Milwaukee Brewers: Aguilar ready to bounce-back in 2nd half

It’s been a tough start to the season for Jesus Aguilar of the Milwaukee Brewers but after a solid month of baseball, he will look to carry that momentum into the second half.

You could call the 2018 season Jesus Aguilar’s “breakout year” as he would carry this Milwaukee Brewers team for much of the first half of the season and would be selected to his very first All-Star game all while putting up big numbers along the way.

Heading into this season, Aguilar was the clear every day first baseman for the Brewers after his performance in 2018. And while some regression at the plate was a very real possibility, I can’t imagine many expected him to struggle as much as he did for an extended period of time.

Upon entering the month of June and Aguilar still wasn’t hitting above .200 and the home run ball that was a big part of his success in 2018 was almost non-existent.

Aguilar wasn’t striking out at an alarming rate, in fact, it’s lower than it was last season and his walk rate is actually up. However, he just hasn’t seen the ball well enough to make hard contact. Aguilar’s hard-hit rate is down nearly five percent and he’s hitting far more groundballs than he did in 2018. As a result, his BAbip has plummeted to .260 and his power had disappeared.

When asked about his struggles through the first few months, Aguilar had this to say:

"“You’ve got to stay positive. That’s the only thing you can really control. It’s really hard sometimes. Sometimes, you are dealing with negative stuff from certain situations but you have to continue to battle. You don’t have excuses in this game. You have to continue to try to do things the right way. At some point, things are going to happen like you really want.”"

This meant less playing time over at first base and also fewer at-bats as he would now platoon with Eric Thames and for a player in an extended slump, inconsistent at-bats make it much more difficult to bust out of it.

Yet as the calendar flipped to June, we’ve seen Aguilar’s play at the plate greatly improve. Over the last month which has covered 44 plate appearances, Aguilar has posted a slash line of .342/.432.684, totaling a whopping 1.116 OPS. He’s also added four home runs, nine RBIs and only eight strikeouts during that span.

In the month of June you have to assume that Aguilar’s leash was getting pretty short at this point as GM David Stearns and manager Craig Counsell had given him plenty of time to figure it out, and rightfully so.

In past interviews, Aguilar continued to mention how he had to stick with his routine that has worked very well for him over the last year and a half and things would come along at the plate. And now it appears that his diligence and patience, as well as the patience from Stearns and Counsell,  is beginning to pay off.

If this Milwaukee Brewers team wants to make another deep playoff push this season they will need Aguilar firing on all cylinders. He is an important part of this Brewers ball club, hence the team’s willingness to wait for him to bust out of this slump.

Now at the All-Star break and playing like the Jesus Aguilar we saw in 2018, he is now primed and ready to help the Milwaukee Brewers make their second-half push at the NL Central crown.