Brewers Notes 9.10.14

The Brewers have watched their season high 6.5 game lead in the central diminished to just 1.5 over the last week or so after their self destruction and sweep at the hands of the Phillies. 1-9 in their last ten games, not much has been going right for the struggling crew, and behind most of the problems is the offense. They have scored two runs or fewer in seven of their last ten games, with the other three being scores of seven, four and four. The funny part is that they even lost those three games with their only win coming 1-0 behind a gem from Matt Garza. Garza may be the only thing that is working for the crew as he is has taken no-hitters at least through the 5th in his last two starts. The Brewers are failing to do big things that made them, or any team successful, through the first part of the season which is come up with timely hitting and have a shutdown back end of the bullpen. Will Smith is pitching like Pursuit of Happyness Will Smith (see here) as he has been giving up runs left and right. It's hard to have a lockdown bullpen when you never have a lead. K-Rod has probably turned to dust in the pen since he's only pitched one inning since June 28. The All-Star break cannot come soon enough for the Brewers.

Other Notes:
The Brewers signed Dominican prospect Gilbert Lara. The 16-year old star is a long ways from seeing MLB action but he is an offensive juggernaut who needs to work on his infielding (a little Ryan Braun-esque, we can put him in the OF). They shattered their former high signing bonus of an international player of $800,000 when they gave Lara $3.2 million today.

Marco Estradas time in the rotation seems to be over for now. The Brewers placed Wei-Chung Wang on the DL with elbow inflammation and called up top prospect Jimmy Nelson, who they have already said will start in Estrada's place Saturday against the redbirds. This is the best of both worlds as Nelson leads all major pitching categories in the PCL and the bullpen finally gets a long relief man it has been lacking.

Yadier Molina and Brandon Phillips have both been shelved for the near future (6-8 weeks) with surgeries on their thumbs. Both teams will try to stay afloat without major offensive and defensive contributors. It's not good for the Reds and Cardinals as Molina and Phillips are game-changers with the bat and the leather. With Molina done Jonathan Lucroy will get the start behind the dish for the NL in the All-Star game, even though he should have been in the first place.