Brewers Squander Comeback, Great Opportunity

The Brewers blew a golden chance to strengthen their hold on home field advantage in the first round of the playoffs in a wild one at Miller Park on Monday night. The win would have put the Brewers two games ahead of the D'Backs, bringing the magic number down to 1, after Arizona lost to the Dodgers Monday night. Instead the Brewers wasted as nice comeback in a game the Pirates seemed to try to give away. A few notes on why the loss was so hard to swallow:

- Shaun Marcum only went 4.2 innings giving up 7 runs. This may be something to be worried about come next week. Throw out his previous start where he went 8 innings against the Cubs, Marcum has slipped a bit as of late.
- Brewers 6th - Pirates walk in 2 runs for the Brewers to tie the game 8-8. Like I said, the Pirates really wanted to give us this one.
- Pirates 7th - Saito strikes out the first two batters, then give up a walk and a double, and the Pirates are back in the lead
- Brewers 8th - This is where it starts to get really frustrating. A walk and two hit by pitches load the bases with 1 out. Then Betancourt pops out and Lucroy grounds out.
- Brewers 9th - Counsell singles to start the inning. Gomez in as pinch running, gets to third on two wild pitches! Gomez on 3rd with nobody out, but the Brewers (Hart, McGehee, Kottaras ) fail to get a run in. Game over.

These are the games the Brewers have been winning most of the year and last night would have been a clutch time to do so. I'll hold off on my playoff questions - mainly what to do with McGehee and how to set up the rotation - until we do a proper playoff preview. As it stands now, the Brewers still control their destiny. Let's just win the next two and start the playoffs at Miller Park. Right now I see the Brewers holding off Arizona, but I think St. Louis and Atlanta will end up in a tie and we'll have to wait until Thursday to know who we play.

Should be a fun few days. Brewers start the playoffs on Saturday!