You ever heard the old saying “just ignore it and it will go away”? That’s how I’m going treat the debacle of a series against the Cubs in this week’s Sunday Cycle. After my opening paragraph, I’m not going to mention it at all. Why’s that? Because unlike the Brewers this year, I’ve pretty much been “Steady Eddie”. I haven’t gotten too high, I haven’t gotten too low. So while many are hitting the panic button after the Brewers got blanked in three of their four losses to the Cubs, I’m not- because they won 8 straight games leading up to that series and going 8-4 over 12 game stretches is great. Plus, the pitching was actually really good these past four days. The bats will come back, I promise. That’s it, I’m not going to mention it any more (it’s my column I’ll do what I want, #SeniorWriter).
There’s way too good of a topic that warrants talking about this week, and that’s the injury to Brewer’s first baseman, and Mr. April himself – Eric Thames. Make no mistake, losing Thames for 6-8 weeks hurts this team. While every player on this roster seems to have their hearts set on swinging for the fences, Thames appeared to be the only one in the lineup capable of doing so in the early weeks of the season. But, that’s baseball, and the Brewers have to move on.
Just how they move on, however, will be curious to watch. Not having Thames on the roster creates a ton of questions about how the Brewers will move forward with their lineups on a daily basis. So many questions, in fact, that it’s given me an entire week’s worth of content.
Without further adieu, here are three burning questions that I have about the Eric Thames-less Brewers.
How will Jesus Aguilar respond to more playing time?
While he has about half as many at-bats as the every day starters, Jesus Aguilar has statistically been the best bat on the Brewer’s roster thus far this season. He’s hitting .381, slugging .548, and owns an OBP of .417. Those are all great numbers, and I admire the fact that Aguilar has been able to keep his numbers so high despite limited playing time. He showed a similar ability to stay ready in limited situations as the Brewer’s go to pinch hitter last year. He’s one of the few Brewers I want up to bat with runners in scoring position.
I’ve been big on Aguilar ever since his go ahead home run at Yankee stadium right before the All Star break last year. I lobbied hard for him to get more at bats down the stretch last year when Thames was striking out at an alarming rate. Even early this year, I’ve been surprised at how few opportunities Aguilar has gotten to start. The next month and a half are very important for Jesus; I’d love to see Thames have to come back and wrestle the starting duties away from Aguilar. Competition is a very very good thing.
Will Ryan Braun ever get comfortable at 1st base?
This is kind of a back handed insult at Braun, who made it a point in Spring Training to publicly mention how uncomfortable he was with the transition to 1st base. While everyone assumed that Braun would get the majority of the starts at 1st base against LHP, that never really materialized. In fact, other than the season opening series in San Diego, Braun never started at 1st before doing so in Thames absence this past weekend.
If you want my opinion, I think Braun is already a much better first baseman than he is a left fielder. He’s so fragile that the mere thought of him diving for a pop fly to left has lower back tightness and a two game absence written all over it. He’s already flashing some leather in the infield, and I think he actually enjoys it more than he’ll publicly admit. Going out on a limb here, but I can say with relative confidence that Ryan Braun will be just fine.
Can Domingo Santana figure it out at the plate and make the new guys sweat?
No Thames means more playing time at first base for both Jesus Aguilar and Ryan Braun, which almost guarantees that Domingo Santana will be in the lineup in the majority of games over next next two months. Not that Santana has been short on playing time thus far – he’s got the third most plate appearances of anyone on the team, but that’s been due to the rash of Brewers injuries versus Santana’s results at the plate. Put simply, he’s been terrible. He leads the team with 31 strikeouts – a huge contrast from last year, when his patience at the plate defined what was truly a breakout season for Santana.
It wouldn’t be too far fetched to consider that Santana is pressing at the plate because he’s thrown off by not knowing where he fits in a 100% healthy lineup. He’s well aware that a healthy Eric Thames pushes Braun back to the outfield. The Brewers didn’t spend all that money on Cain and all those prospects on Yelich to have them ride the bench – they’re in Milwaukee to play. Could it be that Santana is so worried about what happens when everyone gets healthy that he’s forgetting to focus on all of the playing time he’s getting in April?
Whatever it is, he has to figure it out. Competition in the lineup is a great thing, but not when it makes hitters lose their mind. The Brewers need Santana to make a case for more playing time, especially when Yelich and Cain get into slumps as they did this past weekend. It’s on Domingo to create pressure for Craig Counsell to find a way to keep him in the lineup once (if) everyone comes back healthy.