Brewers: Fans Finally Get Glimpse of Crew’s Offensive Potential vs Cards

That’s the Brewers offense we’ve been waiting to see!

After their first seven games of the season in which Milwaukee only scored over four runs in just one of those games, the offense erupted over the weekend as the Brewer bats put up nine runs in each game. It was the type of performance fans were waiting for.

The win gave the Brewers their second series win out of three to begin the 2021 season. It also put Milwaukee back over .500 for the first time since Opening Day. Last year, the team didn’t have a winning record at any point during the season.

Though a single week of games with low offensive output shouldn’t have been enough to worry Brewers fans, it was hard not to think back to the offensive woes of the 2021 season, especially considering some of the same problems were presenting themselves.

Milwaukee only scored in the first inning once in their first seven games of 2021, a familiar issue from last season. They were also striking out a good amount (31.6% strikeout rate was second worst in MLB going into the weekend) and leaving scoring opportunities on the table (.229 with RISP prior to the weekend, 20th in MLB).

So you’ll have to forgive Brewers fans for having flashbacks once the team’s first seven games had taken place. Luckily, seven games is a very small sample size and an offensive outburst happened to be right around the corner.

18 runs over two games later, the Brewers finally showed the type of offense that could carry them a long way in 2021.

On Saturday, the Brewers offense finally broke through and scored in the first inning for the second time all year. Though they would only end up putting up one run despite seven players coming to the plate, five of those batters had exit velocities of over 102 mph in the inning, a sign of things to come.

The offense would explode starting in the fifth. In the end, nine Milwaukee batters would end up with hits, including Avisail Garcia, who finished 2 for 4 with a homer and 5 RBI, and Keston Hiura, who had struggled mightily to begin the season but finished Saturday’s game 2 for 5 with a homer of his own.

Sunday’s game saw fireworks early and often. The Brewers batted around in the first and a pair of homers by Garcia and Travis Shaw were a big part of the Crew putting up seven runs in the first two innings and forcing Cardinals starter Daniel Ponce de Leon out of the game after just 1 1/3 innings pitched.

Unsurprisingly, Brewers hitters saw a reversal in their strikeout trend during this weekend’s matchups. After piling up double-digit strikeouts in every game except their 6-5 Opening Day victory over the Twins, Milwaukee struck out just six times on Saturday and nine times on Sunday.

With their pitching, the Brewers don’t need crazy offensive outbursts like this weekend to win games. In fact, four seems to be the magic number so far: they’ve won all five games in which they scored four or more runs and lost all four in which they scored three or less.

There’s a reason that many sites projected the Brewers to finish near or at the top of the NL Central in 2021, and an improved offensive output this season is part of that. This weekend showed that the improved offense might finally be ready to show itself going forward.