Milwaukee Brewers: A Season of Unfortunate Events

The Milwaukee Brewers find themselves clinging to their playoff lives as a number of underwhelming performances and some key injuries have put them in a difficult place.

After coming up just short of a World Series appearance with a crushing game seven loss to the L.A. Dodgers in the NLCS, the Milwaukee Brewers and their fans had high expectations coming into the 2019 season.

Unfortunately, things have not gone as planned. Now in the final month of the season, the Milwaukee Brewers sit seven games back in the NL Central race and four games back of the final wildcard spot. By no means are they out of contention, but this is not a position that many expected them to be in.

While there have been plenty of players who have carried the Brewers this season, including Christian Yelich, Ryan Braun, Josh Hader, Yasmani Grandal, and Mike Moustakas, there have been injuries or some underwhelming performances from key players that have led to a roller coaster of a season.

So brace yourselves as this may hurt a bit, but let’s take a look back at some of the reasons why the Milwaukee Brewers find themselves in the position that they are in.

Corbin Burnes

After a fantastic 2018 season coming out of the bullpen, there were sky-high expectations for Corbin Burnes this season. However, things have gone horribly. The home run ball has been a major issue and at the big league level, he sits with a 9.00 ERA in 46 innings pitched.

At one point he was relegated to the bullpen but has been down in the minors since mid-July where things haven’t gone that well either. He has since been recalled to the 40-man roster where he can hopefully finish strong this season.

Jhoulys Chacin

Well, the Milwaukee Brewers Opening Day starter curse lives on. Jhoulys Chacin could never get on track this season as he posted a 5.79 ERA and his opponents held an OPS of .857. After a stint on the IL, he was eventually released by the team.

Freddy Peralta

Another young up and comer who was supposed to be in the starting rotation has battled inconsistency the entire season. Peralta had a very strong start against Cincinnati early in the season and even when he was in the bullpen, there was a stretch of a week or two where he pitched successfully in some high-leverage situations.

However, those moments have been few and far between and his 5.68 ERA in Milwaukee landed him in Triple-A for a few weeks in August.

Brandon Woodruff

Woody has been one of the bright spots from the Brewers starting rotation and had become Milwaukee’s most reliable starter. Through 117.2 innings he held a 3.75 ERA and struck out 136 batters. He even made his first All-Star team this season.

But as luck would have it in 2019, he has been on the IL since about mid-July and if the Brewers are going to make a playoff push, they’ll desperately need him back.

Lorenzo Cain

Lo-Cain, as expected, has been fantastic on defense night in and night out, but he has battled injuries and at the plate, he has struggled quite a bit this year. Overall he has a slash line of .250/.319/.352 which are all well below his career averages. He also has an OPS+ of just 74.

Travis Shaw

This has turned into a season to forget about for Travis Shaw. It is September and with the Milwaukee Brewers, he has a batting average of just .159 and a .546 OPS. Shaw has spent much of the summer in the minors where he has found some success, but once he returns to Milwaukee, he can’t seem to put it together.

For a player that had 63 home runs and 187 RBIs combined between 2017 and 2018, losing that kind of production has been a huge blow to this Brewers’ offense.

Jesus Aguilar

Another big bat from 2018 that went MIA this season belonged to Jesus Aguilar. Although things had been getting better for him offensively, he spent the first few months of the season battling to get his average above .200 and ended up in a platoon role at first base. As a result, the Brewers ended up trading him to Tampa Bay.

Corey Knebel

Before the season even started the Milwaukee Brewers’ bullpen took a huge blow as Corey Knebel was sidelined for the season with Tommy John surgery. As expected, it’s been a huge loss and the bullpen just hasn’t been the same.

Jeremy Jeffress

Two-thirds of the “Electric Dudes” are now no longer on the Brewers roster after they decided to release Jeremy Jeffress. With a 5.02 ERA, Jeffress was just too unreliable out of the bullpen at this point and the team thought it was best to move on.

Keston Hiura

Another bright spot on this Brewers team this season, we finally saw the major league debut of Keston Hiura and my goodness has he lived up to the hype so far. Currently, Hiura has a batting average of .301, an OPS of .941, and an OPS+ of 138. Unfortunately, he is now on the IL during this crucial part of the season.

Orlando Arcia

We all know that Orlando Arcia struggles at the plate, but after a rough 2018 season that was salvaged with a strong performance in the playoffs, we had hoped that he would carry some of that momentum over to the new season.

However, it hasn’t and he’s actually performing worse at the plate with a .224 average and a .643 OPS. He was even benched at one point because of his defense which is a big reason that he is in the lineup as often as he is anyways. For someone who plays as much as Arcia does, having a bat like that in the lineup just hurts this Brewers’ offense.

I mean this is quite a bit of poor play and injuries to key players for a team to overcome in one season, but somehow the Milwaukee Brewers have managed and still find themselves in the thick of the NL playoff race. And in part, this explains the struggles that they’ve had this season.

With that said, there still is time, so hopefully, a few of these players are able to get back on track and help make a final playoff push.