Brewers: Three Storylines to Watch in the Upcoming Cardinals Series

The Milwaukee Brewers are traveling to Busch Stadium for a stretch of three games over four days to face the rival St. Louis Cardinals in a series that begins on Thursday, April 8th, 2021. The series between these two teams are generally very entertaining and I would not expect anything less for this one.

This series will be games 3 through 6 out of 12 straight divisional games for the Brewers. Even though it is early in the season, there is always an increased desire to win as many of these games as possible and there are a few early season storylines to pay attention to.

1. Omar Narvaez is hitting the ball exceptionally well and currently has started four games for the Brewers compared to Manny Pina’s two.

After a disappointing 2020 season, Omar Narvaez is doing some early season damage at the plate. He is tied with teammate Christian Yelich for the team lead in hits with seven and had back-to-back days with home runs against the Cubs on April 5th and April 6th.

Throughout spring training and the regular season so far, his at bats have looked less rushed, he is making better contact, and is also reaching the base via the walk. All early indications seem to insinuate that he is trending toward bouncing back this season and should continue to receive a majority of the starts behind home plate.

2. With the Brewers outfield seemingly healthy again, how will the playing time/rotation look in this upcoming series?

At the beginning of the Cubs series, it was announced that Lorenzo Cain was resting an oblique injury. He did, however, make a start in the series finale in which he accounted for all four of the team’s runs courtesy of two home runs, the first multi-homer game of his Brewers career. The odd man out when Cain returned to the lineup that day was Jackie Bradley Jr.

The only outfielder so far to play in every game has been the superstar Yelich, which makes sense.  Otherwise, it appeared early on that manager Craig Counsell was going to try and get each Bradley Jr, Cain, and Avisail Garcia two starts per series. We will have to see if that holds true again for this Cardinals series.

3. When will Brewers first baseman Keston Hiura get his first hit of the season?

No we should not be panicking about Keston Hiura‘s 0 for 19 start to the season. Had this slump occurred in the middle of the season, we likely would have not noticed. That said, he has 10 strikeouts already and appears to be pressing at the plate, so it would be nice to see him finally break through with a hit.

He has been unlucky a few times so far. Against the Cubs, Hiura hit a liner down the third base line that was mere millimeters away from being a base hit, however it was ruled foul. He is a very streaky hitter, and hopefully he is able to reach base multiple times in this upcoming series against the Cardinals.

First pitch for the series will be Thursday at 3:15pm CT as Corbin Burnes and Adam Wainwright will square off. Be sure to stay tuned to Reviewing the Brew as we recap all the latest news and action from the ballclub!