Milwaukee Brewers: Time is still on their side

It has been a rough stretch for the Milwaukee Brewers who have fallen back in the standings but when it comes to making the playoffs, time is still on their side.

Since June 16th when the Milwaukee Brewers sat at 40-31 on the season, they have hit a rough stretch where nothing seems to come easy, even in the games that they do win. As a result, in less than a month they had fallen to 48-47 overall.

Although they followed that month of poor baseball up with series wins over the Atlanta Braves, Arizona Diamondbacks and the Chicago Cubs, the Brewers couldn’t sustain the momentum that they had built.

Now on their current road trip, they are 2-5 with Monday night’s nail-biting win over the Pittsburgh Pirates and have a season record of 58-56 overall. For a team with World Series aspirations at one point, it’s safe to say that the Milwaukee Brewers have ran into a number of unforeseen issues this season.

Currently on the mound, their starting rotation from Game 1 of the season is no longer there. Freddy Peralta is in the bullpen, Corbin Burnes is in Triple-A, while Brandon Woodruff, Zach Davies, and Jhoulys Chacin all sit on the IL.

In the bullpen, it is a struggle to find a reliable option outside of Josh Hader, who has ran into issues of his own with the home run ball.

And what was supposed to be a high-powered offense hasn’t been able to consistently put up runs. As a team, they rank 7th in the NL in total runs, 9th in batting average, and 6th in OPS – which is up from their breakout night against the Pirates.

Being middle of the road in the NL in a number of offensive categories is not what we expected from this Brewers team to start the season.

However, with all of that said, the Crew still has time on their side to make a playoff push. At the moment they sit third in the NL Central but just four games behind the Cubs. And in the wildcard race, they sit only two games behind Philadelphia.

In their remaining schedule, they still have 16 combined games against either the St. Louis Cardinals or the Cubs, as well as three against the Washington Nationals who hold the top wildcard spot.

From August 23rd to September 9th, the Brewers play 12 out of 15 games at Miller Park, while still having to face below .500 teams such as the Miami Marlins, Colorado Rockies, San Diego Padres and division rivals, the Pirates and Cincinnati Reds.

Now, by no means am I say that they will make a run these final two months and make the playoffs. In order to do so, things drastically have to change. The rotation needs to get healthy and bats like Lorenzo Cain, Travis Shaw, and Orlando Arcia need to start heating up.

But at just four games behind the division leader and only two behind the final wildcard spot, with nearly two full months of baseball still left to be played, even as rough as it has been for the Milwaukee Brewers, there is still time to turn things around.