Posted by Michael Street on Sunday, August 2, 2009 at 11:03 pm

This season hasn’t been all that bad for the Crew as far as the big picture goes.

Their core of young players—Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun, Yovani Gallardo—have been good, even great. Mike Cameron’s having a typically good year, Craig Counsell’s been resurgent, Casey McGehee has been a revelation in his first look at significant playing time, J.J. Hardy’s been solid, and Corey Hart has been getting better of late.

The big loss has been Rickie Weeks, though a trade replaced him with Felipe Lopez, who’s equal to Weeks in every dimension but power.

Their more significant losses have actually been smaller, but worse because they’ve happened to the most vulnerable spot: their rotation. Manny Parra struggled in the early part of the season, leading to his demotion to the minors, while David Bush and Jeff Suppan are currently on the DL.

In spite of his generous contract, Suppan is as marginal a talent as Bush and Parra, innings-eaters with moderate upsides. Still, if there’s one thing Milwaukee didn’t have this year, it was pitching depth.

Seth McClung had some starting experience, but he put up a 0-1 record with a 12.27 ERA in his two starts. So they called up Mike Burns, who’s done better only by comparison: 2-4 record in 6 starts with a 6.06 ERA. They put Carlos Villanueva into the rotation last week, and he coughed up 5 ER in 4.0 IP.

And at the trading deadline, they couldn’t swing a deal for the starter they desperately need. Part of this was due to a minor-league system depleted by the Sabathia rental last season, and in part due to GM Doug Melvin’s refusal to part with prospects Mat Gamel or Alcides Escobar. In their one pitching trade, they brought  Claudio Vargas back to the team; he could start at some point, but for now is a bolster to a bullpen that’s had some rough spots, and is further depleted by Villanueva’s move to the rotation.

Despite these problems, Milwaukee is still hanging in the tough NL Central, currently 4.5 games behind the Cards and 6 games back in the Wild Card chase. Today, however, the last straw might have broken their proverbial back, as Corey Hart was rushed in for an emergency appendectomy, and is expected to miss a month.

Until he returns, they will turn to Frank Catalanotto (.267/.324/.367 in 68 PAs in 2009) and Bill Hall (.201/.263/.337 in 217 PAs in 2009) to platoon in his space. They’d just sent Hall down to AAA to try and revive his flagging season, and he hasn’t played the outfield regularly since 2007. F-Cat was out of baseball before they signed him earlier this year as insurance.

Granted, Hart hasn’t been amazing in right field, either but his .264/.335/.433 line hides a .328/.400/.493  average over the past month. He plays a decent right field, has hit all over the lineup, and can pop a few over the fence or steal a base. Just as with Parra, Bush, and Suppan, it’s more the replacement cost of Hart that hurts them, particularly now that the trading deadline has passed.

Even the minor loss of Hart could be more than this team can handle: Fielder, Braun and Gallardo can only carry so many decent-but-not-really-good players, and throwing F-Cat and Hall into the mix might be too much of a load for them. In a division where the Cards got better with acquisitions of Holliday and Lugo and the Cubs improved when Aramis Ramirez and Ryan Dempster returned from the DL, and in a Wild Card race where the Giants added some valuable bats in Sanchez and Garko, it’s going to be tough for this patchwork Crew to overcome all the little things that have brought them down.

Of course, this is baseball, and anything can happen. The platoon of Hall and Catalanotto might hit well enough to hold the fort until Hart makes a healthy and miraculous early return. Bush is due back soon, and Suppan shouldn’t be out longer than the minimum, and Parra could continue to improve (ignoring for a moment the 9 ER he’s given up over his last 11 IP), so their rotation blues might be short-lived.

And the Cubs might make another Cublike swoon, Matt Holliday might spontaneously combust, with the shrapnel taking out Albert Pujols, and Pablo Sandoval might go protein-mad and eat Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, and take a good chunk out of Freddy Sanchez before they stop him.

That seems like what it’s going to take for the Brewers to be able to sniff the postseason in 2009. The good news, for now, is that their young core is intact, so Milwaukee fans can always look towards 2010 as their next chance at the brass ring.