Foiled by Facebook

I was flirting with disaster. I usually am when the Brewers play a day game. I have to avoid the score until I get home and am actually able to watch the game. The degree of difficulty on this becomes higher when I have to look up stats and a box score from the previous game (to write a blog post). You must exercise defensive reading and viewing when looking on ESPN or baseballreference.com.

I had done a masterful job of avoiding the score on Wednesday, even after trying to determine whether Axford was overused. In comparing Axford’s numbers this year to Hoffman’s last year, I was somewhat taken aback by Hoffman’s 2009 season stats. Trevor went 3-2 and had 37 saves in 55 appearances. He had a .907 WHIP and a 1.83 ERA. I had forgotten just how good he had been. I wonder if Brett Farve’s numbers will fall off in a similar fashion …

I started watching the game but then my ADD kicked in. Typically, I have to do something in addition to watching the game and on this day I couldn’t go to the usual sites that I visit during the game because they would reveal the score. So I went to Facebook. Big mistake. Stupid Facebook. At some point I learned that the Brewers won 3-2 and then later I saw the following picture.

Knowing these two facts made my viewing experience sort of odd. The ninth inning started with Randy Wolf still on the mound. In out-dueling Adam Wainwright, Wolf had allowed just two hits and no runs. OK, things must start to get interesting now, I thought. Wolf got the first out and then Pujols lined one to left that Braun probably should have caught. It hit his glove but dropped and went for a double. Macha then pulled Wolf for Axford, who had recorded five, six and five outs in his last three outings.  I don’t really see how Hoffman gets the save here, I thought, and why is he using Axford again?

Axford proceeded to give up a double to Holliday (which Braun should have caught! and which scored Pujols) and hit Schumaker with a pitch. Fortunately, he was able to strike out Molina before walking Rasmus on four pitches to load the bases. I think Macha went to the well one too many times. Trevor Time? Yes, Trevor Time. If I hadn’t have known that this ended well, I probably would have been jumping out of my skin. Brendan Ryan lined the first pitch down the third base line that luckily went foul—had it stayed fair it certainly would have scored two. Ryan fouled off the second pitch before swinging woefully through a Hoffman change-up. After the swing, Ryan looked down at the ball in Kottaras’s mitt seemingly wondering how he had missed that pitch. Almost to 600, Trevor.

Brewers 3, Cardinals 2

Game played 8-18-10