After Tuesday evening’s 13-6 pounding, the Brewers’ pitching staff now sits as the 4th worst in the majors at 4.84…and worst over the last 30 days at 5.74.
On Lucas and Lepay this morning on The Big 1070 here in Madison, the question was posed to Andy Baggot of the Wisconsin State Journal, “What is going wrong with the Brewers?” Baggot started out by indicating the loss of Rickie Weeks seemed to hurt the psyche of some players, but eventually got around to a suggestion made on their blog a day or two earlier? Could new pitching coach Bill Castro be a part of the problem.
Baggot stated what we all knew–losing Mike Maddux to the Rangers would come back to bite us.
Baggot never answered the question, so I thought that I would bring it up here. Normally, when a team starts collapsing, it is not able to get rid of the players, so the GM often chooses to fire the manager. But in the Brewers’ case, trying a new pitching coach may be a better solution–after all, it has been the pitching that has been the cause of the recent slide.
Now, the Brewers’ pitching has been plagued by injuries. Still, even with a patchwork job, pitchers have decline in performance: Braden Looper had almost twice as many K’s per BB before the All-Star break (59:31), but now is close to par at 18:16 since the break, while is ERA has soared to almost 5.00 after starting at 2.45 in April. Manny Parra also seemed to benefit from some time with Bosio in Nashville after struggling with the parent club, and Mike Burns and Chris Smith both put up impressive numbers in Nashville.
The bottom line: if the current pitching doesn’t improve within the next week or so, a change needs to be made. It would seem that replacing Castro before Macha may solve the problem.
Update: Wow…I started this just before the news broke. Castro was fired today, Bosio was called up…also, Alcides Escobar was called up, while J.J. Hardy was sent down…and Bill Hall was DFA and OF Jason Bourgeois was called up. One Miller Way is hopping today….
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