June 05, 2006
Brewers Woes
The phrase of the day in Milwaukee is, "Don't Panic."
"Nobody's hitting with any regularity," Yost said. "Billy (Hall) is hitting below .220 (since he became the regular shortstop because of J.J. Hardy's ankle injury). Rickie (Weeks) has cooled off. Prince has cooled off."
Hall was hitless in four at-bats and saw his average drop to .266. He is hitting .224 (15-for-67) since taking over for Hardy and hasn't driven in a run during the losing streak that began last Sunday in Philadelphia.
Weeks snapped a 16 at-bat hitless streak with a fourth-inning single. Fielder saw his hitless streak grow to 15 at-bats and his average drop to .303.
In other words, there is no reason to point fingers in any one direction. This amounts to a total team collapse.
"Our pitching has not been very good; our defense has not been very good; our offense has not been very good. A lot of times, our baserunning has not been very good," Yost said.
Yost appears to be treating this as a run of bad luck. However, it may be the league adjusting to a young team, and that young team not adapting to those adjustments. While Yost is right not to panic, it is his job to figure out why things aren't working now that were working earlier.
Good call, it's not like this is the Mets, Cardinals and another trip to the west coast thats sweeping the Crew. It's Pittsburgh and Washington.
Hall is just coming back to earth. After all, he's a career .772 OPS guy, based on more than 1300 plate appearances. So it's not as if he could be expected to keep up his April line of .323/.386/.710.
Fielder and Weeks will be okay, though the pitchers have adjusted to them. I think Fielder can consistently maintain an OPS in the upper .800s, and Weeks in the mid-to-low .800s. Those look like reasonable expectations based on their minor league numbers.
dear brewers,
we understand.
sincerely,
the astros
Dave,
It's a classic slide, pitching is bad, offense is bad, defense is bad, and most of all, every blooper the other team hits falls in, and every line drive the Crew hits is right at a defender.
As for the kids slumping, if they went from .300 to .200, you'd have a point. As is, it's just bad luck and a small sample.
