Inconsistent offense has some clues
In terms of run support, the Milwaukee Brewers’ pitching staff has not asked much of the offense this season.
Just give us three runs and we’ll take it from there.
Entering Saturday, the Brewers were 5-3 when they scored three runs in a game, 4-3 when they scored four and a whopping 30-2 when scoring five or more. So, when getting three runs or more of support, the Brewers were an impressive 39-8, a sign of how solid their pitching has been.
On the flip side, much has been made about how many times the Brewers have been shut out, and deservedly so. They have been blanked 10 times, most in the majors, accounting for one-third of their losses entering Saturday.
Toss in the Brewers’ records when scoring one run (2-6) and two runs (4-6), and they had a 6-22 record when scoring less than three runs.
So, what’s the story with this feast-or-famine offense? Why have the Brewers been so inconsistent with the bats?
“There’s a lot of different factors,” said Jason Lane, who serves as assistant to Darnell Coles, the Brewers’ hitting coach since October 2014. “Sometimes, you catch a pitcher who’s 'on' that day. A lot of times, when we’ve been shut out, we just haven’t come up with the big hit. It’s a little bit of everything.
“It’s odd that we can be up near the league lead in wins in the National League but also have the league lead in shutouts. It’s kind of crazy. The ones that hurt the most is when we get a good pitching performance and it’s a low-scoring game. We’ve had a few of those. There’s no real explanation for it.” Actually, there are some explanations. The Brewers’ offense has not been good in clutch situations. Entering Saturday, they were batting .231 with runners in scoring position, ranking 24th among the 30 big-league clubs.
The Brewers also have gotten little production from the bottom of their lineup, which has made sustaining rallies more difficult. On most nights, second baseman Jonathan Villar bats sixth, catcher Manny Piña seventh and shortstop Orlando Arcia eighth, ahead of the pitcher in the nine-hole.
Villar has bounced back somewhat from his miserable 2017 season (.665 OPS) but is not exactly an offensive force at his position, with a .262 batting average, .310 on-base percentage and .696 OPS entering Saturday. The Brewers’ overall .676 OPS at second base ranks
19th in the major leagues.
Piña has shown more life of late at the plate but still is battling to recover from a terrible start. Entering Saturday, he was batting .223 with a .286 OBP and .666 OPS, with five homers and only 14 RBI. Brewers catchers were 16th in the majors with a .669 OPS, an indication that many teams were scuffling at the position.
Arcia has had a disastrous year at the plate, falling from a .731 OPS last season to .493 in 2018. The Brewers’ .509 OPS at shortstop ranks last among the 30 clubs, with backup shortstop Eric Sogard (.418 OPS) also unable to get going at the plate.
Always a free swinger, Arcia’s plate discipline has eroded badly from a year ago, when he showed signs of progress in that area. Coles and Lane have worked with Arcia, enforcing the idea of swinging at strikes and being more patient at the plate, but to this point the young shortstop has been unable to take that instruction into games.
“We’re constantly stressing to him to command the strike zone, see the baseball and be under control with your body and your movements," Lane said. “He started off struggling and started pressing to get results. Sometimes you need results to get your confidence going. Yet, you have to focus on doing the right things to get strikes so you can get those results.
“I’m always confident that guys will mature and adjust, and refine their approach. He certainly has the tools to hit. He’s got great hands, lightning hands. So much of that is maturing as a player and trusting your hands that you can wait and see the ball and still adjust to the stuff.”
More puzzling than Arcia’s regression in ball-strike judgment was the loss of power from rightfielder Domingo Santana, which resulted in being optioned Saturday to Class AAA Colorado Springs. Santana had a breakthrough season in 2017 with 30 homers and 85 RBI in 151 games. This season, he hit only three home runs with 17 RBI in 211 plate appearances, with an alarming drop in slugging percentage, from .505 to .354.
How did a big, powerful hitter lose the ability to drive the ball?
“We do talk about it,” Lane said before Santana was sent out. “We’re constantly working with him. He (was) in a situation where his at-bats are limited. That makes it hard for a hitter. A lot of times when you get off to a slow start, you start pressing. It’s confidence more so than a flawed swing or a different swing from the year before.
“Guys swings don’t change a whole lot. But when you’re pressing and the atbats become infrequent, it’s tough to gain some momentum and get out of it."
Santana, Piña and Arcia have one thing in common in these struggles. Each broke through with their first significant offensive showing last season and have been unable to this point to build on those successes.
This is not an uncommon story in baseball. When hitters get the attention of opponents by doing damage over a season, pitchers start working them differently the next season, delving deeper into scouting reports to find weaknesses.
It’s up to those hitters to make adjustments of their own, and the job of the hitting coaches to help them do so. But coaches can’t go up there and swing the bat for them. The players must put into practice the work they are doing in the batting cage.
“They all put themselves on the map and people are aware now,” Lane said. “They didn’t really have a body of work (beforehand) for pitchers to come up with a game plan. This game of hitting is very tough. In a lot of cases, you see guys with a track record who will struggle for a month or month and a half. If the game can make the great ones with track records do that, it certainly can do it to younger, less-experienced players.
“Until they prove they’re going to demand a strike, pitchers aren’t going to give in. There’s a lot of information out there, so it’s a game of constant adjustments. To these guys’ credit, they want to do well, they want to make changes.
“They’re aware of what’s going on. They’re putting the work in. Hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in sports. A lot of times, it’s more mental than physical with guys. It’s putting pressure on yourself. You need to develop trust and confidence. It takes results in the game to get that.
“You definitely have a longer leash on a team not expected to contend. You have more time to find yourself and get going. But when you’re contending for a division and the playoffs, there’s not as long a leash. That’s the situation that we’re in.”
The good news for the Brewers is the top of the lineup has gotten the job done often enough to win games. Lorenzo Cain (.394 OBP) and Christian Yelich (.368) have been everything hoped for when acquired during the off-season, keeping pressure on opponents. Cleanup hitter Travis Shaw again is providing power and driving in runs (14 HRs, 47 RBI).
Eric Thames and Ryan Braun have been impacted by injuries but on any given night can make a difference. The biggest breakthrough has come from Jesús Aguilar, who got a chance to play first base regularly when Thames was away for seven weeks with a thumb injury and became the team’s most consistent offensive force (.975 OPS).
So, the Brewers, who are middle of the pack in runs scored, wait for the others to join the fun. The offense has been productive enough to keep the team atop the NL Central for much of the season but no one disputes that the pitchers have done the heavy lifting, anchored by one of the best bullpens in the game.
“That’s the hard part from the standpoint of a hitting coach,” Lane said. “You’re always going to have guys who are hot and you’re going to have guys that aren’t. It’s rare if ever that you have every spot in the lineup clicking. ‘DC’ and I are always addressing guys who aren’t feeling great and trying to get them going.
“They’re never all going to be going at the same time but you can’t always depend on the same guys. We’d like everyone to contribute. When the bottom of our lineup is getting some hits and we have production from the top to the bottom, it obviously makes it easier to score runs.”