3 Brewers Players The Fans Have Already Lost Their Patience With

Patience is a virtue, one that many sports fans don't have when it comes to their favorite teams. Brewers fans, especially on social media, are no different.

Once fans have decided they've lost patience with a player, it'll take quite the hot streak to change their mind. Every time the player strikes out or gives up a run, it only serves to further prove that fans and the team should not be any more patient with them.

Here are three players that Brewers fans have already started to lose patience with early on in the 2023 season.

#1: 1B/DH Luke Voit

It's been a slow start for Luke Voit. He played well in spring training, earning a roster spot after opting out and signing a big league contract with an option for next year. In his limited opportunities as the backup first baseman and DH, Voit has struggled.

Voit was supposed to be a big masher against left handed pitching but he's struggled tremendously in that area. He's hitting just .091 against lefties with one extra base hit and 20 strikeouts in 33 at-bats. That's a 60% strikeout rate against lefties. That's objectively bad. Especially considering that was his primary job on the team.

He's been much better against righties, hitting .343 in 41 plate appearances, albeit with no home runs yet. As a power hitter, the fact that he hasn't been able to hit a homer yet is frustrating. Combined, he's hitting a career worst .221/.284/.265 across the board and has a career-worst 5.4% BB rate.

Overall, Voit's strikeout rate sits at 36.5%, which is well above his career average of 28.8%. The Brewers knew coming in that Voit was going to strike out a bunch, but this is five percentage points higher than his previous career high.

To make matters worse, this is exactly the type of performance that the Brewers were trying to replace in Keston Hiura. Milwaukee outrighted Hiura off the 40 man after they finally lost patience with him because he struggled so much against lefties and struck out way too much. They moved on from him to go with Voit because Voit was supposed to be an improvement, but he hasn't been thus far. Meanwhile, Hiura stayed in the organization in Triple-A and has been lighting it up in Nashville this year.

Fans have been losing their patience with Voit and if he doesn't turn it around soon, the organization might lose patience with him too.

#3: LHP Eric Lauer

Eric Lauer's struggles this year have been frustrating. He didn't have a great spring training, and he hasn't been able to get it going in the six weeks so far of the regular season. The Brewers just decided to skip his next turn through the rotation and put him in the bullpen for the time being.

Through seven starts, Lauer has a 4.72 ERA, his walk rate has jumped to 4.1 BB/9 and his ground ball rate has fell to just 24.5%. He's giving up a lot more fly balls and that's also led to an increased rate of home runs allowed, serving up eight homers already through seven outings.

The Brewers rotation has been dealing with injuries all season. They lost Aaron Ashby and Jason Alexander before the season even began. Adrian Houser was out for a bit before returning. Then Brandon Woodruff suffered an injury two starts in to the season. It's cut a massive hole in their depth. That's made it all the more important for the healthy pitchers to be performing well and Lauer just hasn't been himself this year.

Lauer's fastball velocity has inexplicably dipped, averaging just 91.2 MPH this year after averaging 93.3 MPH last year. His zoom ball isn't zooming. That's a factor in his struggles this year and what exactly is causing the dip is not yet known. Perhaps there's an injury that he hasn't noticed yet that's causing a problem, but whatever it is, it's affecting his results.

The Brewers haven't necessarily lost patience with Lauer because of his struggles. The move to the bullpen is to give Lauer some rest and a reset and hopefully get back to his old self. Fans may be starting to lose some patience because of his early struggles, but Lauer is still an important part of this team and they'll need to be at least a little patient with him to let him get through this rough patch.