Are we doomed to disappointment?
Couldn’t bear to watch more than the top of the first inning. Brewers second baseman Brice Turang worked a walk against the improbable Shohei Ohtani. The cheap seats at Stately Blaska Manor thought this was the Milwaukee team we were accustomed to seeing — the team that created basepath havoc to ring up baseball’s best record in the regular season.
There followed the so-called Meat of the Order. Jackson Chourio, so devastating in the winning series against the hated Cubs. But he struck out. Christian Yelich, the team’s leading run producer, whiffed. Followed by William Contreras, who also came up empty.
| AVG. | HR | RBI | Strikeouts | Slugging | |
| Yelich | .182 | 0 | 0 | 9 | .194 |
| TEAM | .194 | 8 | 25 | 75 | .396 |
That is when we pulled the plug on the b&w Philco. Milwaukee would strike out 10 times in Ohtani’s six innings. They would lose 5 – 1 to be swept in four games for another missed World Series. So we did not witness Mr. Ohtani serve notice that he is Malamud’s The Natural come-to-life leading off the bottom of the inning by cranking the first of his three home runs 446 feet. Another player the Brewers can’t afford. We appreciate good baseball but our threshold of pain is lower than Mr. Yelich’s batting average in the post-season.
Cannot put the ball in play
Which had been the Brewer’s secret stadium sauce. A team that struck out the fifth-fewest times of 30 teams in the regular season averaged 9½ strikeouts/game in its 9 post-season games, dooming the Brewers to a .194 batting average. Scored just four runs in four losses to the Dodgers. Yeah, the Brewers ran into good pitching — that’s what you get in the post-season.
Did the Brewers even have four starting pitchers?
The Dodgers are everything the Brewers aren’t. They are loaded with stars, from the three-headed monster of Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman at the plate to a dominant pitching rotation … — Wall Street Journal
The billionaires who own Major League Baseball want salary caps to even out the competition. The unionized players do not. Milwaukee’s payroll ranks 22nd or 23rd among the 30 teams— roughly a third of the Dodgers’ $321.3 million. (We’re supposed to hate the billionaires, right?)
→ Shohei Ohtani played the greatest game of all time
If Turang (maybe the team’s season MVP) had taken that hit-by-pitch in the ninth inning of the first Dodger game with the bases loaded, it’s tied 2 – 2 and maybe the team goes on to win. That sends the series back to Milwaukee. But it was not to be.
Blaska’s Bottom Line: Milwaukee needs an ago boost a helluva lot more than glitzy Los Angeles, which gets its fifth World Series in nine years. Brewers have gone 43 years without. The sad thought occurs that Milwaukee may be just barely big enough to field a good baseball team but never win the big prize. We did beat the Cubbies.
8 responses to “Hope struck out”
Shared Revenue. But, we all know that would go nowhere. The Dodgers spent more on the luxury tax than the Brewers entire payroll. When teams can do that, it is almost impossible to compete and there needs to be change.
Cubs fan here. Win or lose the Chicago Cubs are my team. After being heckled by Brewer fans my first thought last night was “pride goes before the fall.”
Cubs fan here too. If you are a heart-broken Brewers fan tune in the Badgers. That will make you feel better.
Not heartbroken at all. The Brewers got beat by a vastly better team. But on the way there, they owned the best record in baseball, won the NL Central again, and sent the Cubs home crying.
The Dodgers top 5 players salaries are more than the whole brewers team including minors. I just hope the NIL doesn’t make CFB turn into this.
new ownership… win-oriented ownership, vice entertainment focused.
More proof that unions cause more problems than they solve.
First get a better batting coach with the discipline of contact hitting rather swinging wildly at everything pitch they see. There was many times a base hit could have change direction and in some just a ground ball out or bunt.