Can this Brewer replicate his exceptional May from a season ago?

As the calendar turns to May, the Milwaukee Brewers shortstop, Joey Ortiz, will look to put his slow start to the season behind him and get back to the player that he and everyone else knows he can be. April was a tough month for the second-year infielder who the Brewers acquired last offseason during the blockbuster Corbin Burnes trade, but more context is needed to fully understand Ortiz's performance.

After uncertainty about who would be playing shortstop for the Brewers in 2025 dominated spring training headlines, Ortiz eventually won the job in part due to shoulder fatigue that Brice Turang, the other candidate for the position, experienced towards the end of the spring season. While Ortiz is no stranger to shortstop, having played a majority of his minor league and college games there, the last-minute switch just days before Opening Day could not have been an easy adjustment to make. Additionally, while he does have experience at the position, Ortiz spent all of last year, his first full season in MLB, at third base, meaning regardless of whether he was playing shortstop or second base for the Brewers in 2025, a position change was in store.

Defensive discomfort has a tendency to affect a player’s offensive production. Brewers fans will remember how former top prospect Keston Hiura's offense started to slow when the team was trying him out at different positions in an effort to mask his poor defensive ability. Ortiz is a different story; he's a plus defender no matter where the Brewers put him on the infield dirt, but it's understandable that it's taking him a little time to adjust to the new position, which could be preventing him from solely focusing on the changes he needs to make at the plate.

However, it's a new month, and one that Ortiz performed extremely well in last season. With a month of big-league shortstop now under his belt, Ortiz might be primed for another strong month of May, which would do wonders in rerouting his 2025 season.

After winning NL Rookie of the Month in May of 2024, Joey Ortiz could use a strong stretch of games to get him back on track

It took Pat Murphy and company a few weeks last season before they finally turned to Ortiz as their everyday third baseman, but once they did, it immediately paid dividends. Ortiz posted a slash line of .307/.391/.587 with 12 extra-base hits and 12 RBIs in May of 2024. Perhaps most impressively, he only struck out 11 times throughout the entire month. For his performance, Ortiz was deemed the NL Rookie of the Month, becoming just the eighth Brewer in franchise history to win the award.

A year later, Ortiz is in desperate need of a big month. Luckily, there are some signs that point to him turning things around. First, Ortiz enters Friday night's game against the Chicago Cubs on a mini five-game hitting streak, during which he's raised his OPS nearly 50 points.

Additionally, the impressively low whiff and strikeout rates that made Ortiz a tough out last year remain. In fact, his 16.6% whiff rate this season ranks in the 90th percentile of all MLB hitters, and his strikeout rate of 15.1% ranks in the 83rd percentile, according to Baseball Savant. A season ago, Ortiz posted a 17.1% whiff rate and 20.2% strikeout rate, meaning he's improved in those two areas in his first 31 games this season.

Finally, Ortiz is starting to use the opposite field more during his five-game hitting streak, a tactic that was instrumental to his success in 2024. Ortiz's double in Sunday's series finale against the Cardinals was reminiscent of the many extra-base hits that he hit down the first-base line a season ago.

There's reason to believe that Ortiz has turned a corner and put his sluggish start to the 2025 season behind him. Another successful May would not only be huge for the 26-year-old shortstop, but it would also be a big boost to the Brewers' offense, which has struggled to get production from the bottom of its order.