Brewers Drop First Four

Boy this is getting old.

Two weeks ago, if you told me that the Milwaukee Brewers would start the season 0-4, I probably would have punched you in the face. If you talked to me today about how the Brewers have started 0-4, you would probably still get punched in the face, but for slightly different reasons.

There isn’t a lot to go over here, but at the expense of my sanity and ever-growing anger, I present to you the profanity ridden in-depth analysis on the Brewers home opener.

To be honest, there isn’t a lot to go over here. For most of the game, it was a pitcher’s duel. Chris Narveson had the whole stadium on his back for six innings, but he stood tall and pitched fantastic. He threw 93 pitches, about 56 of them for strikes. Narveson struck out five batters with three hits, and did not allow a single Brave past first base. With the amount of power in that lineup, he might as well have tossed a perfect game.

Brandon Beachy had quite an afternoon of his own, shutting down the Crew’s hitters for most of the day – save for Rickie Weeks who knocked his third home run of the season, which ended up being the only Milwaukee run of the game. Beachy struck out seven hitters and only allowed four hits. At one point, he had retired the entire Brewers lineup consecutively. Atlanta’s closer, Craig Kimbrel, buried the Crew’s hopes in the 9th inning with three of the sickest strikeouts I’ve ever seen. They would be hilarious if it wasn’t so embarrassing.

Kameron Loe threw another great hold this afternoon, and after today he seems like the only bright spot in the bullpen. I say that now because after Saito went haywire and gave up the tying and winning run in the 8th – one with 2 outs – I have to be a bit concerned. I know Saito won’t put that performance out every time, but screw it. I’m pissed. If I were Roenicke, I’d pull every pitcher after their first out because it seems like they go brain dead when they need to get out of the inning.

When the pitching was as nasty as the Braves’ staff was today, it’s easy to throw your hands up and say “we’ll get ’em next time”. But watching the game, it just looked sloppy. McGehee was chasing balls from his feet to his helmet today, and even though Weeks did manage to get on base, he did not go anywhere because Gomez went 0-4 with two strikeouts. All told, the Crew left everyone who reached base right where they were. That is absolutely inexcusable, especially when the skipper is preaching an aggressive base running strategy.

This is normally where I would need to take a break to wash the sour taste out of my mouth, but I don’t have the energy. This is also where you can probably insert some “it’s still early” sentiment but how long is that excuse going to keep up? The offense is swinging for the fences and missing, the bullpen might as well be throwing underhanded, and if I have to watch Yuni and Weeks botch another infield grounder I am going to go Elvis on my Television.

Things need to change, and they need to change now. Ron Roenicke needs to light a fire under these guys. The offense went 5 for 29 today, and two of our starters, Carlos Gomez and Yuniesky Betancourt, are batting under .200. Despite what it looks like with my cushy online blogging position, I do not have the answers on how to turn this team around. But right now, what’s the worst that could happen? Switch out some players, turn the lineup upside down and see what happens. I mean, we can’t get any worse right?