Milwaukee Brewers: Playoffs? It's in the cards...The St. Louis Cards!

The Milwaukee Brewers spent Sunday afternoon climbing the mountain against the Los Angeles Dodgers.  As they saw the apex, the mountain came crashing down on them. 

An Andre Ethier homer in the bottom of the ninth off of Carlos Villanueva sent the Brewers to a devastating 7-5 loss on Sunday.  The Brewers finished the series dropping two of three to the Dodgers. 

Milwaukee sits at 71-54, five-and-a half games behind front-running Chicago and two games up on St.Louis for the wild card.  With 37 games left in the season the Brewers look to be in a very advantageous position, but wait, it's getting late in the season and these are the Milwaukee Brewers.

The Brewers have a severe problem in the bullpen.  The problem is, they don't have one.  Eric Gagne is almost unusable, his 6.68 ERA and ridiculously high salary has Ned Yost using him in mop-up situations a-la throwing at Jim Edmonds with the team down ten runs at home when about to be swept. 

Guillermo Mota was an asset in the first two months of the year but since has once again emerged as journeyman Guillermo Mota.  Salomon Torres has been better than most thought he'd be but do the Brewers really trust David Riske, Seth McClung and Carlos Villanueva to get the game to him?

Ah yes, but the Brewers have CC Sabathia now!  With him pitching they don't NEED a bullpen!  Thus far, for the most part you'd be right. 

But let's take a quick look at the teams Sabathia has thrown against since his acquisition by the brewers: Jul. 8—Colorado (57-69); Jul. 13—Cincinnati (55-70); Jul. 18—San Francisco (52-71); St.Louis on Jul. 23 was the only team over .500 he's beaten since becoming a Brewer. 

The rest of the teams he's faced have are a combined 76 games under .500 (Wash, SD, ATL).  Good teams will make a pitcher work, CC has faced one really good team and they knocked him around.  The Brewers are at a point with him where he needs to finish the game or risk this porous bullpen coming in blowing the game for him.

Ben Sheets is another question mark. With 11 wins he has certainly been a major reason why the Brewers are where they are right now.  Unfortunately he has little second half experience due to his string of major injuries over the years. 

That being said, he's healthy now.  Disconcerting is that he is 3-5 in his last ten starts.  Even more disconcerting is that Manny Parra is coming back to earth and the rest of the rotation is laughable.  You can't tell me that you trust Dave Bush or Jeff Suppan in a crucial game!

That being said it is of my opinion that either the St. Louis Cardinals or someone from the NL East will overtake the Brewers and they and the rest of Milwaukee will be watching the playoffs on TBS and FOX at home this Fall (except Bill Hall who always seems to be a playoff expert on Baseball Tonight) The main reason for this thinking is the fact that the Brewers are managed by Ned Yost.

Ned Yost has a managerial record of 362-410 with the Brewers as of Aug. 17.  His team was in a position to take the NL Central numerous times last season and the only real highlight of that run was a fight that broke out in the Brewers' dugout during and afternoon game. 

He is Vanilla, he shows little or no emotion, he is far to loyal with certain players (Rickie Weeks for example) His on-field decisions can be so confounding, that fans are left wondering what has happened. 

In the media he also comes off as arrogant.  He leaves people thinking that we don't know as much about baseball as he does so therefore any opinion you have is invalid. 

If Tony LaRussa was manging this team, they'd be much closer to the Cubs and a real threat to do something in the post-season. 

Instead it is the St.Louis Cardinals whom Cubs fans should worry more about than this flawed Brewers squad.  LaRussa has made magic out of a team that was picked for the basement. 

It pains me to say that because I hate the Cardinals.  The fact of the matter is, the Cardinals are a better team from top-to-bottom and will finish ahead of the sad Brewers when it's all over.