MLB Playoff Debates: Phillies vs. Brewers

Every four years, Major League Baseball's postseason intersects with a presidential election. This is one of those years. In the spirit of the season, we here at MLB FanHouse have divided the playoff teams up for a series of debates. Here Pat Lackey and Mullet discuss the NLDS between the Brewers and Phillies.

Mullet: This series may turn out to be the least competitive of all the four first-round matchups out there. There are a lot of reasons the Phillies should take care of the Brewers in three or four games, so I'll start with this one: Brad Lidge is 41-for-41 in save opportunites this season. The Brewers bullpen, meanwhile, has Eric Gagne and Guillermo Mota. You've seen it as much as I have, bullpens win in the playoffs.

Pat Lackey: It makes me vaguely sick to my stomach to point this out, but since mid-July Eric Gagne has a 3.52 ERA and a 1.00 WHIP. He's not the Gagne of old, as his strikeouts are way down (17 in 23 innings over that span), but he's at least done a good job of keeping guys off of the bases for the home runs he inevitably gives up. The Brewers will likely turn to Salomon Torres in a pinch before either of the guys you named and until a couple hiccups down the stretch, he was very good this year.


To turn the tables a bit, you have to have a lead for your bullpen to matter. As a team, the Brewers absolutely club left-handed pitching (an .806 OPS for the team against lefties), and it's not the guys you expect. Mike Cameron has a .951 OPS against lefties this year. Rickie Weeks is at .818, J.J. Hardy is at .977. Throw them in with Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder, who hit everybody, and I see a pretty distinct advantage against a team that's going to start Cole Hamels or Jamie Moyer every other game in this series. Lidge's saves are great, but they're no good against a 5-0 deficit in the third inning.

Mullet: Yes, the Brewers club left-handers ... but not lately. The two Phillies you mentioned have already beaten the Brewers in September, along with lefties such as Oliver Perez, Ted Lilly, and Shawn Estes. (Yes, Shawn Estes.) So seemingly lefties of any quality can shut them down. Certainly, I would expect Cole Hamels to do so. And every time I wonder how Jamie Moyer still stays upright, he keeps getting people out. And Ryan Braun hasn't hit anybody in September (.208). I know this because he single-handedly sunk my friend's fantasy team, and he hasn't stopped complaining about him.

I have to wonder if CC Sabathia is going to have anything left in the tank after going on three days rest for the past two weeks. If he's got any chance of pitching two games this series, he's going to have to pitch on three days rest again to get him in Games 2 and 5 (both at Citizens Bank Park). He hit a wall last season after going 241 innings. Could he hit a wall after this season's 253?

Pat: Braun managed to slug .607 in the last seven games of the year, in which the Brewers won six to qualify for the playoffs. I'm sorry about your friend's team, but I think he's snapped out of the slump. The same goes for Prince Fielder, who put up a .998 OPS in September after muddling around below .900 for most of the year. The whole team slumped in the first part of September, but they're hitting is starting to come around now and that's much more important.

As for CC, try to view his innings count this way: last year his 256 1/3 innings (that's regular season plus playoffs) was 60 innings more than he threw in 2006 and almost 50 more than his career high. This year 253 is right in line with what he threw last year and that's more important than a total number of innings. In fact, I'd go so far to say the Brewers might be better off keeping him on three days rest right now than giving him five or six days off. I can't deny that he's thrown a ton of innings, but I think he's much better prepared to keep going this year than he was last year. You can't tell me the Phillies, who get a ton of offense from Ryan Howard and Chase Utley, are going to be happy to see him twice in a short series, no matter how many innings he's thrown.

Cole Hamels, on the other hand, is already almost 40 innings above his total from last year. He also hasn't pitched since September 23rd, which gives him plenty of time to tighten up before Game 1. If anyone's going to hit a wall, I think it's the guy that's way over last year's inning count, that's built like he could snap like a twig at any moment and will be pitching on seven or so days rest.

Mullet: I wouldn't be happy either to see CC Sabathia twice in one series either. And if they do see him twice in one series I'd worry, because that would mean seeing Sabathia in Game 5 on four days rest. But with the Brewers' other starters coming from a pool of Ben Sheets (who the Phillies beat three weeks ago and is clearly not right), Yovani Gallardo (coming off injury so as good as he is, he's iffy), Manny Parra (1.54 WHIP and 2-6 record since July), Jeff Suppan (another 1.54 WHIP and positively awful in September) and Dave Bush, they're going to have problems even getting to CC in Game 5. They have to hope that Suppan recreates his "big game-ness", (whatever that means) from '06. If he does, then he and Bush might be the Brewers' best options.

The one guy who I think will be the X-factor is Brett Myers, who's been much better in the second half of the season (3.06 ERA and 1.17 ERA) and much better at home where he will pitch twice (against Sabathia most likely).

Pat: Gallardo's going to be starting Game 1. I saw the game he pitched last week and he looked really sharp, and not just for a guy that hadn't pitched in almost five months. His injury was a knee injury and not an arm injury, so stamina may be the biggest question with him. When he is healthy, he's nasty. Bush has been quietly very good since about the start of June, and makes a perfectly acceptable starter.

As for Myers, he hasn't made it out of the fifth inning in either of his last two starts against teams that are much worse than Milwaukee. Granted, that all follows a complete game against the Brewers, but he clearly caught the Brewers at their low point. And he's still Brett Myers. What I'm really interested in is the Phillies' bullpen. Their ERAs are mind-bogglingly low, but how does Clay Condrey pull a 3.26 ERA with 85 hits allowed in 69 innings? Chad Durbin's ERA is also much lower than his peripherals suggest. J.C. Romero has 39 walks in 59 innings, yet sports a 2.75 ERA. And if any Phillie fan feels safe with Brad Lidge on the mound holding a one-run lead against Ryan Braun with a runner on base, I suggest they talk to the Astros fans about Lidge's postseason history. It seems to me that something that the Phillies are expecting to be a strength might not be nearly as strong as they think.

Mullet: I can't kill him for giving up a ton of runs against Florida in Florida with their lineup. Atlanta? All right that's a different story. But the start before those two was a complete game two hitter at home against ... you guessed it, the Brewers. This game was otherwise known as the game that ended Ned Yost's Brewers career and forced Dale Sveum to save the day with a record of 7-5. It's hardly the 15-1 roll that the Rockies rode to Philadelphia and all the way to the World Series. And though I will concede that Sveum's 7-5 includes a 6-1 run to end the season, compare that to the 13-3 run that the Phillies are on currently.

As for the bullpen, yeah Chad Durbin and J.C. Romero would worry me ... their September numbers are scary bad (Romero, for example has a September WHIP of 2!), and Durbin's probably been a bit overworked. But Condrey's numbers in September are pretty good (1.04 ERA, 1.15 WHIP, .257 BAA) and don't forget about Ryan Madson, who's been unreal in September with a 0.68 ERA and an 0.93 WHIP. And with Lidge? Hey, the wolf's always at the door when it comes to closers. But 41-for-41 in Philly where the fans are always ready to turn on you (ask Jimmy Rollins) is an incredible accomplishment. And last I checked, neither Scott Podsednik nor Albert Pujols are in the playoffs.

Pat: Scott Podsednik, no. Jason Kendall ...

The thing that people are missing with the Brewers is that before their mini-collapse, they might have been the best team in the National League. They were keeping pace with the Cubs and running away with the wild card with a decent rotation and a lineup that could destroy anyone. They suddenly fell off the face of the earth, but they had to play good baseball to get back in to the playoff hunt. They got crushed by Philadelphia two weeks ago in that four-game series that saved Philly's year, but they just look like a different team now. I don't know if it was Yost's firing that shook them up or what. The point remains that Milwaukee is as talented as anyone this year, I think, and to some extent it's entirely up to them whether or not they show up in this series.

Mullet: And if the Brewers do show up and somehow get this series to a Game 5 and get Sabathia a second start, look out. I have less doubt about Phillies showing up, with last season's Rockies sweep at the forefront of their minds. There's really no excuse for the Phils not to come at the Brewers with their best effort and if they do that should be enough. If they don't they'll have nobody to blame but themselves.