The Washington Nationals are the best team in the National League. That's nice that at least one organization in D.C. is doing something right. Zing Barack Obama! Zing U.S. Senate! Zing The House of Representatives! And Zing the Department of the Interior who makes sure that the carpet matches the drapes. Wait no... I didn't mean to Zing them. I love them. Where can I apply for that job? So Zing just about everyone in D.C. except for the guy who gets to do the pantie checks. That's about as political that I will get on this blog because I don't know shit about politics. I just don't pay attention and I just don't care. So let the hate mail stream in for me not doing my civic duty. Heh heh. Duty. But I do know something about baseball and I know why the Nationals are that good - pitching and a good enough offense. The Nationals had statistically the 2nd best rotation in the entire MLB and the 3rd best bullpen in the NL. As far as the offense goes it was the 4th best in the NL. When you couple those together you get something more beautiful than Gosling and McAdams in The Notebook. Not that I know anything about that romantic shit or anything. But I do know that this series was HUGE if the Brewers wanted to make up any ground in the Wild Card race. But a 4-gamer on the road against the best team in the NL is pretty much the worst thing you can ask for if success is your goal. They have been on an improbable run over the last month plus but it all ends here. Sadly the Brewers have less of a chance at winning this series than Democrats and Republicans have a chance of working together to bail this country out of the shitter. Your move Washington.
Friday September 21 - Monday September 24. Milwaukee Brewers vs Washington Nationals at Nationals Park. Games 150 - 153 of 162. 3rd Place NL Central, 3 Games Back of 2nd Wild Card. In any other week, any other year, any other moment except for this you would be perfectly fine with the Brewers splitting a 4 game series on the road against the best team in baseball. But this isn't any other time, this is the last 2 weeks of the 2012 season and every win can make us and every loss can break us. St. Louis gets to play Houston again while we play Cincinnati next. That's not fair. 2nd best vs. absolute worst. But that's how the schedule plays out man. They are 3 games out and could be 3 1/2 after tonight. With 9 games left they needed to do better than 2 of 4 against Washington. That sucks to have to be perfect because this is anything but a perfect team. Look at the 2 games they won - Game 1 was an improbable come from behind win that had "special" written all over it and Game 3 also saw them rally late to go ahead for the win. But the problem here was that Games 2 and 4 were absolute clunkers both for the offense and pitching. Hell, throw the defense under the bus as well. And it all goes back to the biggest issue of 2012 - inconsistent They went on this amazing run but needed to do it to salvage the season. The only reason this won't be a total loss is because we will finish above .500. It's a small consolation prize but it will never be as good as what the other guy got. Brewers 4, Nationals 2. Nationals 10, Brewers 4. Brewers 6, Nationals 2. Nationals 12, Brewers 2.
I hate the Cincinnati Reds. Not as much as I hate the St. Louis Cardinals or the Chicago Cubs but I still hate them. I hate the city of Cincinnati and I hate Great American BallPark. If I have it my way I will never go back to either one. So that (and the fact that it was a Tuesday - Thursday series) is why I wanted no part of the last road series. I also hate Jay Bruce, Joey Votto, Brandon Phillips and Skips O'Donnell (Aroldis Chapman) because they always seem to straight up murder us. Well, without all the blood and killing and whatnot. I still remember the game on Opening Day 2011 when Axford gave up 4 runs in the 9th including a 3-run walkoff homerun to Ramon Hernandez to blow the save and start the season off on a really bad note. Thankfully the Brewers rebounded in 2011 and as you know went on to win the NL Central and make it to the NLCS. They did it again in Game 3 of this series and once again jumped all over Axford in the 9th, but this time it was more devastating because it was in game #156 and not game #1. The stakes were so much bigger this time around and this will be the game that ended all hope of making the playoffs. At this point you can't afford to lose a game, let alone a series. This one hurt a whole lot because I was fighting the urge to throw my heart back in the ring. Had they won this series they would have been still in it with an on paper easy homestand featuring Houston and San Diego. With St. Louis playing Washington and Cincinnati to close out the season it was now or never, and the Brewers chose never. It is fitting though that the bullpen did us in during the game that ended up costing us the most, much as they have done for the entire season. It figures.
Tuesday September 25 - Thursday September 27. Milwaukee Brewers vs Cincinnati Reds at Great American BallPark. Games 154 - 156 of 162. 3rd Place NL Central, 4 Games Back of 2nd Wild Card. Now I've really run out of things to say because Game 3 was such a crushing defeat it knocked the wind outta me. This was such a huge series to prove to the world we were serious contenders for the Playoffs this year. Of course we've known all along (if you've been following this blog) that I thought they never had a chance but with this month plus hot streak they were looking to prove me wrong. Losing Game 1 was big because the Cardinals (as expected) beat Houston. But then we rebounded with a huge win while Houston blanked the Cards 2-0. We were sitting at 3 1/2 on Thursday (the Cards were off) with a chance to get to 3 games back. I told my cousin BK3 that is the Brewers won this game, they would make the Playoffs. But Axford coughed it up with a 1-0 lead by giving up a solo homerun, a single and a triple ALL WITH 2 OUTS and now we're 4 back with only 6 games to play. One game doesn't sound like a lot but it is huge. We need to go 6-0 and St. Louis could go 3-3 and we fall a game short. So realistically we need them to go 1-5. Sounds impossible, right? It damn near is. This sucks. Although I have been negative all year, I would have gladly eaten my words. With or without ranch. Reds 4, Brewers 2. Brewers 8, Reds 1. Reds 2, Brewers 1.
Like I said, up next we have Houston and San Diego to close out the 2012 season at home. At 80 wins they need just 2 out of the next 6 to finish with a "technically" winning record and end the season on a semi-positive note. The season is now over (has been for about a week as I am writing this) but I will try to keep it positive on the way out, because with all that has happened this year it is mighty impressive that we are even in the Playoff conversation. I for one am ready to be done with these wrap-ups so that I can move on with my life and talk about something else for the change. I love the Brewers and everything but these things have consumed my life for the entire summer. Sure I've had some fun along the way and have come up with some pretty random and ridiculous stuff on here but I need to start talking about a different topic. I have so many ideas swirling around in my head but not enough hours in the day to write them down and explore them. This may be a good thing though because some of them are evil thoughts and will lead me down a very dark path. But we will or won't explore those in the next few weeks because Week 26 is my last "What's Brewing in the Crewbicle" article of 2012. Lord help us all.
- pookon -
www.pookon.com
email: pookondotcom@gmail.com
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