Path To Victory: Milwaukee Brewers
On the left arm of CC Sabathia, the Brewers made the playoffs on the final day of the regular season. It wasn’t an easy season by any means, but their survival resulted in a playoff berth via the wild card, and with that, a first round NLDS matchup against the Philadelphia Phillies. What will they need to do in order to go from Wild Card to World Champion?
Get on Sabathia’s back
The big southpaw has been ridiculously great since coming over from Cleveland, and with their season in jeopardy the last few weeks, he’s repeatedly answered the call on short rest. He’s made three starts on three days of rest and has given up six runs with a nifty 4/21 K/BB, averaging over 7 innings per start on short rest.
Well, he’ll have a chance to do it again in Game 2, as he went Sunday to get them in, but they can’t give up their chance to get him two starts in this series. With Ben Sheets likely on the shelf for at least for the first round, the Brewers need Sabathia to throw as many innings as he possibly can, and that means keeping him on his three day rest schedule. The odds of them beating the Phillies if CC only makes one start are not good, and if CC’s willing to keep pitching with abbreviated rest, the Brewers have to take him up on it.
Swing For The Fences
The Brewers hit 198 home runs as a team, and the middle of their order features some fearsome power – they even get longballs from unusual sources such as SS and CF. They play big baseball, and if they buy into cliches about bunting and making productive outs to win October, they’ll be cutting their offense off at the knees. They have a lot of guys who can hit the ball a long way, and they need to let them try. The less often they bunt, the better off they’ll be. Swing away boys.
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Sorry–
I disagree with “swing for the fences” completely–and I think a lot of Brewer fans that have been watching this team of late would disagree with you also. You’re looking at the 198 homers, which is a great number, but this is NOT the same team now that hit most of those homers throughout the season. The entire lineup has been scuffling for weeks. Hall (15 or so) and Hart (20) haven’t homered in a very long time, so it’s more like a lineup that hit only 163–not particularly fearsome. Right now they are only getting rare homers, and the rest has to be manufactured.
The must win this plate discipline and productive outs, and pray for a lucky homer. They cannot swing for the fences and win.
I don’t think that Dave meant they need to abandon plate discipline completely. Many times during the season I’ve turned on a Brewers game in the middle or late innings to find someone in the middle of the Brewers order, usually Corey Hart, trying to bunt runners over rather than swing away. Hart is a solid hitter with good power and great speed on the basepaths and they often ask him to give himself up. Just to make things worse, he’s not an especially gifted bunter, so the ploy rarely even works. Then again, that was also before the Ned Yost era came to an end, so maybe they will be a little smarter going forward. His managerial moves made me want to pull my hair out.