Rounding Third: 'Fall' is early in Milwaukee

Philadelphia, PA (SportsNetwork.com) - The eyes of the baseball world seem to be focused on the collapse of the Oakland Athletics.

Oakland may not own the best record in baseball anymore and probably won't win the American League West, but, as we write this, they still occupy one of the two wild card spots in the league.

And if I was a betting man, I'd probably still list them as one of the five teams to reach the playoffs in the AL.

Perhaps we should be paying more attention to another collapse going on in Milwaukee, where the Brewers can't seem to get out of their own way at the moment.

As bad as things have looked the past two weeks, Tuesday's setback to Miami may ultimately wind up being the death knell for the Brewers, a team, by the way, that spent over 150 days atop the National League Central.

For the first time in a what seems like forever, everything seemed to breaking Milwaukee's way on Tuesday. The St. Louis Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates, two teams they are chasing in the division, and the Atlanta Braves, who they are battling in the wild-card race, all lost and the Brewers had the bases loaded with no outs in the eighth inning of a tie game against the Marlins.

Well, Milwaukee somehow failed to score and closer Francisco Rodriguez imploded in the ninth, serving up a pair of home runs in the Brewers' 6-3 loss.

"Bases loaded and no outs, and we've got Rickie (Weeks), Gomey (Carlos Gomez), Scooter (Gennett) coming up," said Milwaukee skipper Ron Roenicke. "We should score a run."

It was the 13th loss in 14 games and 16th in 19 games for the Brewers and instead of pulling within a half game of the second wild-card leader Pittsburgh, they remained 1 1/2 games back, tied with Atlanta.

Milwaukee trails St. Louis by six games in the NL Central, a division it led by as many as three games as late as the middle of August.

To further put this free fall into perspective, the Brewers were 19 games above .500 toward the end of June and have fallen all the way to 74-71 with 17 games to go.

"I'm tired of coming in here and talking about a loss," Roenicke said. "We're playing hard, we're working hard, these guys are putting everything they can into it, and we keep coming up with the same results.

"That gets old. They'll be at it again tomorrow. They'll be playing hard again. And hopefully things go well. ... Things are going wrong for us, in all areas."

The two home runs allowed by Rodriguez gave him a career-high 14 on the season.

"He's just not locating all his pitches," Roenicke added. "He's getting some balls up in the zone. Obviously, the last two weeks he hasn't had very consistent work, but he's been around a long time and he knows what he's doing. He throws a bullpen (session) when he needs to, and things he needs to do to keep sharp.

"We should have had a lead going into that inning."

It's hard to pinpoint a culprit for the Brewers' collapse, but Rodriguez might be a good start, as he has now served up five home runs in his last six appearances.

"Miserable. That's the right word for this," Rodriguez said. "Disgusting. All the bad words you can put into it. Extremely disappointing."

K-Rod may have been wearing the goat horns on Wednesday, but he's far from alone in sharing the blame. The Brewers rotation has managed just a 1-11 mark with 6.69 ERA in the last 14 games.

Matt Garza certainly didn't help the cause on Tuesday in his second start since returning from a month on the disabled list with an oblique strain. Garza threw 48 pitches through the first two innings and was unable to pitch into the fifth.

"His pitch count got high early," Roenicke said. "He's got good stuff and they don't square up the ball just out of the zone, and they foul it off. So, he throws a lot of pitches."

It also hasn't helped that Ryan Braun hasn't been himself. Braun has been bothered by nerve problems in his right thumb since the first week of the regular season and is sporting a career-worst .794 OPS. The injury, which Roenicke now said is his entire hand, has contributed to the former NL MVP's .230 average since the All-Star break.

Nobody has missed Braun's bat more than third baseman Aramis Ramirez, who is hitting just .235 over the last 14 games. Also, the two runs he knocked in on Tuesday were his first since this stretch began.

"We're hoping it turns around, and it's got to turn around quick, because obviously it's getting (to) crunch time," infielder Scooter Gennett said.