Last time Manny Parra and Wandy Rodriguez faced off, Wandy came out on top.  Of course, Michael Bourn had an extra-base hit, since he's had 16 of those this year, and he has to cram those into a small number of Astros-Brewers games.  Rodriguez has only had one good start in four tries since then, though, while Parra has...uh, also not been very good. 

Game time is 1:05 CT, and here's the BR Game Preview.

Go Brewers!

I guess you have to give credit to Cecil Cooper for boldness, if not perceptiveness.  If he predicts a sweep before tonight's game, we'll know he's almost as crazy as Ed Wade.

Matchup tonight is Ben Sheets and Brian Moehler.  If Sheets gets two hits and two RBIs...well, I'll go as crazy as Ed Wade.

Game time is 7:05 CT, and here's the BR Game Preview.

Go Brewers!

It's a bit of a surprise, but for a middling NL team, the Astros match up pretty well with Sabathia.  Erstad, Loretta (I had forgotten about his year with the Red Sox), and Tejada have all spent some time in the AL, and all have 790+ OPS's in their time against him.  Of course, Erstad was better then.

This is a slightly different Astros team than we last saw--Wolf was newly acquired before our last series, but since then, Carlos Lee was lost for the season, meaning that Erstad, Blum, or both are fixtures in the starting lineup.  Those guys are pesky, sure, but it's definitely a blow to the offense.

Matchup is Wolf and Sabathia, game time is 7:05 CT, and here's the BR Game Preview.

Go Brewers!

Is it just me, or LA where high-profile free-agents go to fly under the radar and play mediocre baseball?  Sure, Manny is the in the news now, but there'll be much less drama (I suspect) now that he's out of Boston.  Even somebody like Rafael Furcal, who had a great season before getting hurt, seems like he disappeared from the headlines.

This occurred to me because of tonight's starter, Derek Lowe.  Lowe is good, not great, and I feel like this is about the fifth time I've heard his name since he left Boston after the 2004 season.  Maybe I'm just succumbing to the ESPN east-coast bias. 

The Brewers will send Dave Bush to the mound against Lowe.  Bush's ERA is all the way down to 4.35--it seems like he can't decide whether to make projection systems look bad because they're too optimistic, or bad because they're too pessimistic.  My system forecasted a 4.46 ERA for him, but I'll happily be wrong if his performance keeps heading in the same direction.

Game time is 9:10 CT, and here's the BR Game Preview.

Go Brewers!

The most recent run of beating up on bad teams got me thinking.  We're always talking about the importance of winning the easy ones--especially in those all-too-frequent series in which the Brewers lose to the Pirates.  (Seriously--sometimes I wonder if the single best part of having a good team is that we consistently beat the Pirates now.)

So, are the Brewers really "taking care of business" in the games that are supposed to be gimmes, or is it just a mirage generated by a couple of good recent series?  And how does that compare to the performance of other good teams?

The Results

This year, the Crew has played 26 games against teams that are currently last in their divisions.  We've gone 6-2 against the Nats, 6-6 against the Reds, 2-1 vs. the Padres, and 2-1 against the Orioles.  That's a total record of 16-10, a percentage of .615--a little better than the full-season winning percentage of .569.

There are four other teams that are currently under .500, and the Crew has done even better against them.  We've beaten the Braves 6 of 9, the Pirates 5 of 6, the Rockies 3 of 7, and the Giants 6 of 6.  Total: 20-8.  The record against all sub-500 teams, then, is 36-18, an even .667 mark.

The Competition

The conventional wisdom, I would think, is that such a good record against weak competition is par for the course.  As you might expect, the Cubs have had similar results.

Against cellar-dwellars, the Cubs are 12-10 (fewer games against the Nats and Reds) and 26-8 against the rest of the sub-500s, thanks to an 11-4 record against Pittsburgh.  Altogether, 38-18, just a smidge better than the Brewers so far.

The Cardinals have been the best of the three teams against last-place clubs--against the three NL trailers, they are 16-4, though their 2-4 record against the Royals moves them back to a more human 18-8.  Against the other four sub-500 teams, they are a more pedestrian 16-14, giving them a total of 34-22.

And this means what?

I don't think a team's record against sub-500 teams means all that much--I'm sure that if I ran the numbers on all contenders, the vast majority of them would be in the same ballpark with these three teams, and that the same is the case every year. 

But it is reassuring to know that the Brewers are racking up the wins against lesser competition.  It bodes well for the remaining nine games against the Pirates.

Those records in the headline do a pretty good job of summarize the state of the NL West and Central this year.  If the Brewers were in the West, we'd be in first place by 7.5 games.  (The Cubs, if suddenly relocated, would be up by 12!)

The matchup tonight is between a pair of great young pitchers: Manny Parra for us, Chad Billingsley for them.  It might be a good day for Cameron to take a rest--in his 18 PAs against Billingsley, he has an OPS of .170.  OPS.

Game time is 9:40 CT -- 10:40 for me on the east coast, which might mean I'll be in bed *before* the game starts.  Here's the BR Game Preview.

Go Brewers!

Here's a fun indicator of the relative strength of the NL Central and West divisions: the Dodgers and D-Backs are tied in first place at 61-59.  You know who else has that record?  The Astros, who are 12 games back, and 8.5 games behind us.

That said, of course, the universe will reward me for pointing out the weakness of the division by having the Padres crush the Brewers.  (If I admit that, do I cancel it out?)  The pitching matchup is certainly one worth watching: Ben Sheets takes on Jake Peavy.

Game time is 2:35 CT, and here's the BR Game Preview.  Against all common sense, Craig Counsell has a .955 career OPS (in 39 PAs) against Peavy.

Go Brewers!

Is there anything better to look forward to than a game against a last-place team in which you have a chance to extend a 7-game winning streak and are sending your ace to the mound? 

Today's late-night special features CC Sabathia and Josh Banks (the Padres love these scrap heaps pitchers even more than the Brewers do!).  I suppose CC's going to lose eventually, but I still like our chances.

Game time is 9:05 CT, and here's the BR Game Preview.

Go Brewers!

Since the break, since the CC acquisition, since anytime recently--the Brewers starting rotation has been fantastic.  Lots of innings, not many runs, and best of all, little need for the bullpen.  And even littler need for the less reliable members of that bullpen.

At a glance, the only NL rotation that looks better than Milwaukee's (we're talking whole season now) is that of the Cubs.  Our rotation ERA is 3.90, while theirs is 3.78.  Really, I'd take either one.  I had high hopes for the rotation this year, but I never expected it would be this good--especially if you took Gallardo out of the mix.  The same could be said of the Cubs, who expected to get solid work from Rich Hill, but had no right to expect Ryan Dempster to be a Cy Young contender.

In last night's post-game thread, grant76 asked if the Cubs rotation is really any better.  It's a good question, and one that might get even more difficult to answer as CC represents a larger chunk of Milwaukee's starts and the Bush/Villanueva early-season disappointments shrink in comparison.

One obvious point for the Brewers is the sheer number of innings.  Our starters have thrown 740 IP; second-best is Arizona at 717 2/3.  The Cubs are 5th in the league at 704.  36 innings isn't much over the course of 120 games, but at the same time, those are innings that mean Ned can bury relievers (if only he buried the right guys!) and the guys we need are fresher when they have to pitch.  There are very few teams in the history of modern baseball that wouldn't be better off if their starters went deeper into games, lessening the workload on the weakest members of the pen.

Three simple metrics to measure pitching effectiveness without getting into the muck of accounting for defense (and, in some cases, park) are homers, walks and strikeouts.  Here's how the Cubs and Brewers compare:

• Homers: In 36 more innings, the Brewers starting five have given up one more home run.  That gives them the edge as a rate stat: 1.03 per nine against 1.07.
• Walks: More innings, but fewer walks for our guys.  Rates: 2.91 per nine for MIL, 3.32 for CHC.  (It's even a little better than that: two more of the Brewers walks are intentional, and the Brewers also hit fewer guys.)
  
• Strikeouts: Clear edge for the Cubs, 7.26 per nine against 6.56. 

Subtract intentional walks and add HBPs, and you have the components for FIP.  Crunch the numbers and you get 4.31 for the Brewers, 4.39 for the Cubs.  (Both are higher than actual ERAs thanks to good defense (!?) and parks that can inflate homers.  I've seen home run factors for Wrigley that are all over the place, but that's a discussion for a different day.)

Long story short, we're looking at two great starting rotations.  It's no surprise that these teams have the two best records in the National League, and are among the top five in baseball.  Looking solely at simple peripherals, the Brewers guys may have the edge, and as I mentioned, another 8-10 starts from CC could tip the scales more conclusively.