- Joined
- Oct 3, 2019
- Messages
- 10,125
- Reaction score
- 29,002
- Points
- 135
Fresh off a sweep of the mighty Oakland A’s, the Guardians stay at home to take on the Milwaukee Brewers in a battle of second place teams with similar records. The Brewers are 38-36 overall and 16-18 on the road. They started off the season hot and were 18-9 at one point, but since then they are just 20-27. More recently, they’ve lost 8 of 12. Over their last 47 games they have been a below average team.
By sweeping the A’s the Guardians finally got their heads above water at home with a record of 19-17.
The Brewers are not the powerful Brew Crew of recent song and legend. They rank 26th in runs per game overall and 27th on the road at 3.76. They rank 26th to 28th in on-base percentage, batting average, slugging percentage, OPS, and strikeouts per game. Just a bad offensive team across the board, although they are 15th in home runs per game and 18th in walks. Ranking 26th in OBP along with 28th in batting average means they generally have to hit it out of the park to score.
Since May 1 the Brewers are ranked last in wRC+ at 79. The Guardians’ figure is 91 for the same time period.
The Brewers are average in the pitching department, ranking 14th in team ERA. Their road ERA is 4.30 and their WHIP ranks 15th. Defensively, Fangraphs ranks them second overall and first in UZR. These guys have more range than any team and really help their pitchers out.
The Brewers’ defense ranks third best in BABIP. This could pose problems because the way to beat a great defense is to smack the ball over the fence and the Guardians are still failing to grasp that concept.
So this could be a low scoring series as the Brewers don’t score much and the Guardians will be trying to string hits together against the rangiest defense in baseball and a decent staff.
One thing in the Brewers’ favor is they are 28-22 against RHP’s and 10-14 against lefties. The Guardians will send Bieber, Bibee, and Civale to the mound this weekend.
Christian Yelich leads the Brewers in hitting at .267/.791. Catcher William Contreras is second at .241/.757. Former Guardian Owen Miller is having a decent season at .284/.730 in 190 AB’s but he doesn’t walk much or hit for power, and his line in June is .197/.455. Rowdy Tellez leads the Brewers with 12 home runs, 11 against RHP’s. The Brewers have four players with 9-12 home runs who are hitting between .203 and .226. Low averages but they punish mistakes.
Shane Bieber leads it off against 36-year-old lefty Wade Miley (4-2, 3.28). Miley is on his 9th team in 13 years and is still crafty enough to be effective. He averages 5.1 innings per start and only has 28 K’s in 46 innings, so he pitches to soft contact. Miley was out with a lat strain from May 16 to June 17 and this will be his second start since returning. In his first he shut out the Pirates for five innings.
Miley is the master at stranding base runners. With RISP opposing batters are 4-for-30 and with RISP and two out they’re 2-for-15. My guess is that Wiley Miley takes advantage of batters’ eagerness to get an RBI and gets them to swing at marginal pitches.
Bieber is 5-4 with a 3.41 ERA. He has struggled on the road but his home ERA is 1.89 and he is 4-1 at the Prog. Outfielder Ramiel Tapia, recently acquired from Boston, is 3-for-5 against Bieber with three RBI’s.
By sweeping the A’s the Guardians finally got their heads above water at home with a record of 19-17.
The Brewers are not the powerful Brew Crew of recent song and legend. They rank 26th in runs per game overall and 27th on the road at 3.76. They rank 26th to 28th in on-base percentage, batting average, slugging percentage, OPS, and strikeouts per game. Just a bad offensive team across the board, although they are 15th in home runs per game and 18th in walks. Ranking 26th in OBP along with 28th in batting average means they generally have to hit it out of the park to score.
Since May 1 the Brewers are ranked last in wRC+ at 79. The Guardians’ figure is 91 for the same time period.
The Brewers are average in the pitching department, ranking 14th in team ERA. Their road ERA is 4.30 and their WHIP ranks 15th. Defensively, Fangraphs ranks them second overall and first in UZR. These guys have more range than any team and really help their pitchers out.
The Brewers’ defense ranks third best in BABIP. This could pose problems because the way to beat a great defense is to smack the ball over the fence and the Guardians are still failing to grasp that concept.
So this could be a low scoring series as the Brewers don’t score much and the Guardians will be trying to string hits together against the rangiest defense in baseball and a decent staff.
One thing in the Brewers’ favor is they are 28-22 against RHP’s and 10-14 against lefties. The Guardians will send Bieber, Bibee, and Civale to the mound this weekend.
Christian Yelich leads the Brewers in hitting at .267/.791. Catcher William Contreras is second at .241/.757. Former Guardian Owen Miller is having a decent season at .284/.730 in 190 AB’s but he doesn’t walk much or hit for power, and his line in June is .197/.455. Rowdy Tellez leads the Brewers with 12 home runs, 11 against RHP’s. The Brewers have four players with 9-12 home runs who are hitting between .203 and .226. Low averages but they punish mistakes.
Shane Bieber leads it off against 36-year-old lefty Wade Miley (4-2, 3.28). Miley is on his 9th team in 13 years and is still crafty enough to be effective. He averages 5.1 innings per start and only has 28 K’s in 46 innings, so he pitches to soft contact. Miley was out with a lat strain from May 16 to June 17 and this will be his second start since returning. In his first he shut out the Pirates for five innings.
Miley is the master at stranding base runners. With RISP opposing batters are 4-for-30 and with RISP and two out they’re 2-for-15. My guess is that Wiley Miley takes advantage of batters’ eagerness to get an RBI and gets them to swing at marginal pitches.
Bieber is 5-4 with a 3.41 ERA. He has struggled on the road but his home ERA is 1.89 and he is 4-1 at the Prog. Outfielder Ramiel Tapia, recently acquired from Boston, is 3-for-5 against Bieber with three RBI’s.
