Friday
The Milwaukee Brewers rotation has been the worst in the NL with an ERA still over 5 after a recent series with the Marlins. Their pitching staff overall trails only Baltimore and Houston with several other AL teams, who all have the DH excuse, in the neighborhood. I have a suspicion that the pitching is going to come around a bit in the second half of the season and expect the Brewers to be a .500 team the rest of the way. Corey Hart will be back to play first base at some point to prevent the Brewers from taking a zero a first base, Mike Fiers seems to have found his way again down in AAA and there is a chance Rickie Weeks is not Dan Uggla 2.0. Their offense is good and would be excellent if they had something other than automatic outs in the 7 & 8 spots in their lineup, and even average pitching would see them well over .500. Playoffs will be a big ask at this point, but there’s no reason not to take a long look at teams like this that started out poorly and can play well later and stay under the betting radar.
Going with the Brewers tonight away to Cincinnati. Lohse +125 vs. Arroyo. Joey Votto gets the night off and Dusty Baker persists in batting someone terrible in the #2 spot. No Braun or Lucroy for Milwaukee so it’s a wash.