Welcome to my new column here on WTMJ to accompany our postgame shows with written content as your home of the Brewers. I’m going to scatter three to five observations from every game that go beyond your standard game recap.
Let’s get started “from the desk of Dom Cotroneo,” as Brian Anderson says.
Leadoff pop from Turang
In Tuesday night’s Brewers Extra Innings at the 25:00 mark, Craig Coshun and I talked about the dynamics of Brice Turang leading off vs Sal Frelick leading off.
Brice Turang clocked his third leadoff homer on Wednesday – which shockingly matches Frelick’s three at the top of the card.
The point of the debate comes that the Brewers are 34-16 when Sal leads off and now 37-30 when Brice leads off. But the debate of what to do with the fifth spot in the order is worthy of a conversation too. If Brice bats fifth, that increases the likelihood of him batting with runners in scoring position.
Turang entered Wednesday leading the National League in average with runners in scoring position at .371. Then there’s Frelick’s .367 OBP with the bases empty – which slots in the top 20 in all of baseball.
Yelich is healthy
After all of the doubt and fear with Christian Yelich’s back, missing five games due to soreness, the slugger quickly put the fears to bed with the three games in Texas.
Yelich averaged 101 MPH of exit velocity on the 10 balls he hit in-play during the series. Including a 111 MPH rocket in the first inning that was bidding for the Brewers to start the game with back-to-back-to-back homers, but instead Yeli was begging the baseball Gods for some good luck after it died at the wall.
Jackson Chourio is a superstar in the making
Despite missing a month due to his hamstring strain, Jackson Chourio is still finding a way to “post.” He joins an elite list of young phenoms in the game with his 20th homer of the season – all before his age-22 season. And he still leads the team with 57 extra-base hits.
The last six players that can say they have multiple 20+ homer seasons have combined for the following: 36 All-Star nods, 23 Silver Sluggers, and 7 MVPs. They are Ronald Acuña Jr., Juan Soto, Carlos Correa, Bryce Harper, Mike Trout, and Giancarlo Stanton.
Freddy Peralta right-on-right changeups
Baseball minds have been long divided on “same-sided” changeups, meaning right-handed pitchers throwing changeups to right-handed hitters. The fear with the pitch is when you miss, it falls directly into a barrel from the hitter.
Freddy’s changeup has been maybe his best weapon this season, coming into the game with a .172 average against plus a 34% whiff rate. Against righties, the whiff rate jumps to 41%.
Peralta threw more changeups to righties (21) than to lefties (11) on Wednesday and the Rangers caught on. Not only was it the first time he allowed multiple hits in a game on the right-on-right changeup, but he also allowed his first homer on the pitch in such situations with Burger’s blast in the 5th.
ABS will be huge on SB attempts
Arguing over balls and strikes will occur for the rest of time, even with the projected advent of the Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) challenge system next season.
The key at-bat in the 3rd inning featured a couple of calls missed on the corners, but especially Danny Jansen’s throw to second – that’s pitch number five in this AB vs Josh Smith.
There are a lot of things working against the umpire here: the catcher coming out of his crouch blocking your view, the transfer to throw out a runner so the catcher doesn’t hold the pose, and keeping an eye on the batter to make sure there’s no interference on the throw.
But what will happen next season in this scenario? Does Jansen have to immediately tap his helmet? Does the caught stealing stand? Is the runner returned to first? These are the little things being ironed out in the Minor Leagues right now.
You can listen to Dom Cotroneo on Brewers Extra Innings after most Brewers games here on 620 WTMJ and available wherever you get your podcasts, “Brewers All Access”
