The Denver Brewers went into a 3-game series in San Francisco with the chance to clinch the MGL West title, and instead got swept by the second place Velocity who are now 4 1/2 games behind the Brewers.
Here is how that looked:
It should be remembered that Bank of the West Ballpark, home of the Velocity, is the most extreme pitcher's park in the MGL. And in game 1 the Brewers 22-year old 20-game winner
Eric Maisch was denied win number 22 in spite of hurling 8 scoreless, 6-hit innings, striking out 3 (to get to a WPK-best 200 K's) and walking just one batter. Denver's left-handed stopper
Jeff Mariani, who has 29 saves on the year, 11 of them since joining the Brewers as a result of a trade with Seattle in early July, was victimized by a one-out error by shortstop
Rico Perez and then seemed to unravel, giving up a single, walking the next batter to load the bases, and finally taking the loss when San Francisco pinch-hitter Brent Coley hit a walk-off sacrifice fly.
Game two saw
Bryant Cox (11-10, 4.20) once again struggle as rumors grow that he is the most likely odd man out in the rotation heading into the off-season, what with the emergence of top prospect
Mike Costa joining the big 3 (
Atwell,
Kawasaki,
Maisch, in whatever order you prefer) and reliable lefty
Austin Bond. (Not to mention the handful of other lesser, but still quite good, prospects who are now heading into the top levels of the Denver minor league system.) San Francisco veteran Jim Anast pretty much shut down the Brewers hitters to earn his 16th victory, matching his 1981 total.
And in game three, young
Mike Costa, the #6 (as high as #3 earlier this year) prospect in all of the WPK, was outdueling veteran star Dan Knauff, and carried a shutout into the 9th inning.
Costa does still struggle with command, and walked 5 batters, while striking out 6 (his strikeout totals going forward should rival teammate
Eric Maisch before long), and he had run up a high pitch count (he has good stamina but this was also only his 7th big league start), and after getting two quick outs in the bottom of the 9th he gave up a pitch-hit single (to Brent Coley, of course). With 130 pitches thrown and San Francisco having announced a left-handed pinch-hitter with prodigious power (
Costa's movement is only a bit above average), the decision was made to once again bring in lefty stopper
Jeff Mariani. Huge mistake!
Mariani promptly walked the first batter he faced, allowed a single off the bat of the second, and finally handed the game, and the series sweep, to the Velocity when he gave up a game-ending 3-2 count, 3-run double off the bat of Brian Paul.
Costa was denied a well-deserved victory. And Brewers manager Barry Allen was furious at
Mariani but mostly at himself for having trusted
Mariani to finish out the game successfully.
To be fair, it isn't just
Mariani. The Brewers bullpen as a whole, which had been a relatively strong group in the first half of the season, have turned into the Achille's heel of the club and seem to be getting worse with each passing day.
Now before anyone in Brewers nation hits the panic button, the magic number is only 3, there are 7 games left in the regular season, and the teams' chances of winning the pennant are still listed as 97.6%.
They do travel home now to face arch-rival Los Angeles, a team that has won 4 straight and have managed to climb back to within a game of .500. And then they travel to Portland for the last 3 games of the season. Portland, the reigning WPK champs, have now been mathematically eliminated from the race. But in case you are missing the subtext here, well, yeah, this really isn't a cakewalk. The Brewers could easily let this thing slip away, particularly if San Francisco stays as hot as they've been for the past few weeks.
The Velocity, meanwhile, have a 3-game series at home versus the lowly St. Louis Redbirds and then finish with 3 more at home against the even lowlier Phoenix Speed Devils.
Am I nervous? You bet I'm nervous.
Might just have to avoid the bullpen as much as possible the rest of the way.
EDIT: Oh, and I was so disgusted by the Brewers performance in this 3-game series that I forgot to deliver the good news, which is that
Sadahige Kawasaki's injury wasn't serious, but a day-to-day stained back situation and the hope is that he can pitch again one more time before the end of the regular season (and hopefully in the post-season!?).