Season ends in KC

> Last night, the title of my article was “Taking ‘Embarrassment’ to a whole new level.” My apologies for not seeing this coming, because THIS is embarrassment. Our season might as well be over.

> And it sure feels like it. The Brewers’ season may have very well have ended tonight in their 4-3 loss to the Royals. They blew it in the ninth for the second consecutive night, but I’m having a tough time blaming it all on John Axford tonight.The defense did plenty of things behind him to make sure that he, once again, couldn’t get it done.

Just like last night, the Brewers played eight great innings. Shaun Marcum turned in a stellar start, going 7 2/3 innings while giving up two runs on four hits. He walked two and struck out five. Francisco Rodriguez got the last out of the eighth to preserve his lead.

Once again, though, everything fell apart in the ninth inning. Axford struck out the first guy he faced, Mitch Maier, but Martin Maldonado couldn’t block it, and Maier reached first base. That, of course, wasn’t Axford’s fault, and neither was the next play. He induced a Mike Moustakas groundout, but first baseman Cody Ransom (why he was playing there is beyond me) bobbled the ball and could only get the out at first instead of getting the lead runner. Axford then came back to strike out Alcides Escobar, the man who got him last night, on the nastiest slider I’ve ever seen him throw. But, he followed that up with a walk to the light-hitting Jarrod Dyson, which was a no-no. Axford then gave up what should have just been a game-tying hit to Brayan Pena, but the Brewers’ great defense made sure that wasn’t the case. Left fielder Norichika Aoki fielded the ball fine, and threw it back second baseman Rickie Weeks just fine. But Weeks dropped the ball, and by this point Dyson was at third. He decided to test Weeks and try for home, which was a great choice, since we all know Weeks can’t throw home. So, what does he do?

Throws it past Maldonado, and Dyson scores.

Good game, guys.

> I’m really starting to regret the Brewers signing Weeks to a long-term deal. Our four-year, $56 million man is hitting .164, and is a liability half the time defensively (especially on throws to home). Obviously, this season isn’t Weeks’ fault, but he’s part of the struggling cast.

> But this season keeps getting worse and worse and worse. Just when I think the Brewers have hit their low point, they do something that makes them look even worse. Which makes me wonder what they’re going to do tomorrow in Minnesota.

> I could go on and on about how terrible things are going, but the bottom line is everyone (except the starting pitchers) is to blame. I’m not going to blame injuries anymore. I’m done finding excuses for this team; they’ve dug themselves their own whole, and now it doesn’t appear they’ll be able to resurface.

That’s baseball sometimes though, unfortunately. We helpless fans can’t do anything about it.

> The Brewers start a three-game series against the Twins in Minnesota tomorrow. I predicted that the Brewers would sweep the Royals (which they could have done easily if not for all the late-inning bloops), but look where that got me. So I might as well say the Twins are going to sweep the Brewers. Anyway, here are the pitching match-ups for the series:

Yovani Gallardo (5-5, 4.21 ERA) vs. Francisco Liriano (1-7, 6.45 ERA)

Michael Fiers (1-2, 4.50 ERA) vs. ???

Zack Greinke (7-2, 2.96 ERA) vs. Nick Blackburn (3-4, 7.68 ERA)

Taking “embarrassment” to a whole new level

> I guess we should just start getting used to this.

> The Brewers lost to the Royals today, 4-3, in eleven innings.

But they shouldn’t have lost. Up until the ninth inning, they played one of their better games in a while. They got a nice pitching performance from Randy Wolf (7 IP, 6 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 1 K), good defense, and timely hitting. Third baseman Cody Ransom and shortstop Edwin Maysonet saved Wolf a couple of times, but, other than that, Wolf put up his second consecutive quality outing, a sign he might be settling in to the 2012 season.

The Brewers got their first run in the top of the third on Aramis Ramirez’s RBI infield hit (which was the fourth consecutive infield hit that inning), and then the go-ahead run a Ryan Braun RBI single in the seventh. The Brewers also tacked on an insurance run in the ninth when Norichiki Aoki scored on an error.

Everything was going right. Until the ninth inning, of course.

John Axford, who looked awful in his last outing against the Padres, was on for the save. He got Billy Butler to ground out for the first out of the inning, but the wheels fell off from there. Axford walked Eric Hosmer on four pitches, then came back to induce a Jeff Francoeur flyout. But Axford went on to walk Mike Moustakas, then served up a game-tying triple to ex-Brewer Alcides Escobar.

If you recall, in my post for the last game of the Padres series the other day, I said the Brewers threw their fundamentally worst inning of the year, as far as pitching goes. Well, we may have a competition for that title.

Kameron Loe came in to to start the inning, and promptly gave up a lead-off single to Butler. He then walked Hosmer, and gave up a single to Francoeur. The Brewers “manager” decided he had seen enough, and replaced Loe with Jose Veras. And what does Veras do?

Walk Moustakas on five pitches, with the bases loaded. Good game, guys.

> I just don’t know anymore. I thought this team had hit its low point of the year, but, the way things are headed, it might only get worse. I predicted the Brewers would sweep the Royals this series, and now here we sit, losing a series to one of the worst teams in the American League.

But, as the title of this article implies, the Brewers are taking the word “embarrassment” to a new level. A walk-off walk? Give me a break. This team is bad, but it isn’t that bad.

> And that’s about it. The Brewers will hopefully salvage one game of this series tomorrow at 7:10 PM CT. They’ll send Shaun Marcum (5-3, 3.50 ERA) to the mound, who has won his last three starts. He’s also 3-1 with a 1.58 ERA in his career against the Royals, who he’s no stranger to from his time in the AL. But, unless the offense and bullpen get their crap together, none of those stats really matter, unfortunately.

The Royals will counter with Luke Hochevar (3-7, 6.57 ERA), who was supposed to pitch today, but got pushed back by Jonathan Sanchez. The Royals have always had high hopes that Hochevar would eventually be an ace, but things have gone that way so far throughout his career. He’s never faced the Brewers in his career.

> Anyway, thanks for reading, and feelfree to leave your thoughts.

> Box Score

(coming later)