Brewers Power Rankings: Crew Jumps Into Top 5 Behind Strong Rotation

Despite the reservations of many Brewers fans through the first few games of the season and the struggles of the first week, the Brewers are showing to be one of the best teams in baseball right now.

The Brewers won three consecutive series, all against the Cubs and Cardinals, to put themselves right behind the Reds in the division standings. They dropped the series to the Pirates, which was unfortunate, but that didn’t have too big of a detriment on their ranking.

Currently, the Crew sits at 8-7 on the season and they’re one game back of the Reds in the NL Central.

They also sit one spot back of the Reds in Alyson Footer’s latest MLB Power Rankings for MLB.com.

The Milwaukee Brewers are 5th in the latest MLB Power Rankings, marking the first time this season they’ve been in the Top 5.

The Reds are 4th, and both NL Central squads are behind the Red Sox (3), Padres (2), and Dodgers (1). A big offensive outbreak is fueling the Reds’ high ranking and current 9-6 record, but the rotation is what’s driving this climb for the Brewers.

Here’s what Footer had to say about the Crew, who were ranked 14th last week:

Credit where it’s due — after losing two of three to the Twins to start the season, Milwaukee won three straight series, before dropping a weekend set with the Pirates. The pitching has been really good — after Sunday’s finale, Brewers starters had an MLB-best 2.07 ERA.

Saying the Crew’s pitching has been really good would be an understatement. They’ve been dominant. Led by Brandon Woodruff and Corbin Burnes, the Brewers might have the most electric 1-2 rotation punch in baseball right now. Burnes has been making baseball history in numerous ways while Woodruff has looked even better than he did last year.

Freddy Peralta, Brett Anderson, and Adrian Houser have all pitched well to start the year. Houser has the highest ERA of the group at 3.14. That’ll play.

The bullpen could use a little more refining while the offense has been hot and cold. It’s been a little more hot lately, but a string of injuries to players like Christian Yelich, Kolten Wong, and Lorenzo Cain have cut into the top of the depth chart. The Brewers have players like Billy McKinney and Daniel Robertson to cover, but they just cannot provide the offensive firepower that that big trio can bring.

Players like Travis Shaw, Avisail Garcia and Omar Narvaez have stepped up in the meantime and are having very strong starts to the season.

Also, after a one year hiatus, first inning runs for the Brewers are a thing again, and in just a few series they have surpassed the total number of first inning runs they scored in all 60 games last year. As mentioned above, the rotation has done a good job of preventing first inning runs, and any runs in general as well. That’s provided a good recipe for success.

This week, the Brewers face off against the No. 2 ranked Padres with the top of their rotation set to take the mound. If they can pull off a series win, they should be able to jump further up in the next power rankings.

This Brewers team is much better than most people give them credit, so it’s nice to see MLB’s power rankings give the Brewers their due.