Reds-Brewers Preview (7/21-7/23)

Yes, your Brewers previews are back in full force. We have kind have been lacking on it during the month of July and honestly, I get real busy in the coming month so hopefully they will continue, same with highlights/lowlights.  

Monday:      Mat Latos (2-1 2.79) vs. Wily Peralta (10-6 3.72         7:10 pm FSNWI
Tuesday:      Homer Bailey (8-5 4.21) vs. Jimmy Nelson (1-1 5.40)  7:10 pm FSNWI
Wednesday: Mike Leake (7-8 3.63) vs. Kyle Lohse (10-4 3.16)      1:10 pm MLB Network

Five Things to Watch
1.) Figuring out Cincinnati - If there has been one team in Milwaukee's side this season, it is Cincinnati. The Brewers have not won a series against their division rivals yet this season. I believe they are the only team this season to take two road series from Miller Park. This is a different Cincinnati team that Milwaukee played earlier this month. Reds will be without Joey Votto and Brandon Phillips leading to their offense go silent this weekend against New York as the Yankees swept them.

2.) Mat Latos' dominance against Milwaukee - In two starts this season, Latos controlled the Brewers bats pretty well. In 14 innings pitched, Latos gave up only six hits and two total runs in two starts versus Milwaukee this season. Ryan Braun is the hottest Brewer on the team right now, and he struggles mightily against Latos only having two hits in 20 at-bats against the tatted up righty. Therefore it really doesn't matter that Latos never beat Milwaukee at Miller Park. It would be great to see the Brewers break through against Latos early and often. Latos' last start featured Pittsburgh jumping on him pretty hard with two home runs and five runs surrendered in five innings.

3. Johnny Luc looking for a spark - One of the things flying under the radar is Jonathan Lucroy is having a horrible month along with the team. Lucroy only has five hits in 38 at-bats. It is hard to think what's wrong with Lucroy right now. The book may have changed on Lucroy a bit where teams have figured him out slightly. I wonder if Lucroy will start doing things a little differently, or possibly Ron Roenicke mess with the lineup again putting Lucroy second ahead of Braun. He needs a good week to rite the ship, I don't think it is cause for concern.

4. Jimmy Nelson the sequel - This will be the second time with Nelson starting in the rotation. I don't think this is a do or die start for Nelson even though Marco Estrada pitched adequately on Saturday. Nelson faced a buzzsaw in a hot St. Louis team going up against a top five National League pitcher. Nelson will now face a Reds lineup that features a couple big bats in Jay Bruce, Devin Mesoraco and Todd Frazier yet not dealing with Votto or Phillips help him a little bit on Tuesday night.

5. Reds Road Losing Streak - All of the sudden, Cincinnati has lost six straight games on the road. They were terrible this weekend in New York. This is a little bit of a do or die series for the Reds. If they were to get swept, Cincinnati heads towards .500 again but if they were to win a couple games, the Reds build a little momentum trying to make a run at the NL Central Division title. Cincinnati only scored six runs over the weekend with three walks and 51 strikeouts. It could be Milwaukee's time to strike.

Appropriate YouTube Video 


I found this song on my Spotify playlist this morning and I think it fits perfectly for both teams. Pressure by Youngblood Hawke.

Prediction
Milwaukee hasn't won a series against a team not named Colorado since mid-June. It is about time to win a series. Brewers get two out of three.

Charlie. 

Home Run Derby Disaster

Major League Baseball is trying to desperately to get more viewers watching their product. Right now, there is a decline from what we have seen in other sports. It is not to say MLB is pushing the panic, but there seems to be a worry that things are not getting better by any means. They tried to do something different with the bracketed competition for the Home Run Derby, and it completely sucked despite getting a worthy winner in Oakland's Yoenis Cespedes. He deserves the title without question, but the final should have been pitting Jose Bautista against Cespedes. 

The fact we got a final of Cincinnati Reds third baseman Todd Frazier versus Cespedes when we should have had Giancarlo Stanton facing off against him is a goddamn shame. Stanton grew cold having to wait for over an hour to hit a baseball. Stanton brings back memories of Josh Hamilton where we remember the first round of home runs, but he didn't win the tournament. Hell, Stanton didn't even get there. MLB could still do the competition, but they need to rework how the bracketing works so they avoid an issue like this year where Stanton gets ousted because he can't ride the momentum which is exactly what Cespedes did to win a back-to-back Derby crowns, the first person to do it since Ken Griffey, Jr.. (H/T @cjzero for the GIF)

To make it more competitive, select the 10 players, do the traditional ten outs for the first round but instead of brackets, rank them from the most home runs in the competition to the least amount. It's a free for all for the first round where the top home run hitters get to pick when they go and then eliminate five batters advancing only four to the second round. The top home runner hitter faces off against the least amount of homers with seven outs instead of ten, and it goes to brackets to finish it off. This adds more of a strategy to it without anyone getting cold. 

This whole day ended up being a disaster for MLB. There was an hour delay. The weather is unseasonably cold for Minneapolis and everyone is talking about how bad the Derby was this morning. Not a great way to  start All-Star week.

Charlie. 

Brewers All-Star Vote Confusion

I am not an All-Star voter. I used to be, but as my days go on, I do not find the time to do it. Granted, I am not knocking it whatsoever. It is a cool way to incorporate the fans as well as drive up the support with social media campaign as they have done in the past couple of years. Two of the Milwaukee Brewers are National League MVP candidates with Carlos Gomez and Jonathan Lucroy. In turn, Milwaukee fans want to see those players in front of the national audience getting attention from the start of the game. They are driving up the fan votes elsewhere yielding some weird results thus far

The funniest thing about All-Star voting right now is the fact the most deserving Brewers player Jonathan Lucroy is not a starter right now and probably will not be with only a couple days left. Lucroy trails Yadier Molina by way too far of a margin, but hopefully, Matt Matheny will not be spiteful when it comes to adding him to the roster given how great Lucroy has been all season plus Evan Gattis is currently on the Disabled List. If Lucroy ends up on the 'Last Five', that might be one of the most disrespectful thing I have seen in all season. He is an All-Star and doesn't need a frivolous fan vote to get him into the dance at Target Field. Lucroy should tell them to eff off if this ends up being the case.  

There are a lot of confusing Brewers on the list. It is hard to decide what's the most confusing on the list... Jean Segura in second, Aramis Ramirez in first or Mark Reynolds in second. It sounds like one of the weirdest MFK's in the short-term history of the game. Let's start with Ramirez because there is a chance he could be starting in the All-Star Game especially since David Wright is flirting with the Disabled List battling an injury. The only guy in the top five deserving of being the All-Star starter is Todd Frazier of the Cincinnati Reds. He is hitting .287 with 17 home runs with a .857 On-Base Percentage. If Cincinnati's fan base actually gave a damn and had decent attendance numbers, Frazier would be the pick for the third base All-Star. 

Segura and Reynolds make little sense at all.  Neither of these players are close to being All-Stars by any means. Segura plays really good defense and probably will be in some consideration for a Gold Glove yet defense doesn't usually earn you an All-Star game unless you are Omar Vizquel. Let's be clear, Segura isn't Vizquel by any way, shape or form. Although, most of National League shortstops not named Troy Tulowitzki have been slightly better than Segura, but not by a large margin so maybe Segura is not as ridiculous but he's been pretty damn bad offensively this season. Reynolds is also very confusing. Paul Goldschmidt, like Tulowitzki, will be the starter and deserves to be, but look at the list behind Reynolds... Adrian Gonzalez, Freddie Freeman, Matt Adams. Even though he battled injury, does anyone know Adams is hitting .324 this season?  For all of the Cardinal fans put in Yadier Molina, they have seemingly ignored the rest of their team which is such a Cardinals things to do.  

Some might ask why waste a bunch of words on this topic. It's fair because it will all be meaningless when starters are named over the weekend. But I find it interesting how Lucroy is a deserving number two compared to the fact all of these Brewers are near the top in other spots. It is clear the Brewers fan base did wonders to help Lucroy get closer in the two spot plus driven Gomez to the second position in the outfield to ensure his spot as well. 

From the looks of it, the Brewers will have two All-Stars with a chance at a third on offense then when it comes to pitchers, there will probably be one or two there as well. Milwaukee will have their hands all over Target Field's All-Star Game. 

Charlie.  

Highlights-Lowlights: Brewers-Reds (5/1-5/4)

This is SnoTap's version of recap of the two, three or four game series Milwaukee Brewers will play this season. We focus on the positives and negatives with topics about the game and topics that were nowhere near close to part of the game.

Highlights
Wily Peralta - Easily, the best performance of the weekend.  The young Brewers pitcher dazzled on Friday night going eight shutout innings giving up three hits and striking out seven batters. Peralta has been one of the stars of the young season as he rapidly improved from last season. Also Wily drove in the only two runs for the Brewers on Friday so he did it all to ensure the only Brewers victory of the weekend.

Jonathan Lucroy - Good weekend for Johnny Luc whom drove in a run on Sunday going two for two plus he had a three hit day on Friday night. Lucroy is the only Brewer right now with a batting average over .300 at .312. He needs to keep hitting with this Brewers offense looking weaker and weaker without Ryan Braun. Hopefully, he continues to set the pace.

Johnny Cueto - More people should be talking about the start Cueto is having this season. He did allow two runs on Saturday, but they were two solo shots by Mark Reynolds and Aramis Ramirez. Other than that, he allowed three total hits, striking out 10 batters in eight innings of work. This is the third start out of four where Cueto has struck out 10 or more batters. In those starts, he has struck out 37 batters averaging 9.25 strikeouts per start. Cueto is second in the league with 60 strikeouts with only Jose Fernandez having more with 65.

Todd Frazier - With Jay Bruce having a tough start to his season, someone needed to replace his Brewer Killer role and it was Mr. Frazier. He is known for big series against the Brewers before, but he had his hand in a lot of things that happened for the Reds this weekend. He drove in six runs this weekend plus added a home run as well.  I don't know if we can anoint Frazier a new Brewer Killer, but he is definitely building his case for it.

Carlos Gomez's Catch - OOPS HE DID IT AGAIN. HE PLAYED WITH JOEY VOTTO'S HEART, GOT LOST IN THE GAME. OOOO BABY OOO. Seriously, it was a great catch.



Lowlights
Jim Henderson - Not a great appearance for Henderson on Thursday night as he gave up five runs on four hits plus a home run happened in there as well. He went from having an ERA around three to being around seven after this disastrous appearance. Of course, the day after he went on a Disabled List with shoulder inflammation. I don't know why it took Ron Roenicke a dumpster fire eighth inning to figure that one out, but it did.

Inevitable Disabled List - Ryan Braun will miss two more series with the rib cage injury. Brewers bats are pretty cold right now, and it appears they will have to do without their star for another week. He would return next week Monday to play in the Pittsburgh if he is ready to go. If not, he could return against Chicago over the weekend next week. We shall see what happens with Braun's rib cage injury. I want him as healthy as possible so if he needs more time, that's not a problem.

Marco Estrada - Pretty bad start from Marco. I am not really surprised though. Even though he pitched well at Cincinnati in the past, Great American Ballpark can be a type of stadium where Estrada would struggle in being a fly ball pitcher. He gave up two homers, one was super weak that would only go out at GABP, but still the fact remains, Estrada surrendered them both. What I am worried about is him walking four batters. Hopefully that's just a blip on the radar.

Tyler Thornburg - Not a good weekend for one of the more promising Brewers this season. Thornburg gave up two runs on Saturday giving Cincinnati some much needed insurance runs late in the game, and then he gave up a double to Frazier in the 10th giving Cincinnati the win. In his last seven starts, Thornburg has walked at least one batter. Is that worthy of a concern?  Maybe. It is always one batter, but still, it would be nice to see him have a clean frame.

Aramis Ramirez - Remember when he had a red hot start where we thought this year would be different for him?  And then he has gone ice cold in the last week. Even though he had a homer on Saturday, Ramirez's average is down to .248.  We are only 27 days away from Aramis Ramirez Day folks, don't worry about it.

Charlie.