Wisconsin Sports on the go with Trag

October 15 Hour 1: Brewers and some Badgers

• Tragen • Episode 344

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A week this bumpy deserves straight talk. We open with the Brewers and a simple truth: you can’t win October games by abandoning the thing that got you here. For months, Milwaukee thrived on patience, pressure, and situational hitting. Then came LA’s aces, and the chase crept in. We break down how disciplined at-bats—not moonshots—flip a series, why veteran presence matters in the box, and how a single Freeman swing and a Betts walk show the blueprint the Brewers must copy. We also tackle the Bryce Turang HBP firestorm with a clear lens: it’s not about absorbing 85 to the shin, it’s about swinging at the next pitch out of the zone. The fix isn’t mystical. It’s approach.

We don’t duck the noise, either. The Cubs L-flag outrage? Say it out loud: rivalries need edge. Fans can fume; that’s fuel. What matters between the lines is identity. Can Milwaukee find it on the road? They were strong away all season, and a hostile park can sharpen focus. We map a realistic path to two wins in LA—work counts, create traffic, play small ball, and let your leaders lead. If Yelich and Contreras grind the early at-bats, the lineup breathes. If not, the sweep writes itself.

Then it’s Badger football—where frustration turned into something worse. We talk culture, accountability, and why the program’s “default setting” under stress looks empty right now. This isn’t about one game; it’s about what recruits and locker rooms see when the plan breaks. Finally, a quick Packers pulse: what the Bengals win told us, and how the Cardinals matchup sets up. Hit play for a candid, no-fluff look at Wisconsin sports: what’s real, what’s noise, and what must change now. If this episode fired you up, follow, share with a friend, and drop a rating—what’s your fix for Milwaukee’s offense?

SPEAKER_00:

This is Wisconsin Sports on the Go with Trade. Your place for all things Wisconsin Sports. Now, your host, Trage.

SPEAKER_01:

How are we doing, everybody? And welcome in to Wisconsin Sports on the Go with Trade. I'm your host, Trage, as we come back here on this October 15th. Here, I actually, for the first time, this is the first time, I'm having uh having plumbing issues at my house. So I get to shoot this thing day of. I usually don't get to shoot it day of because I'm usually at work right now. I got some plumbing issues right now. As you guys know, I'm an electrician. I attempted plumbing. It went disastrous. That's all I'm gonna say on the matter right now. So get a plumber coming to fix my uh fix my messes. I you know what? After a while, it's just like I'm done with this. I I can maybe possibly, you know, there's probably a 20% chance I can figure this one out myself. And I just said, ah, I'm gonna call, I'm gonna call a professional. I'm gonna call a professional to come in and do it. So that's that's what's happening today. So I am uh shooting to on on the day of today here for the first time. So that's awesome. That's awesome. Do here where I get the uh reactions of day of, not day before. Things, you know, can happen overnight, stuff like that. So it's sweet to you know be able to do a day of here today. So we have lots to dive into. Lots to dive into, not a lot of good. I'm gonna be honest with you. There's not a lot of good. Badger football. Wow. I didn't think they could get lower. I'm gonna be honest with you. I did not think the this badger football team, this program could drop lower. I thought they hit rock bottom. I didn't know there was a lower than rock bottom, but they found it. So we're gonna talk about that. Sadly, Christian's not here yet. He's just he's out in North Dakota right now hunting ducks. So he will not be here uh for this one. So he's gonna become back next week. He I texted him, I'm like, well, you missed out on a good one today. We have lots to get into. And he's like, there's nothing I want to talk about right now with badger football. And I don't think there's a lot of people that want to talk about badger football. We're gonna look at it a little bit here today on the show. Bad brewer. We're gonna talk brewers. Bad, there's some bad. There's some bad talk about brewers, right? We haven't talked since last Wednesday, so they did advance, right, to the NLCS, but the start of this NLCS has been very lackluster. So we're gonna talk about that today. We got to get into the Brewers, look about our thoughts uh with that Packer talk today. Umr's gonna stop by. We're gonna talk some Packers, got the win against the Bengals, look ahead to the Cardinals. So we're gonna look at that. We got some badger basketball talk to get to. Kyle's gonna stop by with some NFL talk. We got a whole boatload of things to dive into today. Some some good, but a lot of bad there. So, right off the bat, right off the bat. This last week, weekend, I guess you could say. Okay, so to start, I to start, this is where my I'm gonna go with my frustrations off the weekend. This is my frustrations in the sporting world coming off the weekend. Number one, I had, and this I I think a lot of people, I don't know if this it confused me more than well, both these things actually confused me. They kind of baffled me. So after the Brewers beat the Cubs, they posted a well, they they posted their pictures, you know, whatever. They did their pictures uh with the team on the field. And, you know, they had some of their flags from their countries and stuff, and then uh that somebody in the crowd, so this is this is what happened from what as far as I heard. Somebody in the crowd had an L flag up in the crowd. Jake Bowers ran over, he grabbed it, took it down, asked them if he could use it. They're like, Yeah, you can use it. He's like, Don't worry, I'll bring it right back. Ran it down, handed it around to the players. Nobody wanted to hold it. Well, then Trevor McGill, who was cut by the Cubs, held it up, held it up in the back of the picture. And Cub fans, baseball fans, lost their minds. They lost their minds. I didn't really understand why, to be honest with you. And it's still going on. This this picture is still, you know, after the Brewers lost these first two games to the Dodgers, the picture still surface. Like, oh, the curse of the L flag, the curse of the L flag. Should have never done it. This is what you get for doing it. Who cares? Like, I if it's a curse of the L flag, we need to cut that out, right? We need to get rid of that next. No more of that L flag crap. If this is what happens when you do it, like I'm I'm all in for superstition and stuff, but I mean listening to the fans, and then it even I thought it was just the fans at first that were kind of upset about it. Then the media took it. And I was listening to some Chicago shows, and they were complaining, saying, Oh, it was classless. It was classless. Grow up. That's what I made a post on Facebook. If you guys didn't read it, or if you maybe read it, if you didn't, check it out there. Wisconsin Sports on the Go with Trade on Facebook there. I just said I'm like, basically, this is what baseball, this is what sports need. They need players to not like each other. We've become this, these leagues have become, oh, well, we're all friends with each other. We really don't care if we win or lose. It's not so bad when we lose because our buddies are there. It's all right, we'll move on with life. You know, when William Contreras was talking about after they, you know, lost that series to the Mets last year, there was guys who were smiling. Oh, now I can go fishing kind of thing. That that's the way that sports have gone. This isn't the like Michael Jordan, I hate everybody league anymore. This is a league now and every fast of sports where guys just there, there is no toughness anymore. It doesn't seem like to me, in my opinion. So to have this, have this spark of fire. I hope it does. I really do. I hope this sparks a fire. It causes some turmoil between Pat Murphy and Craig Council. It causes some problems between that roster and this roster. It ticks off that fan base even more. It ticks off this, well, you know, whatever. I hope it does. That's the juice you want in sports. That's the rivalry, a true rivalry. I've said it for years. I don't believe you look at the NBA, you know, they try to push uh like the Celtics and Lakers. They're like, oh yeah, the rivalry, renew it, renew it. It's not there. Nobody cares. It's not a rivalry anymore. There's nobody that absolutely just despises anybody else anymore. In the NFL, there might be some guys who are despised, and there might be, you know, some disliked players out there, but I still don't think there's, you know, team fans want to believe the rivalry's there. The players don't. And that's where I want, I I I truthfully want sports to get back to is rivalries, dislike, wanting to just go out there and just trash them and just beat them on the field, not in the stands, because you want to call it classless. Fine. When the when the Milwaukee Brewer fans and players went down to Chicago, you think everything was just classy, nice, sophisticated, good conversations, no, no trouble, anything like that. I've heard so many stories about you know Cup fans coming up here and just completely running their mouths and just being, you know, absolute, just obnoxious when they were down in Milwaukee. But oh, the Brewers hold an L flag on the field, and my feelings are hurt. My feelings are hurt. I just I was baffled. I really was. And you know what? If they want to use it as ammunition now to say, oh, well, it's you know, uh, it's bad luck that you did it, and now this is why you're losing. This is what's causing us to cheer for the Dodgers in this series. Fine. I don't, sure, great, I don't care. Like the rest of America is for the Brewers, Chicago and LA, they want the Dodgers. That's kind of where it's at right now. And then there's those random fans out there. You know, there's those random people that have nothing to do with the Cubs or anything like that that just get in on it and they're like, oh yeah, that was classless. They're like, you don't even have a like you don't even know, like you're a Philly fan. What do you want? Like, you guys, you guys are class, like, stop it, stop it. So, I mean, it's just yeah, that that irritated me. So, anyway, I want to hear you guys' opinion. What did you guys think about the whole L flag thing? I mean, were you did you find it to be classless or was it whatever? I mean, I found it as whatever, basically, but there is a lot of people still blowing up about it across social media, so I figured I'd bring it up today. Because I thought it'd get, you know, Saturday, I was like, okay, everybody's blowing up about it. Sunday, I was like, okay, I thought it would just be done. No, it's still going on. So it's it's like people still care this much that the brewers did this. Their feelings are still this hurt. Why don't you care that your team just blew like lost the series? Why don't you care? Why don't you care that your roster is paid X amount of dollars more than the roster up in Milwaukee? You pay you took the manager from the Milwaukee Brewers and made him your manager to specifically be able to go in back and beat the Milwaukee Brewers. And you still can't do it. Why don't you worry about that? Why are you so worried about a flag on a field? That's how low you are right now. That is how low you're you're nitpicking now. You're nitpicking, you're frustrated, and you're trying to find those little reasons to be upset at the world, and you found one. That that is your thing right now. Fine. If that's what you want to be upset about, that's what you be want to be upset about. But then nothing's gonna get fixed. That's for sure. That's right. And you're a fan, so you're not like it's you're gonna you're gonna fix it, but it you're worried about the wrong things right now if that L flags the thing that you're worried about in Chicago. So that was happening over the weekend. And then flash forward game one of the NLCS. The Brewers, and we're gonna get into it, but they have this this is not Brewer Baseball. I I can speak for everybody watching this. This is not what we've watched for 170, whatever games now. I mean, this is what what would it be? 162? They played five in the NLDS, so 167. They played 169 games or something like that. 170. If I did the math right, I don't know if they did the math right. But, anyways, this is not brewer baseball. And we watched game one. The Brewers put a late effort together. Sasaki came in, Snell was pulled. Snell pitched fantastic. Sasaki came in, got the first out. Collins walked, worked a good count. Well, Collins walked, Jake Bowers, pinch hits, big double. That was huge. Second and third, one out. Jackson Cheerio's coming up. And Jackson Cheerio swings first pitch. As he does, but Chase is in on the hands. And he took a pitch that was in on the hands and tried to shoot it in right center. Well, not a whole lot of pop going into right center from in on the hands. You had to really get it. And he hit it in the air, sack fly. There you go. Two outs. Contreras comes up. Oh no, it should have been Yelitch then. Yelich draws the walk, right? Yelich draws the walk. And then so yeah, it was Yelitch Drew the Walk there. Yelitch Drew the Walk, set it up for Tarang. Right? That's that's how it went down with Yelitch Drew the Walk, set it up for Tarang. Tarang has not, and he'd be the first one to tell ya, has not had the greatest of postseasons in his mind, in anyone's mind, he knows it. Everybody knows it. He has not had a great postseason. Oh yeah, Collins Collins came in to score. So so it was it was Yellich walked. Collins came in to score on the sack fly by Jackson Curio. Bowers ended up at third. And then uh Lockridge ended up at third. Lockridge came in a pinch run, and then we saw Yelich walk, and then we saw Contreras walk. There you go. So that set up Tarang. Tarang was in the cleanup spot. So there you go. That's the scenario that it played out. Tarang has not had a good postseason. He'll tell you that. Everybody knows that. We've all seen it. Now there's a lot of reasons behind that. We're gonna get into a lot of reasons behind the Brewers. Just a lot of these hitters stinking in the postseason right now. But Tarang comes up, and there was a that pitch that win, it went right at his shins. Shin kneecap area, right at the bottom of his legs. And he dives out of the way. Ball gets Smith ends up snagging it, ball doesn't get by. Tarang, next pitch, swings, swings at a pitch that's two feet above the strike zone, strikes up. Inning over, game over, brewers lose, two to one. They come back, fall short. And I thought, okay, I'm gonna go on to Twitter. Because I, you know, I've been avoiding Twitter during the games because you know it's been absolutely terrible to watch. I don't want to read people, you know, completely blow up, except for Grant Bills. He's had some funny ones on uh Twitter as of late. But anyways, I go on to Twitter and every single reaction that I'm seeing, and there's articles out there saying that if the Brewers fail to win this series, Bryce Tarang jumping out of the way of that ball in game one will haunt them forever. He will be the reason they failed. There was an article, I saw an article that said that. He was basically the reason why if they if they lost it, that they he would be the failure. His failure to stand there and get hit. I don't know. I I am I honestly kind of baffled by this one. It baffled me, it really did. When you see a ball or an object, I guess, coming at you at 80 plus miles per hour. It was a sweeper, it was coming in. According to the ESPN, it was uh 85 miles per hour. So you have a sweeper coming at you at 85 miles per hour. Your initial reaction when it's coming at your shin or knee is to just let it hit you? Not even attempt to get out of the way, just let it hit you. Like, I I don't understand, and maybe I'm crazy to think this, but the natural reaction of a person would be to get out of the way. So Bryce Tarang even says, Oh yeah, looking back on it, I wish I would have stood there and took it. Sure, sure. I don't know. I feel like if you took 85 to the shin, I feel like that would hurt. I don't know if it breaks anything, but I feel like it's gonna hurt a lot of bit. So I feel like most people are gonna get out of the way. I have no, and this might be just me, and I want to hear your guys' opinion on that one too. 715-990-4914. That is 715-990-4914. Let me know your thoughts on this. I don't know about you, but I don't, I am not upset that Bryce Turan got out of the way of that ball. I'm not. Not at all. No. Because honestly, the way that the trajectory of the ball going down, sweeper, it's a sweeper. It's coming through the zone, going out, going towards him. If it just travels a little bit further away from Will Smith, the ball gets back to the backstop. Ends up with Lockridge scoring, and he doesn't have to get hit by a pitch in the shin. But he moves out of the way, takes it. Now we're looking at a 2-2 count. And the next pitch was ball three by a mile. If it was called strike, I Pat Murphy should have been tossed out. The game was over, but he should have been tossed up for the next game after that. This pitch was a good foot or two above the zone, and he took a hack. He was jumping and he took a hack. You want to be upset at Bryce Tarang? Be upset that he took a hack at that pitch. Not that he jumped out of the way of a ball coming at his shins. Because nobody, and I mean nobody, all of us couch watchers and coaches and what are they, couch coaches, they call them, or whatever. Nobody that's over there behind the keyboard, typing, typing, typing, is gonna stay on there and take, oh yeah, just take one for the team. Yeah, take one for the team. In hindsight, sure, take one for the team. When it's coming at your back or maybe your thigh, a little bit easier to just say, take one for the team. When it's coming at your leg, ankle area, anything below the knee, kneecap, and below, it's a little bit of a different story down there. Oh yeah, like here, here's a hype. What if it was going at his head? Would you have just said, oh, just turn your head, take it. Just take it, take it off the head, Bryce. You'd been fine. You'd been fine. Is that where we are as Brewer fans? As fans? Is that word pointing a finger and saying that's the reason why they lost that game? If that's why you think they lost that game, go re-watch the game. Go watch innings one through eight and tell me that that was the reason why they lost. You want to know what? You can put it just on Jackson Churio too. You want to blame things in this game? Blame it on Jackson Churio in there too. After Bowers doubled to set up a second and third with one out, Jackson Curio swung at the first pitch and popped out. Gave the Dodgers hope that they could get out of that inning without without having to deal with extra pressure. You want to blame anybody? You can blame him too. You can blame Christian Yelitz for not doing anything. You can blame William Petraris for not doing anything in this game. But you want to go and blame Bryce Durang for that situation. That spot. Whatever. Whatever. If that's where you are as a Brewer fan right now, as a fan of this, you're just, you're, you're, you're no better than the Gub fans complaining about an L-Flag right now. You're just looking for reasons to complain. But you're not even looking. You're not even looking. You're just zeroing in on one spot because that was the final out. You didn't look further into the game, what led up to that. All you did was looked at that final out and said, Yep, that's why they lost. Sure. If that's what you want to believe, that's what you want to believe. But my thing, my opinion on it is if you if that's where you're at, you need to look further back into that game and say that Bryce Tarangit bat could not have been the final because he dove out of the way of a pitch coming at his shins, cannot be the difference between a win and a loss. It can't be. That can't be the win. That can't be the difference. It can't be. So yeah, that's where I'm at with that. Oh man, fired up. Fired up here. Fired up on this Wednesday. We have a whole lot to get into. The Brewers are just beginning to fire us up. We got brewer talk to get to. We're gonna go to the Brewers next. We got badger football later on to talk about. We got Packers. We got Badger basketball. All kinds of stuff to dive into tonight here on the show. Make sure you're coming back. Wisconsin Sports on the Go with Trage. Hour number one of two is just getting rolling. We'll be back here after this Wisconsin. Wisconsin Sports on the Go with Trage. I'm your host, Trage, as we come back here on this Wednesday. And I thought, you know, that song was fitting. We're talking some brewers coming up here. I thought that song was fitting to roll back into it. But this next segment, we're gonna talk some brewers here. This next segment is brought to you by 1891 Winery. They celebrate history with flavor, sip on artisan wines crafted on location, or grab a cold beer and pair it with giant pretzel or pizza. They got all kinds, it's a great atmosphere. It is a fantastic atmosphere down there. They got big TVs, they got live music, they have they plan special events down there. Maybe you want something private. Maybe, maybe you're planning something private. You need a location. Check them out there. Call them out there. 1891 Winery there in Greenwood, Wisconsin. They're fantastic. The people down there at Fantastic. Nothing better than getting yourself some fantastic wine, some great beer, hanging out with friends, watching the Brewers, hopefully, come back in this series. Packers, Badgers, anything like that. Check them out there. 1891 Winery. So we went to the break. Top of the show. I was kind of just the things that irritated me off the weekend. And you know what? I want to hear your guys' opinion on anything that we come up with tonight here on the show. 715-990-4914. That is 715-990-4914. I'd love to hear you guys' thoughts on the Bryce Tarang thing, him dodging that pitch in game one. I want to hear your thoughts on the L flag from the Cubs series because that's still a big topic going around right now. It's still a lot of people talking about it across social media. So I want to, you know, just hear your thoughts on that. And I want to hear your thoughts on anything happening, Packers, Badgers, Brewers, anything like that. Hit me up. 715-990-4914. That is 715-990-4914. Check us out across social media. Hit us up across social media. Like, subscribe, follow across all uh platforms. That would be awesome. So, brewer talk. Let's get into it. This series. The way that I want to see it because it's gonna make me feel better. The way that I want to see it is this series is starting out like the brewer season started out. The way that this year started for the Milwaukee Brewers, the series that was against the Yankees, it was like all hope was lost. There's no functionality of this team. This team seems to have no identity, they they don't know what they want to do yet. The pitching's suspect at times, the hitting's even worse. They they're giving up bombs left and right. It just is a problem. And then got to, you know, went through that first little third of the season or whatever, found their stride, started rolling. Now you don't have you know a third of a season to figure this one out here. You know, you have five games left, hypothetically, to get back in the series and win the series if you're gonna do it and advance the world series for the first time in ever, right? Not ever since 1982, but I think it's been what 43 years since the last time they went to the World Series. I think if I did the math right there, whatever it is. So I mean, it just been a hot minute. It's been a hot minute for this Milwaukee Brewers team. And to get back there, the path to get back there, it seems like, okay, what do they have to do? We could sit here and we could complain about the first stretch of the series, and there's a lot of things to look at. A lot of things to look at. The guy I start with, and I've had this conversation with everybody, and I know this is going to be a broken record because it seems like we talk about this every year when it comes to postseason time. Christian Yelich. I don't know if it's it's when he got naked on that magazine cover or what, but ever since then, and no, it's I think it's was that before or after he broke his kneecap? I have no idea. But ever since then, ever since 2018, he hasn't had an RBI in the postseason. That's crazy. And he hasn't had a hit in the postseason since game three of the NLDS when he let off the game with a double. That's a bad, that's that's you look at that number and you say, okay, I see so many people. Don't miss, don't forget that he had a good year before this, right? Don't forget that he he got back to form in the regular season. So now it's like, oh, well, you know, don't just give him crap just because you can, because he's down right now. This is when we need him. I get if it's not hits, right? I I get if it's not hits, and that's what I've told everybody. You know, I've I've mentioned this to a lot of people. I get if it's not hits, right? Maybe the ball's just not falling. I understand that. He's not putting productive at bats together. They're not even competitive. He goes up there, he watches a strike down the middle, and then swings that two in the dirt, and he's done. That's a legit at bat from Christian Yelits right now is him walking up to the plate and walking back to the dugout within three to four pitches. Good morning, good afternoon, good night. See you later. Blake Snell was dealing. Yamamoto had a great game. But when your guy, the guy who and I'm not, I don't want to get into this big old contract thing or anything like that, but the guy who makes your money, the big guy, right? You signed him up, you wanted him here long term, he was the he's the face of the franchise. You need superstars when you get into the postseason. You need your stars to be at their brightest right then. You don't have that right now. You want to talk about what's going on in games one and two of the postseason, or of this NLCS, should I say? Sorry. Of this NLCS. Freddie Freeman hit a solo shot off of Chad Patrick. And everybody, I I don't even understand sometimes. I I watch, I don't even understand the complaints from some people. Chad Patrick has been nothing but fantastic in the postseason, and I know he's been used a decent amount, so I'm not gonna say, like, because I've had this problem all season long with the overusage of pitchers. I'm not gonna say Chad Patrick hasn't been used a lot and maybe overused, but you had Chad Patrick come in, give up a home run to Freddie Freeman. Then, I mean, he pitched, he pitched fine after that. Like he was, he was, it was not like it was terrible. The Freddie Freeman home run should not have been the difference in this game, but it was. But it was a star doing something in the postseason. Nothing was going right. The Brewers pitching was going. I mean, they were giving up hits, they were giving up base runners, but they were working their way out of uh inning, working their way out of bad situations. And Freddie Freeman walked in and he hit a moonshot to write. A big moment, having a moment in the postseason. You need your star, you need a bona fide star to have a moment. And the Brewers haven't had that. And we could sit here and we can say, oh, Bryce Tarang's supposed to be the guy to have that moment. Or Sal Freelick, have that moment, Sal. Caleb Durbin, have that moment. Yes, in hindsight, yes. They Bryce Tarang had a great regular season. You would think that he should be able to find in the postseason. Right. Same with Sal. These guys haven't been here before. The Dodgers are showing you in this series because when I watch this series right now, I'm not saying that the Dodgers are winning this series because they're better than the Milwaukee Brewers. They have, I think they have more stars, sure. Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Shoei Otani, Suzaki is a worldwide star right now. Um, Max Mur uh Max Max Muncie is a well-known guy. Uh, you can go around Tiaska Hernandez was in the uh home run derby last year. The bullpen is terrible, but the starting pitching staff, you have Blake Snell, you have Tyler Glass now, Shohei's back in there now, you have Yamamoto. There's a lot of stars on that team. But I still don't believe when I watch this thing, and you might call me crazy. I don't believe that the Dodgers are really beating the Brewers right now because they're that much better. I believe they're beating the Brewers because the Brewers are beating themselves. They get into these games like this, where the Brewers they found ways all season long, have found ways to win games, win games like this, the two to one loss they had, found get ways to come back in games like they had in game two. They have gone away from everything. And when I look at what Christian Yelich has been doing for this Brewers team in this postseason, and postseason past, but in this postseason, he's gotta be a guy where you can throw him in there. And I don't care if he's my star. I need him to give me a competitive at-bat. Go up there and give me an at-bat to work a count. You know, nine or eight, nine, ten pitches. Work a guy. Give Blake Snell some trouble. Let, you know, if Bryce Turang's batting behind you or Contreras, let him see every pitch that he's got in his arsenal. Work him, work him a little bit. Make him throw you a mistake. But you're chasing. And that's the problem with this whole lineup right now for the Milwaukee Brewers. They're chasing pitches. That's all this team had one of the lowest chase rates all season long. And they get into this series and they're chasing everything. The approach isn't there. So, yes, when I say that I don't believe that this Dodgers team is that much better. Do I think they have more stars? You're dang right I do. Do I think they have more power? You're dang right I do. But don't go me wrong, I don't believe that this Brewers team can't beat the Dodgers. They did it six times in the regular season. Now it's regular season versus postseason. It's different, right? It's all different. Sure. Sure. But the Dodgers were chasing, trying to, you know, lock up a one seed. Get away. Not well, at that point, the Brewers were stretching it out a little bit. But the Dodgers were trying to play for a division win. They were trying to still win that division over the Padres and everybody else who was still in contention at that point there, when the Brewers ended up playing them. I believe it was in between the all-star break there. This Brewers team can beat this Dodgers team. But you need your stars to be your stars. And I'm not, I don't want to give a hall pass to guys like Bryce Tarang or William Contreras, guys like that. I don't. Jackson Cherry, I don't want to give hall passes to them. They all look lost at the plate. But Christian Yellich is my leader of my baseball team. He's the leader. That's how we've seen him. That's how he's spoken about. That's we talked, they talk to him after every single game. He is the leader of this team. The leader of the clubhouse, the locker room, whatever you want, you know, the clubhouse down there. He's the leader. And for him to have the performances that he's doing with the lackluster plate appearances, that's where we're at. Tarang will go up there and battle a little bit. He'll go five, six pitches. Now is he coming away with hits? No, not at all. He came away with one last uh last night. Tonight, last night, last night, Tuesday night. Oh, the games are all going together at this point. Contreras, I think there's guys up there right now, in my opinion, who are being overly aggressive. They're trying to get it all back. They're not playing Brewer baseball. They are so far away from playing the baseball that got them to this point. That is another problem that we're having, that we're seeing right now with this team. They are getting away from playing Brewer baseball. Small ball. Putting the ball in play. Trying to making the defense make the mistakes. The little things, floating balls out there. These guys are going up there, and Contreras is trying to make he's trying to put it out in the parking lot every single at bat. Would it be awesome? Yes. But you gotta wait for those moments. You play for those moments. You gotta bat in situations. Situational hitting has been great for the Brewers this year. Because, as I believe it was Blake Perkins said after game one of the NLDS, he He said this team is so good at knowing what they got to do, what we have to do in situations. Whether it's a guy like you know, Sal or Tarang, they love if a guy works a long count in front of them, like say Blake Perkins worked a 12 pitch at bat, and then Sal came up, Sal would look first pitch to swing. Why? He expects them to make a mistake because they're overtaxed after that last at bat. They're just trying to get back into the zone. Maybe they walked that guy, they just want to get back into the zone. They're gonna attack that first pitch. They've seen guys, you know, get out all game long, chasing pitches. What do they go up there and do? They make you throw a strike. But this Brewers team, especially in this series here, that is the exact opposite of what's happening. For some reason, they're trying to become this power-hitting team. And I don't know if it's because the national narrative has said it or what it is, but this team has tried to steer into a different path of the way they want to play and the way that they want to try to win baseball games. And it ain't gonna, it's not gonna happen like that. It's not. If this team wants to get back into this series, if they want to get, we're gonna talk about this in a minute here, but if they want to get back into this series, they have to find a way to just play Brewer baseball again. The bats aren't feeling it. It's gonna be hard to go on the road and win a game, win multiple games, because now you have to win not just either game three or four, you have to win game five, too. You're down two nothing. You have three games in LA. I find it silly that you have to play three games in LA in a row. I would think you'd go two, two, one-one, one. That's what I would do. I would go two in Milwaukee, two in LA, come back to Milwaukee for game five, go back out there for game six, come back uh to Milwaukee for game seven if needed. That's where I would go with it. I don't know why. I don't know if did this change or I've I've talked to a couple different people about it, and I don't know if anybody has the uh like why they do it that way. That's the way I would do it because I mean, now backs against the wall, you have to go play three games in LA and then come back home. Maybe it helps them. I don't know. But right now, where this team is at, you need guys, and that's why I'm so I I don't want to seem like, oh, I'm just this Christian Yelich hater because that's you know the narrative that they like to push across on people who say things like this. I don't want to make it seem like I'm this big old Christian Yelich hater. But at this very moment, I need Christian Yelich to be Christian Yelich. I need him to go up there and slap me an opposite field head and get a rally going every once in a while. Make Blake Snell pitch out of the stretch, make Yamamoto pitch out of the stretch. Blake Snell pitched out of the stretch for five pitches in game one. You want to talk about letting a pitcher get comfortable? I know he's good. I know he's great. He can be fantastic. He can pitch like a Cy Young. He's been like that since his last like five starts now. He's been fantastic. I'm not saying he can't. But this Brewers team needs to find ways to force these pitchers into what they've been doing all season, forcing pitchers and opposing teams into uncomfortable situations and try and capitalize on that. And the one thing, the biggest thing they haven't been able to do in this series is do that. And I look at guys like Yellich, like Contreras, like a guy, I don't even want to say like Andrew Vaughn, I don't even know if you can like Andrew Vaughn hasn't been terrible. But all these guys, I mean, you could you could blame them all. You could go and blame them all. But when I talk about my leaders, my guys who are supposed to be the leaders in my clubhouse, I need those guys to set the tone. Because they're the stars. They're the stars for a reason. You keep them around long term for a reason. Because when postseason baseball rolls around, I can't run. You want your rookies to have moments. They're gonna have moments of good, great stuff happening for them. But like I said, a Freddie Freeman home run. A friend Freddie Freeman's been doing it for how many years now? And he's killed Brewers for how many years now. But Freddie, a Freddie Freeman home run in that in that uh sixth inning there, the top of the sixth. That set the tone. And then you saw Mookie Betts have a fantastic at-bat and draw walk against Abni Aribe, drawing another run. It's not just about hits, too. It's about having good at bats. Like Mookie Betts did there to draw in or to bring in that run that ultimately was the deciding factor in that entire game. But that's veterans doing veteran things. And I think right now, the biggest thing with the Brewers, they do not have that. They don't have veterans being good in this moment. You need your guys to step up and be great, to show moments, flashes of greatness. And Freddie, I mean, Freddie didn't pitch terrible. He didn't pitch terrible at all. I don't think he was the leading catalyst of why they lost in game two. And you look at game one, I don't I I'm near eBay walked a guy, sure. Walked in a run. He can't have that. Hindsight being 2020, yeah. That was the end of the world. It also would have changed what the bottom of the ninth might have looked like. But I I'm looking at this team right now and I'm saying to myself, I need my vets to go out there and deliver. That's where I'm at right now with this team. I know there's a lot of other things that need to happen. I know you can't just say, oh, well, you could put it all on the back of him. I know that. I'm not saying to, but I'm saying when I'm watching his at-bats right now, he's not even giving me competitive at bats. So if he's supposed to be the leader, when he's doing that, when he's throwing together at bats like that, man, you don't feel good as the rest of your team. You don't your rest of your team doesn't feel good watching that. So yeah, that's kind of where I'm at right now. That's kind of where I'm at watching, watching what I'm seeing right now. So we're gonna dive, we're gonna keep with the brewers. Coming back from the break here. We're gonna keep with the brewers. We're gonna touch into badge of football a little bit. Then next hour, we're gonna talk Packers. We got all kinds of stuff to get to yet today here on the show. So make sure you guys are coming back here. Wisconsin Sports on the Go with Trade. Just getting going here. We're sticking around. Stick around. We got Brewer Baseball, more talk coming back. I'm your host, Trade. As we come back here on this Wednesday. I hope you guys are enjoying your Wednesday here. This next segment, we're gonna talk, we're gonna keep with the brewers, talk a little by address here, possibly, before we get to the uh end of this first hour, getting into the second hour. But this next segment is brought to you by Casa M Spice, the low sodium, clean label, no fillers, no MSG. This stuff is fantastic. I know I probably said low sodium. I probably lost half of you. You're like, ah, well, low on salt. I need that flavor. I need that salt. I don't know what they did to make this fantastic seasoning, but you don't need the salt. I promise you. I promise you. You can put the stuff on anything: ribs, burgers, steaks, eggs. I put it on my eggs this morning. Put it on your eggs, bacon, anything in between, chicken. You got some vegetables to season up, throw it on there. And not ice cream, probably not ice cream, but so many different flavors, so many different combinations to work through. You gotta check them out there. Casa M. Spice. Get it in all your Ace Hardwares. Get it down at Foreman's Hardware across in Kobe, Loyal, or Medford, Wisconsin. There. You can also check them out, Twitter, Facebook, anywhere in between, Casa M. Spice. Search them up. You can find them there and get yourself some of the great seasoning from our friends down there at Casa M Spice. So winter the break. We're talking brewers and we're talking just kind of some of the things that we've seen in this series, some of the problems, right? I mentioned, I mentioned Christian Yelich and it gets on a lot of people's nerves, right? And if you have any comments, uh questions, anything like that you want to talk about tonight here on the show, hit me up. 715-990-4914. That is 715-990-4914. I understand it touches a nerve when everybody has to pick on Yelich. I get that. It touches a nerve with a lot of people. But in a series like this, you need your guys, your superstars, your stars to be at their best, to be something competitive in this series. And I am just so sick of the looking like I'm sad and moping, don't really care, no fire. There's just, it doesn't seem like there's a lot there. And it's just irritating me at this point. So that's why I hold him really accountable because he is a leader in that clubhouse. And to see him walk to the walk from, he's a DH, so he doesn't really do anything all game long except for hits. So he walks from the dugout, walks up, takes three pitches, strikes out, walks back over the dugout. Wouldn't you be upset if that was your guy? Right? Because all these players, all these guys on this team, that's their leader. That's the guy who's been there before, right? You look back, who is the the only three guys who were on this roster when the Brewers last went to the NLCS? Brandon Woodruff, Freddie Peralta, Christian Yelitsch. That was it. Everybody else is gone. Pat Murphy, he's there, right? Ricky Weeks has been to the NLCS. Outside of that, yeah, you have coaches. Nobody else has been there. They don't understand what it takes. They need to lead by example, right? Lead by example. Yeah, lead by example, right? That's that's the thing. Lead by example. Go up there, work counts. I I just don't I don't see it right now with him. And that's my problem. And I I don't that doesn't mean I don't have problems with like guys like William Contreras or what they're bringing to the table right now. I just I watch this and it's like, man, man, I I can see the stars from the Dodgers. They're able to kind of rattle, change perspective, force you to pitch to other guys. Right now, they can almost throw whatever they want to Contreras because Yelich after him is if he gets on, okay. We're not really uh mightily concerned at this very moment. You hope he gets hot. And I'm not saying I don't hope he doesn't get hot. I'm not saying we should, you know, trade this guy in the offseason or you know, kick him out, whatever. I'm not saying any of that. But at some point, if you want to succeed as a franchise, your franchise guy needs to be your franchise guy when it comes to the postseason. Have a moment. And he has not had that moment yet. So that's where I'm kind of at with that whole situation. So I I know I probably touched some nerves talking about him in that second segment there, but I hope that people understand where I was coming from because it is something that man, it just irritated me to watch this series here. So if you have any comments, like I said, make sure you hit me up 715-9904914. That's 715-990-4914. If you missed any portion of the show tonight, you can listen back tomorrow, next day, across all podcast platforms. Check it out, Wisconsin Sports on the Go and Trade. You can also, if you want to check us out across the socials, that'd be awesome. Like, subscribe, follow anywhere you can find us, Wisconsin Sports on the Go with Trade. We'd love to have your follow out there. We do a lot of Facebook posts where we love to stir the pot about certain things, topics, everything like that. So we'd love to get your comments in on all that kind of stuff. So let's stick with the brewers here. Getting out of Ampham. So let's just as hard as it's gonna be. Let's flush. Let's flush what we just watched in these last two games. It's gonna be super hard to do. Let's flush it. Let's move to LA. Why? And this is a question that I was asked by one of my buddies. But I was asked this question, and I thought about it for a second. He said, Is getting away from American Family Field could it actually benefit the Brewers? And I said, Man, getting away from American Family Field? Do I do I really believe that the Brewers going on the road to LA, away from the fans, away from Milwaukee? Do I really believe that that is what the Brewers need to get back off of this slide that they've been having? They're 45 and 36 on the road this season. And I know that's regular season baseball versus postseason baseball, but they're 45 and 36 away from home. That's a pretty good record. That's almost 10 games above 500, 9 games above 500 going into this uh game against the Dodgers here in game three. Sometimes, and this is just me talking, sometimes when you get a little amped up, you get a little excited, right? The crowd's jacked. We saw that in that series there for the Brewers. They were jacked. When the crowd's jacked, and you're in a series against a a tough team, sometimes you get out of your norm, which is what we were talking about earlier with the Brewers. They got out of their norm. They were they they aren't playing Brewer baseball. Maybe, and this is might be crazy to think, you go on the road, you go to LA, you don't, you don't exactly have the crowd behind you anymore. There's gonna be a lot more LA fans, but it puts a different kind of twist on it, right? The mental game is different. When you went to Wrigley, there was a lot of a lot of talk, there was a lot of, you know, the hostility of the environment, the situation. You've seen these guys before. You can kind of understand it. This Brewers Dodgers, there's not much of a I don't want to say there's not a like just I don't think there's like a rivalry there. So it's not as it's not as hostile of an environment to walk into, should I say? It's still gonna be loud, like LA is still gonna be pumped to have the Dodgers back home with a chance to win game three, get Shoei Altani on the mound for game four and advance to the World Series. They're still gonna be pumped. But maybe it does benefit the Brewers getting away from the noise. Maybe, maybe they settle down on the road. They've been a good road team this year. It's not saying that they're gonna go on the road and just start dropping bombs and they're just gonna be this the great team out there, but they went to LA. They won three games out there this year. Who says they can't? Right? Who says they can't? So the question that I was asked, I mean, basically, why is getting away from American Family Field could that help this team? It could. It could also do nothing and it could just lead to even worse outcomes, right? The Dodgers having the home crowd behind them, getting pumped up, using that crowd energy. I thought, you know, a lot of people are yelling about the crowds in game two. For the Brewers, they're kind of out of it. Well, it's kind of the way that some crowds go is that when the team is stinking, there's not much to cheer about, they kind of get out of it. They're not in the same cheery mood, should I say? So, I mean, I can I can understand where some fans would have been like, a little upset, a little upset with what they saw in the crowds from American Family Field. But you know you're gonna go into a hostile environment in LA, it's gonna be pumped up, they're gonna be loud. But could it help them getting away from home? I don't know if it's going to the butt maybe, maybe just getting away from the noise, getting away from all that. Maybe it helps them. I I don't know. I don't know. At this point, what's it gonna hurt, right? What's it gonna hurt? They played terrible at home. What's it gonna hurt to go on the road and play? I was asked, so that was one question that I was asked. I was asked another question. Is it possible for this team to go on the road and win two games in LA? Force this series back to Milwaukee? The way the bats have been going as of late here, the way that everything's been trending. Is it possible for this team to go on the road to LA and get two wins? Yeah, it is. I'm gonna say that with the utmost confidence. It is. Why I say that is because of the way that they've played the game of baseball all season long. On that flight out to LA, I hope, I hope, that somebody told Christian Yelich that he's gonna he's gotta pull it out and figure out how to play the game of baseball again. Have some competitive at bats, be a leader, get up there and do something for me. I hope somebody said that at start. But I hope that they said to themselves, and I hope that the guys stood up, players, Pat Murphy, whatever, stood up and said, guys, we aren't playing brewer baseball anymore. We have to get back to doing what got us here. If they did that, if they get back to doing that, putting the ball in play, not trying to do too much, not being overly aggressive, laying off these terrible pitches, stop with the chasing, just get up there and work counts, be situational, work counts, lay some bunts down, do those little things. If they do those things, I I foolheartedly believe that this team can win it. They're gonna win a game. I if they play that way, they will win a game out there in LA. I don't know if it you can rattle. See, the Otani thing, and I know Otani is a great player, and he's uh he's uh exciting player, right? But Otani can he's hittable. He's they show they've showed it before. Guys, teams have showed it. Otani is hittable and he can get rattled. Tyler Glass now can get rattled. These guys aren't unhittable, but you need guys to set the table, you need guys to get up there and put together good at bats, don't chase, make them make a mistake, right? They would capitalize on mistakes, they would make you make a mistake, they would work counts until you made that mistake. That was what was so good about this Milwaukee Brewer team and what they've gotten away from. If you can go out to LA, if you go out there and you start working counts, you start battling up there, you find those little ways, you'll be fine. I a hundred percent believe that. You will be fine. You will win a game, maybe two. You can get this series back to Milwaukee. If you go out there and you continue this trend that we've been seeing, what we've been seeing here, you're hosed. You're host. You will you will you will get swept. If they continue trying to the approach that they have right now and trying to play this brand of baseball that they are right now, they will get they will get swept. It'll be over in LA. And this magical run that the Brewers have had, and it's been a magical run, and it's been great. No matter how it ends, this has been a fantastic season, and I don't want to look back at this and say that anything else, then it's been a magical, great run. It'll be over quick. They need to go out there and play Brewer baseball, and that's the way they get to play small market baseball. Not this big brand, play small market baseball. You'll be just fine. So that's where I kind of think that's where I see it right now. I think they're gonna respond. I do, I think they'll respond. I really hope so. This is like I said before, like I said earlier, and if you missed any portion of the talk tonight here, make sure you're listening back next day across all podcast platforms. So like, subscribe out there. Like I said before, though, this team, they've done this all year. They've battled adversity, they've battled injuries, they've battled all kinds of stuff. The noise, everything, battled back from that embarrassing first series that they've had. They've faced it all. But now, now it's time to show if if small market baseball can do it. If the city if a team like this, full of a bunch of, as he calls them, the average Joes, and I understand the whole narrative, but everybody says, well, they're not so average of Joes, right? They've they've won how many games, right? Yeah, I get that. But at the same time, I mean, they're still, I mean, look at the payrolls. They have$122 million stuck into this payroll. They're fourth in the uh in the entirety of it. They're like$40 million behind the Blue Jays for third in payroll. So we're gonna find out. We're gonna find out here in LA what this team's made of if they got it. And I I think they do. I think they can, I think they can pull off some games here, but get back to playing brewer baseball. That's the way to do it. So we're gonna come back from the break here. We're gonna wrap up hour number one, we're gonna look ahead to hour number two here on the show. We'll be back here after this quick time to go with Trage. I'm your host, Trage, as we come back here on this Wednesday. And hey, this next segment here, we're gonna do the fan zone. This next segment is brought to you by Foreman's Hardware. They offer you everything from home essentials to farm supplies, house to farm, grills to drills, Foreman's hardware has got you covered. Visit today in Loyal Colby or Metford, Wisconsin. Tell them I sent you, tell them TradeSentya, get 5% off your purchase. Casa M Spice. Maybe you need some tragger pellets, maybe you need a rake right now for all them leaves out there. Get down there to Foreman's Hardware, grab everything you need: tools, power tools, everything else down there at Foreman's Hardware. So we went to the break. We were talking brewers. I want to get this. We're gonna do the fan zone. It's brought to you by Marshfield Motor Speedway, the half mile pay of track, just three miles west of Marshfield. It's brought to you by Marshfield Motor Speedway, the fan zone here. We're going to talk a little badger football right now because most of the questions that I got were after the Badger game. And just what they saw. And I'm kind of gonna wrap these questions all into one. And if you want to be involved in the fan zone, if you have questions, comments, anything like that, hit me up. 715-990-4914. That is 715-990-4914. So this basically was a unanimous question here. Came in from everybody. How does this team go from playing a decent game against Michigan to getting trounced by Iowa at home 37 to nothing? How does can is there a way back from this? And then Christian messaged me and he said, I can't believe that Fickle's even there yet. Franklin got fired. How is Fickle even maintaining a job in Madison right now? And everybody's basically coming to the same stuff here right now. And that's why I want to answer that question as a whole. Can it get worse than what we're seeing right now? No, I didn't think so. I honestly didn't think it could get worse than losing to Maryland 27 to 10 at home. I didn't think it could get worse than that. You lost 37 to nothing to Iowa at home. After basically Daryl Peterson said that they can't score 40, and they've scored 40 multiple times and then almost put up 40 on you in your place. And then you had an entire offseason where Luke Fickle was so upset over how you played last year in Kinneck that he basically put the entire offseason into doing like 42 push-ups and four of this and two of this, just to try and just instill in their minds to remember that they lost that game 42 to 10 and how bad it looked. And then you get embarrassed like this. Embarrassed. This is embarrassing. I don't know. I don't know what else to say at this point. I don't care what the buyout looks like, and I don't have to pay it. I understand that. But at this very moment, if I'm the Wisconsin Badgers, I don't care if I set myself back money-wise for recruiting for years. You're setting yourself back years right now by keeping Luke Fickle as a as the head coach of this football team. That's plain and simple. You're losing recruits. He's recruiting fine. Like everybody's like, oh, they can't get the recruits that everybody else does. He's getting decent recruits. You're telling me that these recruits that he's getting, or that Madison can't out-recruit Maryland, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska. If Wisconsin is at that point, they're worse than UCLA now. They're worse than Purdue. Right now, Wisconsin is the worst team in the Big Ten. I don't think I'd I I did not think I'd ever say that. They are the worst team in the Big Ten. Can it get worse? I hope not. Because I don't know how it gets worse. This team is in this here. I am a diehard Badger fan and I will watch every game. I forgot what time they played on Saturday. The Brewers were coming on, so I was, you know, worried about the Brewers. I forgot. We were at Texas Roadhouse with uh my wife's family. Great time, Texas Roadhouse and uh for her dad's birthday, and they asked me what time the Badgers play. I said, I think six. That's where we're at as a program, as a care. That's where we're at right now. And I know the Brewers are in the in the postseason, so everybody cares about that a little bit more right now. I mean, the Packer football's even taking a back seat to me for me at times. But man, man, oh man. That that's where this program's at. So can it get worse? Basically, wrapping all those questions into one. Can it get worse? I hope not. I really hope not. So we're gonna come back from the break. Hour number two, we're gonna roll into it here. We're gonna have Umber stopping by. We're gonna talk Packers. We got a little more. I don't know if we're gonna get to more brewer talk later in the show here, if we're gonna talk badgers here, but we got that coming up. Kyle's coming up in hour number two here. So we got lots to come in hour number two. Make sure you're coming back. Hour number two, starting up after this quick commercial break. We'll be right back here.