Who: Brewers (Randy Wolf) vs Cardinals (Kyle Lohse)When: Thursday October 13th at 7:05 pm CST
Where: Busch Stadium St. Louis, MO
TV: TBS
Radio: 620 AM WTMJ/540 AM ESPN
Must win. Well, technically game 4 is not a must win for the Brewers in that if they don't, they won't be eliminated. However, if the Brewers can't pull out a game 4 win over the Cardinals they will find themselves down 3-1 and would have to win 3 in a row over a very hot Cardinals team to win this series. It wouldn't be impossible, but it sure is not something they would want to have to try. This series becomes a series again if they can pull it to 2-2 because it would guarantee that the series would head back to Miller Park for game 6 and possibly a game 7.
Randy Wolf pitched awful in his NLDS start vs the Dbacks. His start was on par with the two awful starts by Shaun Marcum in these playoffs. However, Wolf did have some pretty good success vs the Cardinals this season going 2-0 with a 1.12 ERA. Something positive the Brewers can hang their hats on going into game 4. I know it is a simple formula, but I think the two biggest keys to tonight's game, besides NOT starting Mark Kotsay in CF, is to score early vs Kyle Lohse. Get a lead and get some confidence going. Couple that with Wolf tossing a scoreless 1st inning. That has been hard for Brewers starters this postseason. If Randy can do that, maybe string together a few scoreless to start the game I think the Brewers will be in a great position to win tonight.
Roenicke rolled the dice on Wednesday night by making the ridiculous decision to start Mark Kotsay in CF. Now in fairness, Mark did walk twice and hit a solo HR. But his base running mistake and two misplayed balls in the 1st inning were unforgivable. Kotsay was not alone in misplaying a ball in the outfield though, Corey Hart misplayed a ball hit by David Freese that looked like a routine fly out. Hart is not playing well in the field, not hitting and he just looks very slow in everything he does. My hope is that if Roenicke was willing to put Kotsay in CF last night that he will be willing to bench Hart tonight in favor of Kotsay or play Gomez in CF and Morgan in RF. It at least makes the defense better and who knows, maybe brings more offense as neither of those three can hit any worse then Hart is right now.
Just get the series back to Miller Park and good things can and will happen.
UPDATE: Just tweeted what I found on Baseball Reference, in Randy Wolf's last two starts at Busch Stadium: 2-0, 16 IP, 9 H, 2 ER, 6 K, 2 BB, 0 HR. Comforting. Here is to another stellar outing at Busch for Randy!
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