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Fansided

Milwaukee Brewers Bizarre Opening Day Starter Curse

By Kenny Jilek

SAN DIEGO, CA - MARCH 29: Chase Anderson #57 of the Milwaukee Brewers slides as he scores during the third inning on Opening Day against the San Diego Padres at PETCO Park on March 29, 2018 in San Diego, California. (Photo by Denis Poroy/Getty Images)
SAN DIEGO, CA - MARCH 29: Chase Anderson #57 of the Milwaukee Brewers slides as he scores during the third inning on Opening Day against the San Diego Padres at PETCO Park on March 29, 2018 in San Diego, California. (Photo by Denis Poroy/Getty Images) /
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Milwaukee Brewers
LOS ANGELES, CA – OCTOBER 16: Manny Machado #8 and Yasmani Grandal #9 of the Los Angeles Dodgers celebrate after Machado scored the winning run in the 13th inning of Game Four of the National League Championship Series as pitcher Junior Guerra #41 of the Milwaukee Brewers looks on dejected at Dodger Stadium on October 16, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. The Dodgers defeated the Brewers 2-1 in extra innings. (Photo by Jeff Gross/Getty Images) /

2017 – The injury

I know that picture is hard to look at for any Brewers fan, but did you know that Guerra means war in Spanish? I know that isn’t really a fun fact about him, so here’s another: He was actually signed as a catcher by the Atlanta Braves in 2001.

Junior Guerra had a breakout season in 2016 and had high hopes of continuing that performance into the 2017 season as the Opening Day starter.

He did not get a chance to fulfill those hopes for long, as he suffered a right calf strain coming out of the batter’s box after a bunt. This kept him sidelined for 52 days until he made another start on May 26th. He put together some good starts, until June 27th when his ERA ballooned from 3.11 to 4.54 as a result of a four-inning, eight earned run outing.

Guerra never really recovered from this hiccup and finished the season with a 5.12 ERA and 1-4 record. Just like Lohse and Peralta, he went to the bullpen towards the end of the season and made seven appearances from there.

There were a lot of issues for Guerra in 2017. An injury is tough to pitch after, and many of his statistical categories took a dive. His walks per 9 innings average was far and away the worst of his career at 5.5, his next highest being 3.5, and his walk rate of 13.5% was in the bottom 3% in the league. He also gave up 2.3 home runs per nine innings compared to 0.7 in 2016 and 1.2 last season in 2018.

A slight mix-up in his off-speed pitches was a big reason for the down season in 2017. In his dominant season in 2016, he threw his fastball, split-finger, and curveball as his primary three pitches. In 2017 he stopped throwing the curve altogether in favor of a sinker and a slider.

Well, we’ve seen how increasing sinker usage has hurt the first two victims of the curse. However, the sinker performed well enough with an opponent batting average of .239 and an expected low whiff percentage of 15.7 percent.

The slider was the real issue. As his low usage fourth pitch in 2016, it had a fantastic whiff rate of 38.5 percent and an opponent average of .222. These numbers in 2017 were 28.6 percent, almost a ten percent decrease, and .278.

2017 was a year when the Milwaukee Brewers were one game away from a tiebreaker game with the Colorado Rockies, and they were led there by Chase “The Ace” Anderson. However, in 2018 he suffered a similar fate as the three men before him.

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