Brewers: Offense Needs To Wake Up Before It’s Too Late

It seems that just when the Brewers’ bats start lighting up, they are quick to go quiet again.

In a three game series against the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Brewers embarrassingly lost all three games to the cellar-dwelling Pirates. The Crew was close to a win on Sunday, but allowed the Pirates to score a two-run home run late in the game, giving them the 5-4 lead. No matter where they are, the hitting is just not consistent.

After rattling off three straight wins against the Cubs, the Brewers struggled to maintain that momentum.

Problems

There doesn’t seem to be a clear one reason as to why the Brewers aren’t above .500 with a functioning offense. There seems to be several factors going into their performance. With a shortened season, there isn’t time to struggle the way they are. If they’re going to make a third consecutive postseason appearance, something has to change.

Ever since Lorenzo Cain opted out of the season, manager Craig Counsell has been playing around with the lineup, placing various players in the leadoff position. There doesn’t seem to be a player that’s had that leadoff spot that has impressed in the role so far. There’s a way to fix that.

It’s tough to get the offense going when the lineup is constantly flipped around. Put your best nine guys out there that can play both offensively and defensively and trust your players. Keep the hot bats in the lineup instead of sitting them out after they had a good day at the plate the previous game. With all the different platoons, it’s tough to get the regular at-bats necessary to get going on offense.

Brewers beat writer Adam McCalvy put it perfectly when he said, “The Brewers’ offense was built for depth- to win the platoon advantage as much as possible over 162 games. But, too many hitters underperforming at a time the 60-game slate forces urgency.”

Brewers Lack Energy

The overall energy is missing. Cain brought a vibe to the clubhouse that made players feel a little more confident in how they’re performing. However, with that main figure gone from the clubhouse, it seems like Cain took the energy with him.

The dugout looks boring during games. You watch a team such as the Chicago Cubs, and their dugout is lively. They’re hyping up their teammates at the plate, getting hits and even when something wrong happens, they still remain positive. It’s easy to have energy when you’re winning and tough to have that same energy when you’re losing, but that energy needs to stay alive no matter what place you’re in.

The lack of energy could also be due to having no fans in the stands. The fans at Miller Park liven up a Brewers baseball game and the artificial sound of fans cheering can only do so much.

We could blame the restart with baseball after the pandemic hit, but as an entire league, most baseball teams seem to be taking that perfectly fine and some are even taking advantage of the shortened season and crushing it. We’re almost halfway through the season and even with expanded playoffs this year, trying to determine whether or not the Brewers will have what it takes to make a third straight postseason appearance is very difficult.

The Brewers’ power hitters have been hitting slumps and are struggling to come out of them. Most notably, Christian Yelich has struggled. He had come off of what should’ve been an MVP season after his injury and seemed alright in Spring Training. But once Summer Training Camp rolled around, something just wasn’t clicking with him. It was a slow progression to get where he is now, but there’s still room for improvement and he still has yet to put up MVP-worthy numbers.

Acquiring both Avisail Garcia and Omar Narvaez was supposed to be beneficial to the Brewers’ offense after losing both Yasmani Grandal and Mike Moustakas. The results they’ve been putting out have been disappointing to say the least. They have their moments but by and large, they have struggled. Compared to the offense the Brewers had last season with Moose and Yaz, it’s nowhere close to the same

While the Brewers have been able to get runners on base in recent games, they are typically playing from behind as the Brewers can’t seem to jump out to an early lead. They’ve let their opponent score first in 20 of 26 games so far.

It’s frustrating to watch a Brewers team that had so much success in the last two years, perform the way they are in this weird 2020 season.

They’re standing at 11-15 and it would be nice to see the Brewers light up and show what they’re capable of. They don’t have time to waste, it quite literally is now or never for the Crew in 2020.