NL Wild Card: Not Exactly Predictable

So I feel like a lot of people predicted that the Nationals would win, but like...not like this.

Like, the general thought with this matchup is 'oh, Scherzer's on the mound, game over'. But...Max Scherzer gives up a 2-run home run to Yasmani Grandal, and suddenly the odds are being rewritten. That was the most unexpected part of the night. That the day had to be saved FROM Max Scherzer.

The other bit of unpredictability is Josh Hader coming on, and everyone thinking 'oh, now he'll wrap it up'. He loads the bases, then Juan Soto gets up and gets a 3-run RBI sac TRIPLE, which...shouldn't have worked conceptually. But that's how Childish Bambino works, man. He's all for the team, and nothing for himself.

So...the Nats won, but...it was a lot closer than a lot of us thought. Still, it's Stephen Strasburg's fault that they held off the Brewers' lineup, and even if it means he won't start til like Game 2 or 3 of the NLDS...Patrick Corbin and Anibal Sanchez are more than ready for LA.

Excited to see how the Nats will do, though...knowing what they're up against, it'll be hard to see them finally breaking their winless streak in the postseason this decade.

As for the losers...

Man, they put up a fight. They came to life in September when everyone thought they were dead, and damn near beat out the Cardinals for the NL Central. But deep down, the 2019 Brewers just weren't as good as their predecessors. If you're trying to make a playoff run WITHOUT Christian Yelich, you're not gonna get very far. So even if guys like Grandal, Chase Anderson, Brandon Woodruff and Keston Hiura worked wonders for them in 2019, it just didn't work out, sadly.

Tomorrow night, we get our AL Wild Card. I'm expecting a high-scoring game.

Chase the Music

(Real talk: I'm gonna try to have more consistent music puns as titles for these Custom of the Day posts. Stuff like 'Jays Are Gone', 'Shaved Fish' and 'Strange Rays'. Keep an eye out. Might get more obscure than ELO, which is like a 4 out of 10 on the obscurity scale.)

Right. So the Milwaukee Brewers...may not have been all that we thought they'd be.

True, they're not doing terribly, but...they're just kind of okay. Very, very okay. And from what we'd been seeing pre-season, we were expecting more than okay. And yes, the guys who were huge last year, like Chase Anderson, Zach Davies and Travis Shaw, are still doing some incredible work, and Eric Thames is submitting a more well-rounded but still-HR-heavy performance off the bat, but...the two hired guns they brought in to help the outfield are either injured or ineffective. Yelich comes back this week, but Lorenzo Cain hasn't been terrific, leaving Domingo Santana to try to mop up the rest of things.

Still, a lot of mainstays, like Orlando Arcia and Ryan Braun, are back-pedaling right off the bat, while the back end of the rotation, including Jhoulys Chacin, isn't wowing people. And yes, getting Junior Guerra back in there to balance things out is very smart, but there's still too many high ERAs and not enough consistency in this early stretch. There's a lot that's not as polished as we thought, and that's sad for a team that was supposed to take down Chicago this year.

To be fair, both Milwaukee and Chicago are currently in underdog status, as the main threat in the NL Central is now the inexplicably powerful Pittsburgh Pirates (I love this trend by the way). Getting back up will mean having to surpass the dangerous Cardinals and (more easily) the Reds, but the Brewers have more depth than they're currently letting off, and could outrun their sloppy start very soon.

Coming Tomorrow- Most of his team is going down with injuries, but he, as well as a certain 44-year-old pitcher, is keeping the fort strong.

Thrill of the Chase

Okay, so the Brewers technically aren't out of it yet, as they're 2.5 games away from the Rockies, so it would take momentum by them, and some losses from Colorado, to ensure that the Brewers make the playoffs for the first time since 2011. But...either way, they still came further than they had any right to go.

I mean, I started this season thinking they'd just be the 'Eric Thames' team, like they'd win some games and such but they'd just be known for Eric Thames and his homers. Far from it. The Brewers grew some depth, in establishing Travis Wood as a leader, bringing up Orlando Arcia and Jesus Aguilar as younger pieces, while still maintaining the 'ragtag' sensibility. Eric Sogard came in and started playing beautifully. The two catchers were guys that had never really started games before, and both did really well, with the emphasis on Manny Pina, even if Stephen Vogt is phasing into his job. Heck, they were even buyers at the deadline, adding Neil Walker and Stephen Vogt and improving the quality of the bench.

The biggest surprise, though, was the rotation. Who would have thought that Zach Davies, Chase Anderson, Jimmy Nelson, Brent Suter and Brandon Woodruff, four guys that nobody had really heard of before the season, would be able to band together to make one of the most surprising young rotations of the year. Even with assists from Junior Guerra and Matt Garza, this rotation powered this team as much as the lineup did. Chase Anderson may, in fact, be an ace in the making.

Will the 2017 postseason happen for them? Not sure, but they need to work for it, and hope the Rockies can drop some games. It'd be great if they could sneak in for the Wild Card game. It'd be a great end to a Cinderella season.

Coming Tonight: One of the best active pitchers...returning to his former glory in a new stadium, a new uniform...and the same supermodel girlfriend.

Uncustomed Heroes of 2016: Brewers

The Brewers are...kind of sad these days. Their farm system's been struggling, as the guys they're bringing up aren't really doing the job, and the few veterans they have are, like, 2-3 year veterans like Scooter Gennett. It's getting pretty dire, and hopefully something's gonna happen soon. Meanwhile, Gennett had a pretty nice season, and is still a nice infield bat.

Chase Anderson was an import from Arizona, and did a pretty nice job as a part of the surprisingly-good rotation. He's got some improvement to come, but he's still promising enough.

Zach Davies was another nice, relatively young arm that held up the rotation this year, and like Anderson, he did well enough to get a pretty guaranteed gig next year. Not sure how he fits into the future, but he'll do for now.

Coming Tomorrow- Time to talk about the St. Louis Cardinals. I'll try to hold back.