MLB: BREWERS WORTH A BUY?
The Milwaukee Brewers turned their September around by winning six of their last seven games but do they have anything left in the tank?
Milwaukee used their midseason acquisition, CC Sabathia three times in nine days as they emptied the well to make the postseason. Meanwhile, their other pitching ace Ben Sheets is battling an elbow injury and is unlikely to be active for the NLDS series against the Philadelphia Phillies.
The pitching uncertainty, for a team that was supposed to have one of the better rotations in baseball after acquiring Sabathia prior to the All-Star Break, has the Brewers listed at 5:1 odds to win the NL Pennant.
Those are the longest odds of any of the NL Playoff teams. The Chicago Cubs lead the way at 6:5 odds, Philadelphia is listed at 2:1 odds and the L.A. Dodgers are 7:2 odds.
Milwaukee is riding high after Sunday’s big win over the Cubs. The victory clinched the team’s first playoff spot since 1982, a season in which the Brewers made the World Series after clinching on the final day of the season.
For the Brewers to reach the postseason again, the bats will have to get hot. Milwaukee batters showed their youth on Sunday, swinging at bad pitches as they tried too hard to make something happen. The bad at-bats almost cost the Brewers as they managed just four hits. After a leadoff single to start the game, the Brewers waited until the seventh inning to get another hit.
Luckily for them, Ryan Braun’s bat connected with a Bob Howry pitch in the eighth to give the Brewers the lead and eventual win. Braun had a horrid September but came through in the clutch for the young squad over the last week. If he and slugging first baseman Prince Fielder get hot, then it could spark the rest of the Brewers, and when this team gets hot, they are tough to beat.
Milwaukee is one of the streakiest teams in baseball and has gone through a number of highs and lows this season, from having the second-best record in the NL at one point to blowing a 5.5-game lead in the Wild Card race in September.
General Manager Doug Melvin fired manager Ned Yost with two weeks remaining in the season and interim manager Dale Sveum has made all the right calls since. On Sunday, with the Brewers needing a win to clinch, he left Sabathia in to bat to lead off the eighth inning.
It was a gutsy call, as the Brewers needed production at the plate and Sabathia could have faltered late in his third game in nine days. It ended up being the right call for Sveum and now he has to select a rotation for the Phillies series and Sabathia likely to pitch on three days’ rest again.
The ace-in-the-hole could be young pitcher Yovanni Gallardo. The rising star missed most of the season with an ACL tear but returned last week to give the Brewers four solid innings against the Pirates. Gallardo has pitched in just four games this season but has a 1.88 ERA and 20 strikeouts in 24 innings of work.
He will likely be called on for a big role in this series and could fill in for the injured Sheets.
The biggest concern for Brewers bettors has to be the bullpen. Like the team, it has been inconsistent, going through stretches where it shut the door on opponents and others when it couldn’t close a game no matter how big the lead.
The Brewers bullpen converted just 45 of 71 save opportunities. If they can find a way to finish games, and they may have found something in the feisty reliever Seth McClung over the past two weeks, then the 5:1 odds are a great bet for a team that can match any other in run production when the bats are hot.
