Six things we learned in April
Brewers finished month tied for best record in NL
Fifteen and seven.
There wouldn't have been anyone with the Milwaukee Brewers who wouldn't have taken that start through the first month if offered it before the start of the regular season.
They were tied with the New York Mets for the best record in the National League as the calendar turned to May and have done so by winning in a variety of ways.
Here are six things we learned about the team over those first 22 games in the month of April:
Hader’s slider has taken off
Brewers closer Josh Hader has had a remarkable beginning to the season. He reached 100 career saves, and has been unscored upon in converting all 10 of his save opportunities.
Coming into the season, there were questions about how Hader, who had already seemingly reached the top of his game, could possibly get better.
The answer seems to lie in his slider. Hader upped the pitch's usage significantly from 2019 to 2020, when he threw it 32.3 percent of the time and has maintained a similar level through 2022.
When hitters have swung this season, they have been helpless. In 42 total pitches, 19 have generated swings and 13 of those have been whiffs. Hader has thrown only 15 for balls, a remarkably low number considering the movement on the pitch and it being designed to get chases out of the zone.
Two balls have been put in play, both weak groundouts.
“I think everything Josh has done has been really sharp this year,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. “I don't think you can pick any holes in what Josh has done this year. What's been better? It's one of those things, when everything is working, it's tough to get hits off him. There's going to be hits, there are going to be good atbats but stringing together lots of good atbats to score runs is going to be hard.”
Lauer’s second half was no fluke
Over his final 15 outings and 14 starts of 2021, Eric Lauer posted a 2.23 earned run average in 80 innings, the fifth-best mark among all major-league starters after June 27.
How would he be able to carry that over into 2022?
By being even better at generating strikeouts.
Lauer's strikeout rate through four starts is 36.6 percent, the fourth-best mark of any starter in baseball and even better than Corbin Burnes' mark of 34.1 percent. He leads all qualified starters with a 44 percent whiff rate on his four-seam and has the second-most total whiffs of any four-seamer in baseball.
Instead of spending the off-season tinkering with his mechanics to find the right feel and delivery, like he had to do in his first off-season as a Brewer, Lauer was able to fine-tune himself within a framework that was already set.
"A lot of it has to do with just confidence,” Lauer said. “A lot of confidence in all my pitches right now. A lot of confidence in the way that I'm driving down the mound, the way games are being called. Just very confident with everything I am throwing up there."
Brewers have a disciplined offense…
Hunter Renfroe isn't a player who digs too deep into any analytics, but he was aware of the fact that the Brewers have been good at not chasing out of the zone.
“We've been trying to be as protective as possible at the plate, as far as selective,” Renfroe said. “We're swinging at good pitches and now we're barreling them up and getting some success out of it. That's the biggest thing.”
Only three teams have chased less often than Milwaukee, which has swung at 28.4 percent of pitches out of the strike zone. That has resulted in plenty of long plate appearances, with the Brewers having seen the seventh-most pitches of any team in baseball.
Part of that is just the makeup of the offense. Christian Yelich, Kolten Wong, Jace Peterson and Andrew McCutchen are all players with track records of having excellent ball/strike recognition. Only three Brewers hitters have chased at a clip higher than the league average: Omar Narvaez, Tyrone Taylor and Rowdy Tellez.
An encouraging sign has been Keston Hiura cutting his chase rate below leagueaverage and down to 30.4 percent from his career mark of 35 percent. Victor Caratini's plate discipline has also improved significantly; his 12.1 rate is the lowest on the team by a wide margin.
…but that discipline doesn’t always lead to runs
No doubt about it, swinging at strikes and taking balls is better than the other way around. Good at-bats and attacking hittable pitches is an excellent process that *should* more often than not lead to runs.
That was on display in a pair of breakout games against the Chicago Cubs to close out the month, but prior to that the results weren't there for much of the month. The Brewers offense, which April finished 19th in the league in wRC+, was only 24th coming into the Cubs series. They had scored three runs or fewer in four out of their last five games and had been held to four or fewer runs in 12 of 20 games.
Milwaukee hopes that the fruits of its steady, patient labor at the plate are finally coming to fruition. It hit six homers on Friday and added three more Saturday. Including a 12-run outburst Tuesday in Pittsburgh, the Brewers have scored 32 runs over their three highest-scoring games last week, which also happen to be their three best offensive games of the season; over their other 19 games, they averaged 3.3 runs.
Pitching staff can still carry team
The offense has been dormant much of the time, but you may, however, have noticed that the Brewers are still winning ball games, and lots of them.
Since April 16, the Brewers staff has a 2.23 ERA as a whole. The starters have been at the top of their games, sporting a league-best 1.56 ERA. Lauer and Burnes have been at their best almost every time out. Adrian Houser has a 2.53 ERA and has been among the game's best pitchers the past four months. Freddy Peralta and Brandon Woodruff have been up and down but each has shown flashes of their dominant selves. Aaron Ashby has allowed just one earned run in his two starts.
“When you push each other to be their best, that's when you're going to get the most out of everyone,” Burnes said Monday. “Lauer had a good start last night, I had a good one tonight, you expect Woody to have an even better one tomorrow. That's just how we're going to roll. You kind of push each other all year.”
Commitment to the platoon
How committed are the Brewers to winning the platoon advantage offensively at every chance they can?
Friday, the Cubs opened the inning with Sean Newcomb, a lefty, on the mound in the bottom of the eighth. The Brewers led 9-1 at the time. The game was, in all reality, out of reach. Jace Peterson was due to lead off and he had homered earlier in the contest.
The Brewers still played the platoon advantage. Counsell sent Mike Brosseau, a right-handed hitter, to the plate and he laced a single up the middle.
When it comes to the third base platoon between Peterson and Brosseau, Milwaukee has not shied away at any opportunity to get the handedness advantage over its opponent. Counsell has also mostly rolled with the same lineup against left-handed pitchers which Keston Hiura over Tellez at first base and Caratini over Narvaez at catcher.