The Brewers regressed a tad this week, as this senior writer confidently expected them to. Meanwhile, 1-4 hours south (depending on traffic), the Cubs rode a red hot week to pull within a half a game of the Crew.
Some are panicking, I am not; the Brewers were never going to coast to a divisional crown. This sets up a very timely and important series for the Brewers, who will be looking to improve upon their 1-7 record against the Cubs this year. Win or lose, I can promise you this – there will be overreactions, and we will cover those overreactions extensively next week.
This week, I’d like to take a step back and talk about a part of this team that has gone somewhat unnoticed this year: the starting rotation. The rotation was the source of a number of questions surrounding this team before the 2018 season began. How will the Brewers make a playoff run without a true ace on staff? Will the front office be willing to pay the market rate at the trade deadline to add a starting pitcher? Could Chase Anderson continue his somewhat unlikely run of success over the past year? Will Jimmy Nelson be able to return and pick up where he left off last year?
While the Brewers have shocked nearly everyone but me with their 39-26 record, the general public seems to give credit to every part of this team except for the starting pitchers. At first glance, that seems to be a fair assessment; Brewers starters rank 10th out of 15 teams in the NL with a 4.22 team ERA. It’s tough to imagine winning a pennant when you don’t even rank in the top half of your league in staff ERA.
Entering the season, I believed that both Chase Anderson and Zach Davies would be able to build upon their successful 2017 seasons. I thought newcomer Jhoulys Chacín would struggle, and it was unlikely that Brent Suter would be much more than an average 4th or 5th starter. I also believed that whomever was summoned to be the 5th member of this starting rotation was nothing more than a stop gap until Jimmy Nelson or a player-to-be-traded-for-later came into the fold.
65 games into the season, and I was pretty much wrong about all of that.
Davies has struggled to overcome a lingering rotator cuff issue that has him on the DL for the second time in as many months. For a pitcher whose fastball maxes out around 90 MPH, command is imperative, and Davies just hasn’t had it this year.
Anderson hasn’t been much better, which is incredibly disappointing for a pitcher that put together a season plus of outstanding numbers that spanned over a year’s worth of games. In 2017, Anderson owned a 2.74 ERA with a WHIP (Walks + Hits per Innings Pitched) of 1.09. This year, his ERA is a career high 4.57 and he owns a WHIP of 1.246. He’s also racked up 26 walks to date this year- he threw just 41 last year in 25 starts.
Chacín on the other hand, is quietly putting together one of his best seasons since 2015. He’s 5-1 with a 3.58 ERA and is allowing just 7.6 hits per 9 innings, his lowest mark as a pitcher since 2011. But he’s also towed a very thin line – anecdotally, I feel like every time Chacín pitches he finds a way to load the bases with no outs before somehow working his way out of a jam. Still, we’re almost halfway through this season and Chacín has more than carried his weight thus far – which is a positive for this team.
Perhaps nobody in this rotation deserves more credit, however, than 33 year old Junior Guerra, who was not a member of the Brewer’s Opening Day roster. Guerra has started 11 games this year, owns a 2.83 ERA, and has a 56:21 strikeout to walk ratio. Those are CRAZY numbers for Guerra, who struggled mightily in 2017 after bursting onto the major league scene in 2016 at the ripe age of 31. You’ve got to respect a guy that spends a decade in the minor leagues, regresses heavily in his 2nd season as a major leaguer, and then claws his way back to the Major Leagues at 33 years old and contributes heavily to the early success of a contending team. That’s the definition of grit.
Then there’s the rest of the rotation. Brent Suter, who has replaced Eric Sogard and Brett Phillips as the most likable guy on the Brewers, has been fine; but he can’t be relied upon to give you more than 15 outs. Brandon Woodruff has struggled at the major league level, despite showing signs of brilliance in AAA… some call that a “quadruple A” pitcher, a label that Woodruff still has a year or two to shed before making any definitive statements on his potential as a big leaguer. Freddy Peralta wowed in his major league debut, but he’s still developing and I can’t see the Brewers rushing him to the big leagues for anything more than an occasional spot start.
While my player-specific predictions about this team have been admittedly terrible this year, I do believe that my overall assessment of this rotation has been spot on: they’re going to need some help. Which leads me to why I’m so optimistic that the rotation is going to become an asset for this team down the stretch.
Heading into the season, the Brewers had two things they could bank on to try to improve their starting pitching: a healthy return of Jimmy Nelson, or a deadline trade. Now, however, I feel they have two more reasons to be optimistic.
First – it’s not unrealistic to hope that either Anderson or Davies can turn it around this season. While it’s certainly no longer early in the season, there is still PLENTY of time left between now and October. Would it really be that surprising to see one of those two get back on track, considering both have historically struggled early in the season? I’d say no. It would be different if Anderson and Davies were right where they needed to be, but Woodruff and Suter were getting shelled on a nightly basis – in that situation, you’re counting on guys who are unproven finding a way to pitch better… that’s a lot different than hoping for a couple of proven major leaguers to turn it around.
Second – the Brewers may not need a top 5 rotation to make a playoff run; their bullpen is that good. Brewers starters have averaged 5.2 innings per game, good for 10th in the NL. Typically, that’s a recipe for disaster- the five NL teams that average less than that are a combined 139-184 this year. But this bullpen is so darn good that it truly hasn’t mattered for the Brewers, who still lead the NL in wins with 39. Talk about a way to take pressure off of your starters! Realistically, Brewers starters are going to win a lot of games if they can hand the baseball to the bullpen with the score within one run; the Brewers are 15-7 in one run games.
Don’t get me wrong, I still think the Brewers need to make a BIG move and acquire a BIG arm before August 1st to push this team over the edge. I also believe that whether or not Jimmy Nelson is able to return and come close to where he was in 2017 could be the difference between a Wild-Card play-in game and an NL Central crown. While there’s still a number of questions that linger over whether or not this rotation will be able to keep the Brewers in contention, it’s a comforting feeling to know that they’re backed by one of the best bullpens in franchise history, and that two of their better pitchers have nowhere to go but up. If I was a betting man (I am), I’d be willing to gamble that this starting rotation’s best days are still ahead of them in 2018.