Yankees dismantle Greinke in game 1

The Yankees can not possibly be as good as Zack Greinke made them look tonight.  Greinke was lucky to make it through the 6 outs he recorded.  His night went so well that he had a 7 run to 6 out ratio.  The defense did not really help him out, but he should be able to get himself out of these situations a little more effectively than he did tonight.  Tonight was like watching Jeff Suppan against…well, any team I guess.  What makes it worse is that I turned the game off after 2 innings, because the whole team was already defeated.  Every single player on the Brewers team was hanging their heads in the dugout, not one of them looked ready to try and make a comeback.  Greinke’s effort tonight increased his career ERA against the Yankees to a 6.75.  That being the case, it was an easy decision to turn the game off.  Why should I have to care if no one else on the team does?

How sad.  What a horrible way to “renew a rivalry”.  This game could not have even been fun for Yankees fans.  We had a chance to really show the rest of the league that we are a serious contender, but after the way we have played against the Red Sox, Rays, and the 12-2 thrashing we took from the Yankees, we are nothing more than pretenders.  Against the NL, perhaps we are the cream of the crop, but on this night the Yanks made sure that the Brewers knew their place in the 2011 MLB food chain.

This game was just awful, like if they would have made a sequel to ‘Elektra’ awful.  The Brewers are the only team on this earth that can match you hit for hit, but still lose the game by 10 runs.  Tonight’s game will haunt me the rest of the season.  Even if we go on to win the division and make the playoffs.  Even if we still win the next two games!!  In the back of my mind I will know that even if we win the pennant, we will probably have to play an AL East team to win the World Series.  That is a battle, that it pains me to say, we can not win.

When you consider that our best pitchers have been absolutely shelled by the AL East, it makes the long term outlook even more bleak.  Gallardo gave up 6 runs in the first inning of his outing against the Red Sox, Greinke gave up 7 runs in 2 innings of work tonight, and Marcum was getting knocked around during his one inning of work against the Red Sox (he was pulled for injury reasons, but had already given up 2 runs in the first inning).

Look, before you all get on me for bashing the team, that is not what I am doing.  This is one of those situations were you are watching a family member throw their life away and their is nothing you can do to stop it.  Only, in this situation I can use this medium to voice my concern and moderate disgust.  I am not throwing in the towel or anything like that, I have just come to the realization that this team can not defeat the AL East as is.  If Attanasio wants this team to compete for the World Series championship, he needs to do some dealing before the trade deadline.  And NOT, I repeat NOT, his usual array of 45 year old bench warmers.  We need a better shortstop and some bullpen help.  The way this starting rotation has been going, our bullpen is going to be running on fumes by the time September gets here.  And let’s be honest, the pen is not really setting the world on fire at the moment.

Brewers owner, Mark Attanasio was at the game tonight, so I am sure he saw what I saw.  A team that has 11 hits and scores 2 runs, is a team that needs a little fixing.  I can not imagine a worse homecoming for Attanasio.  That being said, hopefully this opens his eyes to the glaring problems this team has.  As a team, the Brewers left 18 runners on base tonight.  That is not a misprint, that is 18 men stranded on the base paths.  One of our two runs, came on a sacrifice fly double-play!!!  Who does that?!?!?!

Here are a few bright spots we can all take away from tonight’s game.  Mat Gamel went 2 for 4 with an RBI and Yuni Betancourt continued to show signs of life.  Granted, he went 0 for 2, but he was the manufacturer of the pop-fly double-play (the rarest of all sacrifice hits).  Oh, and Ryan Braun continued his hitting streak.  Those are your bright spots of tonight’s game.

Tomorrow night Shaun Marcum will go up against A.J. Burnett.  Normally I would talk about how ineffective Burnett is, but we just got smoked by Freddy Garcia.  That is the same Freddy Garcia who has not been relevant in the majors since he helped the White Sox win the World Series…in 2005.  So, I will just leave well enough alone.  Let’s just hope that Marcum can get through more than 2 or 3 innings tomorrow.

Sorry to be a downer, but I am both a realist and an optimist.  I believe in this team, but they are showing major chinks in their armor against the AL East.  This season we have shown that we can play with the best teams in the Nationl League, but the American League has been slapping us around something ferocious.  If tonight’s game was a World Series preview, we are all in big trouble.

Still love you boys.  Go Brewers!!!