Top Play (WPA)
Jean Segura’s offensive sputtering over the past year and a half has come to dominate the narrative surrounding his game.
It's kinda cute that Jean Segura has this "he's not very good" narrative surrounding him. Before tonight, his 1.6 WARP was 7th-best SS.
— J.P. Breen (@JP_Breen) July 22, 2015
It’s unfortunate, but that is the curse of being a glove-first player. The average fan’s understanding of advanced defensive metrics in 2015 is either nonexistent or tenuous—by contrast, numbers like “.289 OBP in 2014″ and “over 100 plate appearances per home run” are familiar, simple, and tell a story of a shortstop who sizzled as a rookie but has fizzled ever since. There have even been parties suggesting that the Brewers should look at moving on from Segura as their everyday shortstop.
But in the second inning, none of that mattered. Segura came up to the plate with a runner on and a one-run lead against Danny Salazar. On the first pitch of the at-bat, Segura was rewarded with a big, fat fastball out over the plate. It was exactly the pitch he was hunting for against Salazar, who throws his hard stuff just north of two-thirds of the time, and Segura vaporized it off of the Kohl’s sign in the home bullpen in left field. The two-run blast put the Brewers up by three, and was worth a full .160 WPA.
Bottom Play (WPA)
The Brewers got their clutch hit in the second inning from Segura to plate runs number two and three—but even before that happened, the Indians had a golden opportunity, and they squandered it. In the top of the second, the Tribe put runners at the corners with one out for Michael Bourn. A sacrifice fly would have tied the game, and a drive to one of the power alleys would have threatened to do more.
Instead, Bourn hit the ball on the ground, directly at Scooter Gennett. Gennett and Segura needed to execute a perfect flip and turn—Bourn, one of the fastest players in all of the game, was hauling ass down the line; intent on beating the play and scoring the runner.
The execution was flawless, and it was just quick enough to erase both runners and save the 1-0 lead (-.126 WPA).
Key Moment
The Brewers managed to parlay good fortunes into a lopsided win, but not without a hairy top of the seventh inning. Matt Garza, lifted for a pinch hitter, yielded to rookie reliever Michael Blazek. Statistically, Blazek was hot—six straight scoreless appearances including a win and three holds. In reality, it had been well over a week since Blazek had last seen game action. And he looked more than a little bit rusty—conceding hard doubles to Yan Gomes and Giovanny Urshela, the second of which plated a run.
Craig Counsell made the decision at this point to give Blazek the kid gloves treatment, and instead went to his left-handed relief ace, Will Smith. Smith faced David Murphy and Jason Kipnis in two of the most intense battles of the night—but in the end, Smith won both fights by strikeout. The next half-inning saw the Brewers bring home four more insurance runs and put the game out of reach. Had Blazek stayed in, or had Smith allowed the Indians back into the game, though, that would have changed everything.
Trend to Watch
For Carlos Gomez, approach is the key. When the Brewers’ center fielder was a young platoon player, he struggled with an impatient approach to the plate—and, because of this, he struggled to improve as a hitter. When Gomez broke out in 2012, he did so in large part due to a spike in his pitch recognition abilities from “terrible” to “pretty okay, actually.” This season, Gomez has seen his offensive production tail off ever so slightly—and one partial culprit for the dip has been a curiously vanishing ability to judge off-speed pitches.
But last night, Gomez drew three walks in three plate appearances against starting pitcher Danny Salazar—including one which preceded the Segura home run. Is it a sign of a newer Gomez, more willing to work the count?
Probably not. Salazar only threw two off-speed pitches to Gomez—both during his fourth inning at-bat, both of which were fouled off. Outside of that, Salazar preferred to try tempting Gomez to swing at fastballs or sliders out of the zone—and it didn’t work.
So far this year, pitchers have not adjusted to Gomez’s issues by throwing him any more off-speed offerings than normal
Coming Up Next
The Brewers will look to make it five in a row tonight, and once again they are set to face the Indians at Miller Park. Kyle Lohse is scheduled to start for the Brewers, unless they find a buyer for him in the next few hours—unlikely, but something that needs to be said.
Opposing him will be Cody Anderson, a former college reliever who actually made the transition from relief to the starting rotation. Anderson’s track record in relief led many to believe that he would struggle to last deep into games—but in his first four big-league starts, Anderson has pitched into at least the seventh inning each and every time. His 0.89 ERA is wholly unsustainable, though, and he figures to come crashing back to Earth one of these days. The once-again-red-hot Brewers will hope that they can be the ones to expose him en route to their fifth consecutive win.
Lead photo courtesy of Richard Mackson-USA TODAY Sports