The Milwaukee Brewers were eliminated from the 2023 post season by the Arizona Diamondbacks. Despite the Brew Crew being a higher seed and having home field advantage the snakes came into enemy territory and rattled off two straight victories. This was quite a disappointing end to the season, especially for a group that won 92 games during the regular season and were National League Central division champions.
Taking a look back at the Diamondbacks series there were some questionable decisions made by the Brewers and manager Craig Counsell. Hindsight is always 20/20, but let’s take a look at a few decisions that proved to be mistakes in this series.
Three mistakes that Milwaukee Brewers manager Craig Counsell made during the Arizona Diamondbacks series.
One could argue that the Brewers made a mistake prior to the first game of the series being played as they included Jesse Winker on the 26-man playoff roster. The veteran has struggled with injuries and performance issues this season and prior to the playoffs had last appeared in a big league game on July 24. Craig Counsell indicated that he was to be used as a pinch hitter and he followed through on that, but during the series Jesse Winker went 0-2 with a strikeout.
A second mistake made by Craig Counsell was sticking with Brice Turang at second base. The rookie has been incredible defensively, but at the plate he had just a 62 OPS+ this season. Andruw Monasterio replaced him during the later stages of each game, but he arguably should have been in the starting lineup right away.
Lastly, during the final game on Wednesday evening Craig Counsell did not play one of his match ups well. In the eighth inning the Diamondbacks brought in rookie southpaw Andrew Saalfrank. He inherited a situation in which Milwaukee had the bases loaded, one out, and left-handed hitter Sal Frelick up to bat. In this scenario Sal Frelick was the go-ahead run and using Joey Wiemer as a pinch hitter (.825 OPS against left-handed pitchers) instead of a pinch runner for Mark Canha would have been a better decision.
Unfortunately there are no do-overs and the Brewers reality of another early post season exit is official.
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2 Comments
I wouldn’t put it on Counsell. If these were actually managing errors–and the 3B coach should have sent Yelich with 2 outs in game 1–I wouldn’t think this was so ridiculous.
Winker should not have been on the roster for this (or any) round. But, neither should Weimer or Turang. Let’s face it: they’re busts. I’m pretty sure Frelick is also a bust and probably shouldn’t have been on the roster. Mitchell should have been starting in CF. Weimer should have been the fourth OF, just for his PH potential.
Even the pitching roster was terrible, having Rea on it.
The fact is that the Crew had put together in the second half of this season the best hitting roster from the recent string of 5 playoff appearances (maybe as good as any Brewer playoff team). That should have been enough to take this elite pitching to the WS.
The fact is they lost for one reason only: the two ELITE starters were HORRIBLE.
You can’t fix bad performances with some little managerial trick.
Too be a great pitcher, PLAYOFF time is the time to shine, NOT CHOKE