There's a recurring theme here
The Brewers managed yet another 1-2 series loss this weekend in the new Pitchers’ Heaven Field, salvaging a two-run win yesterday after suffering a couple of bad 1-run losses on Friday and Saturday. The Crew’s luck remains a little bit slim to start this season, already going 1-4 in one-run games and a pythagorean record one game better than their actual record, but it of course is early in the season and with 150 games left to go I’m convinced along with everyone else that a 4-8 record isn’t indicative of the team’s early play. The win also came on the heels that Trevor Hoffman should be back by next weekend. Although that makes me optimistic considering the closing struggles of Carlos Villanueva, who really needs Hoffman when Todd Coffey can just pitch the last 8 outs of every game and preserve a tight game.
Jeff Suppan finally put forth a good effort, going 6 innings and giving up only 2 runs, hopefully causing the Brewer faithful to give him a little break and at least let him settle into the season before running to the wayside. Two starts is never enough to adequately judge a pitcher on and just because he had trouble locating his pitches to start the season doesn’t mean he’ll be able to adjust and come back down to normal levels. Now, I’m not saying he’ll be the #1 ace on the team, but it’s unfair to pin the entire blame of the pitching staff on one guy who had two poor starts. Let’s let the man earn his money for now and only throw him to the wayside if he gets demolished at the rate he had been in his first two starts. I’m really glad he was able to take two steps forward yesterday.
If you would have told me at the beginning of the season that Yovani Gallardo and Craig Counsell would lead the team in on-base percentage 12 games in, of course I would have been surprised. I would have then surmised that the majority of the Brewers have started off scuffling; with the exception of Corey Hart and Mike Cameron, every Brewer starter has been significantly below their career averages and are bound to bounce back. What’s especially pleasing to me about the offense so far is that these seem to be BABIP-driven and not necessarily due to a terrible plate approach, circa Corey Hart in September last year. Take a look at these numbers:
Ryan Braun: .222/.340/.356
Prince Fielder: .175/.327/.325
Corey Hart: .279/.385/.558
Bill Hall: .278/.333/.389
Jason Kendall: .129/.243/.161
My favorite part about this season has been the way the coaching staff has seemingly made this team able to take a walk every once in awhile. Most of these OBPs are more than .100 points higher than their averages, meaning that their patience at the plate hasn’t been sacrificed. Most of these OBPs are as high as their career averages, meaning that if their batting average starts regressing towards normal levels, then we may have an incredibly elite offense this year. Think about it. If Prince Fielder gets on base at a .400 clip with Braun and Hart surrounding him, this offense may be impossible to stop. Even Jason Kendall is putting in a good word despite being sickening when he’s standing at the dish.
Bring on the hits, I say. Be patient — the offense will come.
[...] as of May 18th last year were four games below .500 and they ended up making the postseason. Even my recent post on the team’s OBP doesn’t actually contain any merit because of [...]