Phillies Series Preview: Milwaukee Brewers
It has been awhile since I have been able to start an article by saying the Phillies have won a series. It has been since the beginning of June that the Phillies won a series of three or more games. They went into Miami with a consistent Cesar Hernandez and red hot Maikel Franco and Nick Williams with a purpose and came out with two wins.
Yelich was underwhelming in the three game set. He was 1-11 with two walks and four strikeouts. The one hit was a homer in the last game of the series with his team already down by five runs. The Phillies were able to handle the lefty, while Giancarlo Stanton hit first inning bombs in every single game.
Phils Grade: A
Enter Dan Straily. The Phillies had much better luck this time around against the righty. He allowed four earned runs on nine hits and three walks in five innings Wednesday afternoon. He was able to strike out seven Phillies hitters, which was his highest total since his eight Ks against Atlanta in mid-June. However, the Nick Williams led Phils were able to put up the type of effort that allowed for them to get into the bullpen early.
Phils Grade: A
The Team: Milwaukee Brewers
Last weekend, the Phillies left Milwaukee on a high note. They handed the Brewers a 5-2 loss on Sunday afternoon. The victory started a four game losing streak for the Brew Crew.
They scored nine runs in four losses in Pittsburgh. After being on the wrong side of a four game sweep, they are clinging to a one game lead in the NL Central. The surging Pirates and Cubs are breathing down their necks.
The offense has been their strongest puzzle piece throughout the first half of the season, but cooled off immensely over the four game stretch in Pittsburgh. The struggles were highlighted in Sunday’s contest when they stranded runners in all of the sixth, seventh, and eighth innings.
The Brewers are coming into Philadelphia with the hopes that Citizen Bank Park can turn around their offensive luck. They will need to fire up the offense if they want to rebuild their division lead to comfortable number.
The Position Player: Ryan Braun
The last time the two teams met, I ignored one important fact. When I picked Travis Shaw, I seemed to disengage from the idea that Ryan Braun simply owns the Phillies. Every season, the left fielder finds new ways to torture Philadelphia.
In 64 games, Braun has posted a ridiculous line of .372/.412/.682 with 21 homers. The home run number is the most against any non-NL Central team. He has even hit more dingers against the Phils than he has against the Cardinals (20). While we are at it, let’s add another 15 extra basehits.
In Citizen’s Bank Park, Braun has destroyed Phillies pitching with a .383/.433/.717 line. He has 10 homers at CBP, including a three home run game in April of 2014. The Phillies will look to try to slow him this weekend.
He has combined to go 6-22 against Aaron Nola, Jeremy Hellickson, and Jerad Eickhoff in his career. He has one homer against the trio and it was off Eickhoff.
The three pitchers are going to have to find ways to get him out with fastballs away this weekend. Challenging him in leads to trouble. Braun is a player that they may get to chase by throwing breaking pitches out of the zone when they are ahead in the count.
Braun has played in only 46 games this season, but is hitting .258/.339/.528 with 11 homers. He is one of the players who has struggled a bit over the last seven days only going 5-20 with two walks and five homers in that stretch.
The Phillies will try to keep that trend going this weekend.
The Pitcher: Brent Suter
We will go with the wildcard for this weekend’s set. With never seeing Brent Suter, I am picking the lefty as the player to watch. The Harvard graduate carries a 3.09 ERA into his first start in Citizen’s Bank Park.
Despite appearing in 11 games this season, this will only be Suter’s fifth start. The Brewers have only won one of those starts (8-1 against Baltimore), but he has surpassed six innings in two of the four starts.
Pittsburgh did knock him out early with two runs on seven hits and two walks over 4.2 innings. He will look to bounce back against the Phils on Saturday.
Suter is a 31st round pick who depends more on his ability to locate and change speeds to succeed. He does not blow hitters away with his high 80s-low 90s fastball. He will occasionally mix in the change and curveball, but again will need to hit his spots in order to succeed.
If the Phillies are able to avoid a ton of groundball outs, they may have a slight upper-hand against Suter. The southpaw has found himself inducing nearly 50% of hitters into groundball outs. He is not adept to allowing a ton of homers either, so the Phils will have to continue hitting the ball the way they were in Miami to have success against the type of pitcher Suter is.