As his team honors Sabathia, Woodruff makes strong statement
The Milwaukee Brewers are playing their best baseball of the year.
Hitting. Running. Starting pitching. Relief pitching. Defense.
It has come together in all facets for the Brewers over the past week. The latest edition of clean, crisp baseball came Friday night at American Family Field as the Brewers cruised past the San Diego Padres, 7-3, behind another outburst by the offense and Brandon Woodruff’s stellar start.
Here are three takeaways from the win.
CC Sabathia honored for legendary 2008 performance
A few hours before the Brewers honored CC Sabathia’s legendary threemonth run with the franchise in 2008, manager Craig Counsell, Sabathia’s teammate with Milwaukee, gave credence to how incredible the big lefty’s performance was.
“I think (Christian) Yelich’s second half of 2018 is probably right up there, but CC’s second half of 2008, you talk about those pretty much the same, as good as we’ve ever seen a Brewer play in the second half of a season,” Counsell said. “I just think we don’t — he made a decision for the team and what he put on, how much he put on himself during that season was just remarkable.”
Counsell also lamented what could have been with that team if another pitcher who put his body on the line for the team, Ben Sheets, hadn’t gotten hurt.
“That was the big what if of the 2008 season: what if Ben Sheets was healthy?” Counsell said. “No question about it. That’s the big what if of that team.”
Of all the Brewers playoff teams Counsell has been a part of, that one, he believes, had the best chances, if Sheets hadn’t blown out his arm on the penultimate day of the regular season, to endure an entire playoff run and win it all if because of the arms they would have lined up between Sabathia, Sheets and Yovani Gallardo.
“That was the team,” Counsell said, “Because it had the pitching lined up to survive a whole playoff schedule.”
That year didn’t end as Counsell or Milwaukee had hoped, of course. The Philadelphia Phillies downed the Brewers in four games in the NLDS on their way to winning the World Series.
But the memories and feelings associated with that run as the Brewers broke a 26-year playoff drought remain indelible nonetheless; all you have to do to realize that is hear the roar the Milwaukee crowd gave Friday to a player who appeared in only 18 games with the team 15 whole years ago.
Sabathia’s performance was, indeed, the thing of legend.
After the Brewers acquired him on July 7, Sabathia went 11-2 with a 1.65 ERA. He threw seven complete games and three shutouts, including a onehitter in Pittsburgh that probably should have been scored as a no-hitter. He took the ball on three days’ rest each of his final three starts of the season, including on the final day of the season as he threw a complete game as the Brewers beat the Chicago Cubs to earn a wild card berth.
Woodruff headlines rotation that hopes to do damage in October
If the mark of a baseball team that can make a deep run in the playoffs is having elite pitching that can course through the grind of multiple postseason series, as Counsell asserted before the game Friday, then this Brewers team has the chance to do something special.
Sabathia-Sheets-Gallardo, meet Burnes-Woodruff-Peralta.
Woodruff made a statement on the potency of the Brewers’ rotation with his arm Friday.
Of all the powerful arms the Brewers have in the starting ranks, none matches Sabathia’s bulldog persona on the mound like Woodruff. He challenged a tough Padres lineup pitch after pitch from the jump, daring them to catch his burrowing fastballs or late-breaking changeup.
Woodruff struck out 11 over six innings, allowing only one run on three hits. Whenever the Padres threatened, he buckled down and executed some of his best pitches.
“He’s part of the rotation, and the strength of this rotation is we can deliver night-in, night-out performances like that,” Counsell said.
It was not only a season-high in strikeouts for Woodruff, but also pitches. He threw 107 on the night, including 16 in a grueling battle with Trent Grisham in the third. Woodruff eventually won the battle by getting Grisham to swing over a changeup after throwing him five straight fastballs.
“Sixteen pitches, sometimes that’s a whole inning’s worth,” Woodruff said.
“I feel like we go through this every year, we go through stretches where we don’t play good,” Woodruff said. “‘Well, what’s wrong?’ Then we hit this stretch here where we’re playing good. ‘Well, dadgumit, we’re good.’ We’re just playing good baseball.”
The Brewers rotation is taking form. With just over 30 games left in the season and the Brewers continuing to build their lead in the division, that’s an enticing thought for patrons at American Family Field.
Tellez breaks through for a surging offense
What had been a familiar sight each of the past two summers at the ballpark before disappearing this year returned to Milwaukee once again Friday. Rowdy Tellez went deep. Tellez, who hit 56 homers in his first 255 games with the Brewers, had not hit one out of the park since May 22.
During that homerless span, Tellez endured a treacherous slump, a forearm injury that landed him on the injured list and then a finger injury that extended his stay on the IL.
But he snapped out of his careerlong 128 at-bat homer drought — a stretch during which he had just a .415 OPS — with a three-run homer off Padres starter Yu Darvish that extended the Brewers lead to 5-0 in the third.
“It felt good,” Tellez said. “Dealing with injuries and not feeling comfortable and things that alter my swing, but it felt good to see one go over. I felt good on the rehab assignment, towards the end after feeling comfortable with the finger and dealing with it all, it’s just nice to do that and help the team win. It helps out personally, too.”