Results tagged ‘ Dave Bush ’
Milwaukee Brewers Uniform Number History: #31
Wondering who wore a certain uniform number all-time for the Milwaukee Brewers?
The Brewer Nation has got you covered. If you found this list on its own, head back here for the full repository after checking out this one.
—
#31
Tommy Harper (’70)
Gary Beare (’76)
Jim Gantner (’77)
Ed Romero (’77)
George Bamberger (’78-’80, ’85-’86)
Donnie Moore (’81)
Alex Madrid (’87)
Jaime Navarro (’89-’94)
Tim VanEgmond (’96)
Pete Harnisch (’97)
Bronswell Patrick (’98)
Bobby Hughes (’99)
Paul Rigdon (’00-’01)
Luis Martinez (’03)
Adrian Hernandez (’04)
Russell Branyan (’04-’05)
Dave Bush (’06-’10)
Burke Badenhop (’13-Current)
Brewers By the (Jersey) Numbers: #18 Shaun Marcum
It’s been a long off-season for baseball fans, made to feel somewhat longer here in the Midwest by mild temperatures that we normally don’t feel until the regular season is well underway.
The Brewers made their first League Championship Series since appearing in American League’s version back in the 1980s. That means the off-season is officially shorter for Brewers fans and players, but after falling two wins shy of the National League pennant and an appearance in the World Series it’s been a painful shortened time.
There isn’t anyone among us in Brewer Nation who can claim a longer or more painful off-season than that of Brewers starting pitcher, and subject of today’s profile:
Shaun Marcum.
Acquired during the preceding off-season for top prospect Brett Lawrie, plenty was expected of Shaun Michal Marcum before he ever put on a Milwaukee Brewers jersey.
After missing the entire 2009 season while a member of the Toronto Blue Jays, Marcum rebounded in 2010 and seemed healthy and effective enough in doing so.
Milwaukee was in desperate need of an upgrade to its rotation after suffering for years with the likes of Jeff Suppan, Braden Looper, Dave Bush and even a stunted comeback attempt by Doug Davis. Sure, Yovani Gallardo was doing well and free-agent pickup Randy Wolf was fine enough, though overmatched by trying to be the number two, but they needed more front-end talent.
The Toronto Blue Jays made Marcum available and Doug Melvin pulled the trigger on the straight-up swap. The reason for the cost was because Marcum is talented and showed himself to be healthy. This is the same guy that pitched Opening Day for the Blue Jays in 2010.
It was immediately apparent that the Brewers had acquired a new number two…well, at least until the Zack Greinke deal went down.
Marcum’s 2011 campaign almost didn’t start off with the team. He suffered through a bout of shoulder stiffness (the same as he’s going through right now in 2012) that nearly took him to the disabled list. He was able to get up to enough of a pitch count to be deemed ready-to-go out of the gate. With fellow import Greinke on the DL with a cracked rib, Marcum was even more necessary to start the season on the right foot.
He began the year with very good results and was arguably the team’s best pitcher for the first two months of the season. Who knows how long that level of play would have kept up and what kind of season numbers he could have posted if not for a hip injury suffered during interleague play prior to a start at Fenway Park on June 17.
It’s my opinion that Marcum wasn’t the same all season after that injury.
His numbers prior to the injury look like this:
14 GS, 7-2 record, 90.2 IP, 69 H, 29 R (27 ER), 2.68 ERA, 23 BB, 83 K, 7 HR, 1.02 WHIP
And his number post-injury (regular season only) were:
19 GS, 6-5 record, 110.0 IP, 106 H, 55 R (52 ER), 4.26 ERA, 34 BB, 75 K, 15 HR, 1.27 WHIP
Still, Marcum managed to start 33 games in 2011 (winning 13 of them), but the season caught up to him eventually.
Despite all his overtures to the contrary, it was pretty apparent that something was wrong with Shaun Marcum this past October. He says he wasn’t injured, and while that must be true, he certainly wasn’t effective.
Now, all players go through certain periods of worse success than “usual”. Marcum is no exception and he and his coaches claim that all the 2011 postseason struggles were a result of one of those periods of ineffectiveness.
Those postseason numbers were:
3 GS, 0-3 record, 9.2 IP, 17 H, 16 R (all earned), 14.90 ERA, 5 BB, 5 K, 3 HR, 2.28 WHIP
Yikes.
I’m no pro scout or manager or baseball coach, but my educated eye saw some things that just lended themselves to the idea that Marcum was worn down. It wasn’t like the if the season lasted another two months that Marcum was going to pull out of that funk along the way.
His innings total (200.2) in just the regular season was the highest of his career. He had pitched through a couple of injuries during the regular season, not to mention the shoulder stiffness that he opened the spring with. The aforementioned hip injury was bad enough, but exactly one month late, on July 17, during a spectacular defensive play on a ball bunted to his right, Marcum bounded off the mound and spun while underhanding a throw to first base. That resulted in an official neck strain and likely an unofficial sore shoulder.
All of those things added up to a pitcher being put through a lot over 33 starts. To me, all signs pointed to physical exhaustion which coupled with a resultant mental exhaustion in the playoffs leading to the results on the field which we all remember far too vividly.
Much of that will fade with time, helped especially by Opening Day which of course is 18 days away from the day I’m writing this.
What will really help Brewers fans get over it, though, would be a duplication of last year’s early success out of Marcum.
As of this writing, that’s currently in mild jeopardy as Marcum has not yet appeared in a Cactus League game. There is still enough time to get him a handful of starts, but he needs to be to a certain pitch-count-based level of endurance before being ready to pitch in a regular season game.
That notwithstanding, the path in 2012 for the 6’0”, 195 pound, 30-year-old right-hander from Kansas City, Missouri is a relatively clear one. When healthy, be that on Opening Day or shortly at a point thereafter, he’ll be in the starting rotation. He’ll look to make 30+ starts and help lead the Milwaukee Brewers on a successful defense of their National League Central Division title, complete with a return trip to the postseason. It’s just that when Marcum last takes the mound in 2012, he’ll be anticipating much different results.
Let’s hope that by then, as fans, we’ll be able to anticipate a positive outcome as well instead of being haunted by the memories of opportunities squandered.
Holy Crap…
By: Big Rygg
If it’s been said once, it’s been said 1,000 times as it relates to baseball…
“Things even out in the end.”
We’ve had a few gems in the pitching duel department this year, to be sure. Well, tonight we had a good old fashioned slobberknocker, if I may.
14-12 was the final score. That’s a total of 26 runs scored, math majors. The Brewers were down by five runs more than once in this game and battled back to within striking distance and eventually take the lead. We had home runs, timely hitting and just enough pitching (including a nice bounce-back from future member of the Hall of Fame Trevor Hoffman).
All told, the Brewers bats appear to have finally stopped hitting the snooze button and gotten out of bed. Hopefully we can continue the momentum that we built up over the past 9 innings (which started during the White Sox series) through the rest of the month and into the dog days of summer.
Without going into every part of the box score…
Ryan Braun finished a double shy of the cycle. Prince Fielder hit his first career grand slam. Together Braun and Fielder drove in a combined 11 runs (5 and 6 respectively) which is only the 4th time in the last 30 years that the numbers 3 and 4 hitters in a lineup drove in 11 or more runs together in the same game. Helluva night.
The same CANNOT be said for Dave Bush (who trimmed the beard…big mistake) and Chris Narveson as they combined to give up 11 of the Crew’s 12 runs allowed. Mark DiFelice gave up the other as he threw the pitch that Travis Hafner deposited into the right-field bleachers allowing two of his teammates to trot around the bases in front of him. But hey…the pitchers will have an off night every now and then too. The offense wiill have to pick them up every now and then, and while you usually can’t and therefore don’t overcome a pitching staff that gives up 12…well, they did it tonight and that’s all that matters at the moment.
Big win. Nice confidence boost for the bats and hopefully we can stay out of the funk for a while that this team finds themselves in a little too often.
The team is now 2-6 in Interleague play this year. Hopefully we can ramp up the victories a bit and even that record up over these next few days.
One For Their Last One
By: Big Rygg
For all of the talk about the last several games played at Citizens Bank Ballpark by the Milwaukeee Brewers, things have changed..
No longer have the Brewers lost their last seven games in a row in Philadelphia (including playoffs). No longer is the last Brewer win in the city of brotherly love May 17, 2007. No longer have we only one won game in our last 11 at Philadelphia.
The script, as they say, has flipped.
Could this be related to the comments Ryan Braun made to the media after yesterday’s mess of a game? Perhaps. More likely, though, it was directly related to the change that Manager Ken Macha made by flip-flopping J.J. Hardy and Mike Cameron in the lineup. Cameron has been red hot and came through with a two-RBI hit that pushed our lead to 3-0 at the time. Hardy also had a pair of hits (including a solo home run) and was on base three times. Necessary move by Macha and very nice that he actually made that move. Does anyone reading this honestly believe that move gets made last year?
A few notes on the pitching from this one:
First, good start by Braden Looper. 107 pitches, 6.0 IP, 5 H, 2 BB, 0 R. It would have been very nice to see him get into the 7th inning. But the guy did his work in this one. The biggest gripe is that with no strikeouts and no runs scoring, you’d think 107 pitches would get you a bit deeper.
Second, the bullpen picked up Looper for his second win of the season by twirling 3 innings of relief. Mark DiFelice still carries a 0.00 ERA, Carlos Villanueva actually held a team scoreless in an appearance (despite falling behind hitters again) and although Todd Coffey made it interesting in the 9th, he still recorded his second save in as many appearances by working the 9th inning (including a strike out of Ryan Howard).
The downstream affects of this game?
First, we have the chance to win a series. Albeit a small chance if Cole Hamels remembers how to pitch by tomorrow afternoon, but a chance. You can’t win three-game series with a win in game 3 if you lose games 1 & 2. That math doesn’t work.
Second, it appears that we’ve found our 8th inning guy once Hoffman returns from the disabled list. Coffey is getting it done by using a simple philosophy: Make them hit the ball to beat you.
Third, shutouts breed confidence. Granted, we did give up the one run in the 9th, but the shutouts I’m talking about are Looper’s, DiFelice’s and (most importantly) Villanueva’s. Great news for those guys, especially against the offensive lineup of this Philly team.
So, we move on to tomorrow. Dave Bush is on the bump against Hamels.
…with a chance at a series victory.
Yes, baby steps, but steps in the right direction for a change!
Home Cooking
By: Big Rygg
In what is hopefully the first of 9 victories on this homestand, the Milwaukee Brewers defeated the Atlanta Braves by a score of 3-2 courtesy of a Mike Cameron walk-off sacrifice fly. It was one hell of an ending to an exciting game, if at times frustrating, game.
J.J. Hardy had a 3/4 night with two huge RBIs and recently maligned Bill Hall scored the winning run on the aforementioned sac fly. Pretty much every one contributed in some way, but probably the biggest story of the night goes to starting pitcher Dave Bush.
The night started out seemingly on a powder keg as Bush allowed a solo home run in each of the first two innings, one being a rookie’s first career homer. Those two runs, though, would be all the Braves would get off of Bush or any other Brewer pitcher for that matter. Recently acquired Julian Tavarez pitched a perfect 8th inning on 8 pitches and Salomon Torres worked around one hit in the 9th and earned the victory on Cameron’s walk-off.
All in all, a good night for the Brewers and hopefully the jumping off point for a strong homestand. The Brewers are, after tonight, a mere 3 games over .500 at home. Granted, they’ve only played a MLB-lowest 21 games at home, but even still, the Crew needs to pick it up. I’m very encouraged by the face that the Brewers now sit 2 games under .500 overall after having played 31 games on the road so far. That being said, if we pick up the pace on this homestand, we stand to be a few games over .500 by the end of it.
The Braves have won 6 games on the road all year. We need to exploit that. Houston is only one game over .500 on the road, so we can hopefully use that to our advantage. Arizona, who had the majors’ best record at one point this year, did most of that work at home where they are 19-9. Away from Chase Field, they are 11-13.
After the beginning of the year where we ran into everyone’s aces, things have turned a bit, at least during this homestand. We avoid Roy Oswalt when Houston comes to town (even though he’s been getting hit way above average so far this year). We avoid Brandon Webb when the Diamondbacks come to town. We’re going to avoid Tom Glavine while the Braves are here…
The point is, all nine of these games are winnable. We won one…let’s see how far we can take these next eight games.
Not the end of the world
“Houston, we have a problem.”
Yes, those words are probably clichéd out by this point, but they are fitting since the Brewers head into Houston tonight to face the Astros…but they’ll do it with a couple of changes on the big league roster.
One, that you’ve heard plenty about by now, isn’t a problem at all for most people. Derrick Turnbow was designated for assignment this morning (which basically means the Brewers have 10 days to trade him, assign him to the minors, or release him if he refuses the minor league assignment). Turnbow has supposedly gone on record that he’ll take the assignment and do his best to work out his issues in the minors. That’s a good thing, Milwaukee fans. Not only does it bring balance back to the roster by providing an extra bat off the bench that we’ve been lacking, but that man is versatile player Joe Dillon. I’m a Joe Dillon fan.
The driving force behind this article, however, was the other news that came out of Houston today regarding the Brewers…that the spill that Yovani Gallardo took yesterday afternoon in Chicago was not as harmless as we thought (especially after Gallardo stayed in the game, and then came back out to pitch the 6th even).
Gallardo has a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee (note: this is not the same knee that was surgically repaired this offseason and that kept Gallardo out for the first couple of weeks) which looks to sideline him at least a couple of months (though more likely for a while). They’ll know more about how long he’ll be out once the swelling subsides and they can examine it better.
The roster move I spoke of is the recalling of Dave Bush from Nashville, the same Dave Bush that struggled mightily out of the gates this year and had all of one AAA start to work out his issues (though he was, admittedly, throwing better in his most recent big league starts than his first couple before he went down). In that one start on April 30th, Bush twirled 6.0 IP, surrending only one earned run on 3 hits while walking 2 and striking out 7. The walks still bother me personally, but we don’t have a better option to take Gallardo’s place right now.
The Brewers as a whole scuffled through much of April offensively, and hopefully the bats are finally beginning to come alive. Scoring 19 runs in a series has got to feel good for a change. I don’t think that the team psychologically needs Gallardo like they apparently need a healthy Ben Sheets in order to perform well, but it’s got to be a bit of a blow to lose the (arguably) second best pitcher on your team for what could be the rest of the season.
Will the Brewers have a hangover from this? Only time will ultimately tell, but I think we’ll get a fair indication tonight in Houston.
Leave it a Chicago Scrub to injure one of the Brewers best and brightest. Let’s just hope that the rest of the team can pick things right back up (and yes, that includes Dave Bush).
Come on Crew! Keep the road winning trend alive! Let’s sweep the ‘Stros!!
Recent Comments