutes are disappearing but the uhh... minute. Damn. Wish I could have come up with something better than that. I should stop writing in the morning when I am sober. No one wants to read something that makes sense. They come here for the extreme and nonsensical randomness. They come here for drunken dribble and tomfoolery. Or I could be wrong. Maybe people don't even come here at all. Who knows. But I do know that the Brewers finish the roadtrip in San Francisco and the results better be good or else I'm about to lose a little more faith. Just kidding folks. I'm the kind of fan who holds out until they are mathematically eliminated. But I've also become a realist. Trying to balance them is what keeps me alive.
- Pookon -
email: pookondotcom@gmail.com
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