That is the only way to describe today's game between our beloved Brewers and the Braves. Actually the entire series was an embarrassment, but today was the worst of the three games. That is of course because I was 1 of 30,000+ that was at Miller Park for today's matinee, series finale. It was my first game of the season, I was pumped. A couple of friends and I bought the tickets before the season started. It's always nice to take a vacation day from work in the middle of the week and go see a game. It's one of my favorite things to do. It's just a shame there was not a whole hell of a lot to cheer about on this day.The Brewers played pretty much exactly as they did the previous three games of the series. They were in the game till the 6th or 7th inning, the offense was pretty much non existent save for Casey McGehee who continues to impress after his strong 2009. Casey was 2-4 with a double and an RBI. The bullpen crapped the bed and the game got out of hand. Yovani Gallardo was on the hill, it is always a treat to see him pitch in person. He once again had a high pitch count that chased him to soon. He still managed to pitch 6 inning with 6 K's and only giving up 2 earned runs. In the bottom of the 6th the Brewers offense did manage 2 runs to tie the game. But it could have been more, Jody Gerut got caught stealing 3B and Prince Fielder narrowly missed a HR on a ball that went JUST foul.
Then the 7th inning came. Manny Parra comes in, boom! 2 runs given up. 4-2 Braves. Then Carlos Villanueva comes in to pitch the 8th, boom! 2 more runs given up. 6-2 Braves. Hoffman comes out in a non-save situtation to get some work, he gives up 3 runs all earned. 9-2 Braves and that was all she wrote. Ryan Braun did sit out his 2nd straight game after getting hit on the elbow by Tommy Hanson on Monday, that surely did not help the offense. But in any case the Brewers are now 4-11 at home this season. That is very embarrassing, this team used to dominate at home, had one of the best home records in all of baseball. This season they have gotten taken to the wood shed at home and it is so frustrating.
I think today was the first time this season I felt "demoralized". It's not that early anymore in the season and this team is all or nothing. Teams like that don't contend and certainly don't make the playoffs. We still have a couple of months to go before the All-Star break, but if this team is under .500 and more then 5 games out of 1st or the Wild Card I hope they blow up the team and bring up some of the prospects. Trade all the veterans who have no future with the team; Hoffman, Davis, Hawkins, Edmonds, Zaun, Gerut and maybe even Counsell. Get whoever you can for those guys. And then the big one, trade Prince. It now seems very unlikely that he will settle for any kind of "home town" discount, thus we can't afford him. Move him so the team you trade him to gets a year and a half of his services, giving us a good haul back to re-tool and get ready for 2011 and 2012.
With some of the good young prospects (Gamel, Lucroy, Lawrie, Cain, Braddock, Axford,Arnett, Peralta, Rogers, etc), our core guys (Braun, McGehee, Escobar, Weeks and Gomez) and who ever we get back for Prince we should be in good position to contend for real in 2011 or 2012 at the latest.
