Milwaukee Brewers: Grading the Crew's Performance in March and April

It might feel hard to believe but MLB is already a month into the 2023 season. And similar to last season, the Milwaukee Brewers are off to a hot start as they head into the month of May.

The Brewers currently sit at 18-10 and in second place in the NL Central, 1.5 games behind, no, not the St. Louis Cardinals, but the 20-9 Pittsburgh Pirates (who they will hopefully surpass next week). Milwaukee also holds the third best record in the National League and is tied with the Toronto Blue Jays for the sixth best record in all of baseball.

The Brewers have played nine series so far this season and have won six of them. Those series wins have come against some decent competition as well as four of those teams - the Cubs, Mets, Padres, and Angels - currently sport winning records while the other two - the Cardinals and Mariners - were playoff teams last season.

So how did the Brewers get there? What parts of the team led the way to the Crew's current record and what others got in the way? Let's hand out some grades to Milwaukee's offense, pitching, and overall performance for the first month plus of the 2023 season.

Grading the Brewers offense for March and April: B-

For a while it was looking like the Brewers offense might finish the month with a grade somewhere in the A to A- range. But a dip in offensive production toward the end of the month brought them closer to the middle of the pack.

Milwaukee currently sits at 4.57 runs per game on the season, which ties them with the Astros for 14th most in the league and is just barely shy of the MLB league average of 4.59 runs per game. It does outpace the 2022 squad, though, whose offense finished at 4.48 rpg.

Shutouts certainly don't help. After Sunday's 3-0 loss to the Angels the Brewers have already been shut out four times this season, going scoreless once each to the Cubs, Cardinals, and Diamondbacks as well. For what it's worth, they've scored nine or more runs four times already this season as well.

At the plate, the Brewers find themselves in an interesting position of being top 10 in both walks and strikeouts. While they currently sit with the sixth most walks in MLB with 105 as a team, they also have the eighth most strikeouts with 265.

Hitting around league average in runs per game would normally point to a C grade for the offense. But since the Brewers are providing the right offense at the right time to pile up wins, we'll bump the grade up just a little, for now.