How does the Brewers' start in 2025 compare to recent years?

Two steps backward, one step forward. That's been the theme as of late for the Milwaukee Brewers who are coming off of their third straight series in which they dropped the first two games, but managed to avoid the sweep with a win in the series finale. That 3-6 record in their last nine games (which drops to 3-7 in their last ten if you include the final game of the Houston Astros series), has the Brewers sitting at a lackluster 22-25 record on the morning of May 19th.

To say that it's where the Brewers expected to be at this point in the season would be untrue. Even those who were pessimistic about the Brewers' chances this year had them a few games above .500 at season's end. However, slow starts from some of their key offensive contributors and a myriad of injuries to their talented pitching staff have Milwaukee fighting to keep pace with their division rivals.

However, there is still plenty of time for things to click and turn around in the Brewers’ favor. After all, we are just past the halfway mark of May. There's still a lot of baseball yet to be played. So just how deep of a hole do the Brewers have to climb out of? To answer that, let's take a look at where Milwaukee's successful teams of the recent past were performing around this time of the season.

2025 Brewers on pace with their 2021 team that ended up winning 95 games

On May 21, 2021, the Brewers' record sat at 21-23. They had been shut out twice in the previous week, and their offense was in desperate need of some consistency. Sound familiar? It was on that day, four years ago, that the Brewers made the decision to trade pitchers Drew Rasmussen and J.P. Feyereisen to the Tampa Bay Rays for Willy Adames. The rest, as they say, is history. Milwaukee finished the 2021 season with a 95-67 record, winning the NL Central by five games.

Yes, it took one of the most successful trades in Brewers' history to get the team going, and one of the best pitching staffs in Milwaukee's past to continue to scratch out wins throughout the season, but to say that this season is a lost cause feels premature.

Adames posted an .887 OPS from the time he arrived in late May to the end of the 2021 season. Meanwhile, Christian Yelich posted a .910 OPS in the 73 games he played a season ago. Yelich currently sports a .644 OPS in 2025, so expecting him to jump nearly .250 points to reach Adames' team-changing mark from 2021 currently feels like a reach, but things are bound to click for Yelich at some point. If he can cut down on the strikeouts and start to elevate the ball more than he has been, it's not unreasonable to think that he can do what he did a season ago — when he was in all kinds of pain — again this season. It may just take a little time for him to get his timing back and trust that his back pain won't pop up again.

With the returns of Brandon Woodruff, DL Hall, Aaron Ashby, Aaron Civale, and José Quintana all on the horizon, this team is going to get an injection of quality starting pitchers and long relief options. Though they may not have the high-end pitching talent that they had in 2021, they make up for it with a deeper staff that extends to the minor leagues, where the Brewers have one of the most talented starting rotations in all of Triple-A.

Simply knowing that a successful Brewers team of recent history has been in a very similar spot to where the 2025 squad currently sits is reassuring, and an excellent reminder that there is still plenty of season left.

How the Brewers compare to their teams from the last three seasons at this point in the season

The results through 47 games of the Brewers' teams from the last three years are a mixed bag. As noted by Pat Murphy in a recent post-game press conference, last year's team got off to a hot start. As did the 2022 team that ended up missing the playoffs. However, sandwiched in the middle of those two seasons is a team that ended up winning the NL Central and was performing similarly to the 2025 Brewers at this point in the season. Here's how the team's record has looked through 47 games in the last four years:

1. 2022 Milwaukee Brewers (29-18)

2. 2024 Milwaukee Brewers (27-20)

3. 2023 Milwaukee Brewers (25-22)

4. 2025 Milwaukee Brewers (22-25)

Just five wins separate the Brewers’ horrible start to the 2025 season and their excellent start to the 2024 season. Just three wins separate the current team from a 2023 squad that won 92 games and the NL Central. Meanwhile, the 2022 Brewers' record through 47 games serves as an excellent reminder that divisions aren't won and playoff berths aren't earned in May.

The Brewers absolutely have plenty of work to do if they want to replicate the season-long success that they have had in recent years. The team that they currently send out every game, and more specifically the offense that they roll out each day, does not look like one that is capable of claiming a division crown. But as their veteran hitters start to live up to their potential, their pitching staff gets healthier, and their front office maybe executes a trade or two, it's important to remember that despite the uninspiring start to the season, they have plenty of time to recover.