Death, Taxes, and the Milwaukee Brewers

Ben Franklin once said that the only things certain in life are death and taxes. Ben never got to witness the Pirates play the Brewers in Miller Park and he might say that a loss to the Brewers might be just as inevitable.

As I write this, the Brewers are batting in the bottom of the 8th and the bullpen is doing it's best to make things worse than they already were. I don't know what more can be said about this fiasco that is the Pirates versus the Brewers. In lieu of saying anything more than needs to be said about this game, I just point to the table below, that shows the totals of the National League teams against the Pirates' pitching staff, from 2007 coming into today:

TEAM	Runs	Hits	HR	BB	SO	AVG	OPS
Milwaukee Brewers	291	492	67	177	302	.311	.930
Arizona Diamondbacks	158	261	36	105	180	.290	.870
Colorado Rockies	131	229	28	64	154	.292	.842
Chicago Cubs	285	499	52	190	283	.295	.834
New York Mets	112	204	18	79	94	.293	.812
Philadelphia Phillies	95	158	19	85	126	.261	.807
Los Angeles Dodgers	135	244	18	86	121	.290	.796
St. Louis Cardinals	252	506	46	164	282	.291	.793
Houston Astros	217	465	35	186	277	.284	.781
Cincinnati Reds	265	521	61	191	306	.269	.778
Atlanta Braves	95	199	21	71	122	.278	.769
Washington Nationals	96	194	18	73	127	.271	.766
San Francisco Giants	91	187	16	59	120	.269	.765
Florida Marlins	77	157	19	44	126	.260	.745
San Diego Padres	85	172	19	77	122	.248	.737

Just the simple act of me copying and pasting that table, gave the Brewers four more runs thanks to Casey McGhee. To see the reasons as to why the Brewers have been so dominant, just look to the number of runs, hits, home runs, average, and OPS. The Brew Crew is at the top or close to it in every category. The OPS blows everyone else out of the water. The batting average alone is enough to make one cringe. You would expect the hitters paradises of Arizona and Colorado to be up there, but Milwaukee is making it look too easy.