Milwaukee Brewers’ offense continues to struggle

The Milwaukee Brewers continue to fall back in the standings and a big contributor is the lack of consistent offensive production.

Coming into the season the Milwaukee Brewers were one of the favorites to represent the National League in the World Series. A big reason for these expectations was because of the high-powered lineup that GM David Stearns had put together.

With players like Christian Yelich, Lorenzo Cain, Mike Moustakas, Ryan Braun, Yasmani Grandal, and Jesus Aguilar amongst others, putting up five or six runs per game on a consistent basis seemed like a fairly realistic goal.

However, as the Milwaukee Brewers find themselves just 1-6 in their last seven games and 57-56 overall, a big reason has been a lack of consistent offensive production.

After a rough stretch from June 1st to July 14th where the Crew went 16-20, it appeared that they had turned things around after going 8-4 over 12 games against some stiff competition.

That span included series victories over the Atlanta Braves, the Arizona Diamondbacks, and the Chicago Cubs. The Brewers would average nearly six runs per game and had a team OPS of .827 during those games.

Yet they couldn’t sustain the momentum that they had built offensively during that stretch. As I mentioned above, from the last game of the Cubs’ series at Miller Park through today, the Brewers are just 1-6, scoring 2.5 runs per game, with a team OPS of only .587.

While the hope is that this is just another slump, unfortunately, the offense has been underperforming for much of the season.

Out of 15 teams in the NL, the Milwaukee Brewers rank 7th in total runs, 8th in hits, 9th in batting average, and 7th in OPS. For a team that had World Series aspirations at one point, being in the middle to bottom half of the NL in a number of important offensive categories isn’t going to get them there and it may not even get them to the playoffs.

It’s evident that the Brewers rely heavily on the home run ball and fail to consistently manufacture runs. Typically, if the ball isn’t flying out of the park the Crew is going to struggle to put up runs. They’ve also had issues with taking advantage of runners in scoring position which is making things more difficult as well.

While there have been bright spots such as Christian Yelich who is in the running for his second consecutive MVP and the emergence of Keston Hiura, it hasn’t been enough to overcome the lackluster play from a number of key players.

Lorenzo Cain is well below his career averages in a number of categories, Travis Shaw looks completely lost at the plate, Ryan Braun has been injured, Orlando Arcia can’t seem to put it together, and when Jesus Aguilar was apart of the team, he struggled to get his batting average above .200 for the first few months of the season.

Currently, the Milwaukee Brewers sit four games back in the NL Central and just two games out of a wildcard spot with almost two full months of baseball remaining. Time is still on their side but if they hope to make a playoff push, the bats must get going.