Brewers: Don’t Worry There’s A Lot of Games Left This Season

3 games into the season is not enough to throw in the towel. What can we conclude from the Brewers first series? Not much.

The starting rotation looks good. It wasn’t only Corbin Burnes who looked sharp this weekend. Brandon Woodruff had a solid, albeit short, start on Thursday, while Adrian Houser looked good on Sunday in a 5 inning start where he did everything he could do to put Milwaukee in a position to win.

Three games is not the entire season. The Brewers lost 2 straight against the Twins, but there are 159 games left to prove this team is ready to compete.

The problem? The offense has been lackluster so far. Again, this is three games, the season is 2% complete. Now is not the time to throw in the towel, call for Keston Hiura to be benched, or declare the Brewers dead. They aren’t.

The Brewers have undergone a shift in their approach over the past few seasons. Instead of being offense first, Milwaukee is pivoting to becoming a pitching first team. That is the right call, but it relies on the offense to do something.

Positives can be found throughout the series against the Twins. The Brewers have 2 aces, and a very formidable #3 in Houser. Luis Urías is showing defensive maturity and ability that will help anchor him as the shortstop of the club, and showing a mature plate approach that again will be appreciated. The defense looks great. Kolten Wong is proving to be the best defensive second baseman in the league, and that is a welcome sight.

There may be a rush to be the first to pronounce the season dead, to call Counsell and Stearns frauds, and bemoan the Brewers “wasting Yelich”, or even worse, declare the contract keeping one of baseball’s best in Milwaukee for a decade as a “bust”. But resist that urge, and don’t look at the forest through the trees.

There appears to be a rush to declare the Brewers dead, but that’s premature.

There are 159 games left, the Brewers will win some, they’ll lose some too. That’s the way the season goes. Baseball is a marathon, not a sprint. Right now we are 2% done, to throw in the towel is premature. The offense looked bad in a two game stretch, that can’t be denied, but there is plenty of time left. Baseball is a streaky game, and the Brewers had a rough two games, after looking like an offensive powerhouse in the Cactus League.

Billy Beane is said to wait 40 games before even looking at what is going on, then spending another 40 games assessing what  adjustments can be made before acting. For baseball, the hottest team at the end of the year does the best. This is all a long way of saying there’s a lot of ballgame left.

Relax, take a deep breath, savor being at American Family Field, and buckle up for the next 159 games.