The Sunday Cycle – July 15, 2018

To do a fair All-Star break health check of the Crew, you’ve got to force yourself to forget the most brutal week of Brewers baseball this season. And in fairness, that’s tough to do.

Playing their 21st game in 20 days, The Brewers were swept by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 5-game series; The Pirates began this series 6 games under 500 and 13.5 back of the Brewers in the Central. Dan Jennings entered today’s game with a one-run lead and two outs in the bottom of the 10th, and blew the Brewers second save opportunity in as many innings amidst the heaviest rain I’ve ever seen during a live game. It was a beautiful metaphor for the ugliest stretch of games we’ve seen this year. It sucked.

The Brewers enter the All-Star break in 2nd place, somewhere between 1.5 – 2.5 games behind the Cubs in the Central. If the season ended today, the Brewers would host the one-game Wild Card at Miller Park. They’re beat up: Junior Guerra, Ryan Braun, Eric Thames, Jonathan Villar, Manny Pina, Matt Albers are all on the 10-day DL. They’ll send five All-Stars to DC on Tuesday, the most in franchise history, and that should be celebrated, even by those who think they’d be better off taking a nap and resting up for the second half.

Their pitching has exceeded expectations all around. Their bullpen, led by Jeremy Jeffress and Josh Hader, ranks among the best in baseball. For that reason, they managed to win a lot of close games during the first half of the season. Lights out bullpen pitching plays a huge role in deep playoff runs, and this pen has the arms to be one of the best in baseball. But it hasn’t just been the bullpen – Brewers starters have also outperformed expectations. They’ve thrown an NL leading 56 quality starts, the second most in baseball, and opponents are batting just .233 against them – 5th best in the majors. Jhoulys Chacín (8-3, 3.78 ERA) and Junior Guerra (6-6, 3.23 ERA) have been the best of the group. Chase Anderson has struggled at times, Zach Davies has been hurt, Brent Suter has been Brent Suter, and #2 pitching prospect Freddy Peralta has been a nice surprise.

The offense, however, has been largely disappointing. The additions of Lorenzo Cain and Christian Yelich worked – they instantly made this team better and have consistently played well. Jesus Aguilar was given a chance to prove he could be an every day first baseman, and hit his way right into the first-half MVP discussion. Travis Shaw has hit for a lower average than last year, but has taken a lot of walks en route to a .342 OBP, which is consistent and would be solid on any team.

Outside of those four, however, it’s been a lot of bad news. Take a look at this list of Brewers who were expected to be contributors to this offense. I’ve included their career OPS and OBP numbers compared to their 2018 numbers.

Not great. Arcia and Santana are down in AAA, Sogard was cut, the Brewers had to go outside the organization to bring in Tyler Saladino and Brad Miller – not exactly the story of the high flying offense we were sold back in January when Cain and Yelich were signed. Very few have performed above expectations, only a couple have performed as expected, and everyone else is either hurt, in AAA, or riding the bench while the Brewers try other options.

This has been an interesting season for me as a fan and a writer because I feel like the 2014 and 2017 seasons taught me a valuable lesson in baseball: you can’t win a pennant before the All-Star break. Which is why I was thrilled that the Brewers were finding heroic and unconventional ways to win games in April and May. It’s why I wasn’t upset when Jeremy Jeffress and Josh Hader regressed from the impossible to maintain standards they set for themselves during the first 60 games of the season. It’s why, even now, in the midst of this 6 game losing streak, I really do feel good about the Brewers chances to win the NL Central.

Why? Two Reasons:

1. They’re going to make moves before the deadline to make this team better.

2. They’re going to get healthy, and then they’re going to click.

Of course, both of those are predictive statements. They could both be proven blatantly false when all is said in done. That said, I think both are going to happen.

David Stearns has proven himself very adept at making moves for lesser known players that make teams better, such as Neil Walker and Anthony Swarzak in 2017. I see the Brewers making one big deal (Machado, DeGrom, Syndergaard), and two of those smaller deals for a catcher and another bullpen arm.

As for getting healthy and clicking, it hasn’t really happened yet for this offense. Ryan Braun says he’s unlucky, Travis Shaw has been playing through wrist and ankle problems, and Eric Thames is on the DL for the second time this season. When these guys are healthy for an extended period of time, they’ll get hot. It’s just a matter of if that’s going to happen. Injuries happen without any rhyme or reason, and they can derail a postseason run in the blink of an eye.

As for the six game losing streak to close out the first half of the season? I’d rather it happen now than after the All-Star break, like last year. Four days off is an eternity for these guys, who won’t have two consecutive days off from this Friday through the end of September. Let’s hope most of these players enjoy their well-deserved time off, spend time with their families, and step away from the game for a couple of days. Let’s hope those that go to DC for the All-Star Game find a way to have fun, enjoy the recognition for their stellar play, and translate that into ways to inspire this team after the break. Let’s hope that Craig Counsell gets a round or two of golf in to clear the mind – he’s getting a lot of heat lately for making good decisions that aren’t working out. Let’s hope that David Stearns finds a way to protect the long term viability of this franchise while simultaneously making this team a World Series Contender (lol, sounds easy). Let’s hope that this team puts the rainy 10th inning loss and this grueling stretch of games behind them, and comes back to Miller Park on Friday ready to push for the postseason.

I stand by what I’ve said this entire season: this team has what it takes to make the postseason. Let’s hope I’m right.

FYI: I’m taking my annual All-Star break from the Sunday Cycle next week as well, but don’t panic, I’ll be back right before the trade deadline on the 29th!