Having fun with numbers in analyzing where the Brewers currently sit

The Milwaukee Brewers began a key six-game road trip to contenders Minnesota and San Francisco on Tuesday with a 48-39 record and a first-place hold on the National League’s Central Division, two games ahead of the St. Louis Cardinals and 11 games ahead of the Pittsburgh Pirates. If the post-season began today, the Brewers would be the NL’s third seed, facing the second-seeded New York Mets in the divisional round of the playoffs.

It’s not a bad position to be in 87 games into the 162-game baseball season, just before the All-Star break.

But, of course, the post-season does not begin now and a lot will happen between now and early October. If you’re a Brewers fan, you probably have an uneasy feeling about the way things have been going lately.

Sometimes you have to remind yourself, it is a long season and even the best teams go through subpar stretches during the long haul. A 2-4 homestand against the Chicago Cubs and the Pirates, teams that were a combined 35 games under .500 going into Tuesday’s play, would certainly qualify as subpar. The fact that the team’s strength of pitching faltered in key situations during the homestand gets your attention, though it’s probably too early to sound the alarms.

Injuries have no doubt been a factor. Losing All-Star caliber starting pitcher Freddy Peralta for at least three months is going to hurt. Now Adrian Houser is down too. No one expected Jason Alex- ander and Chi Chi Gonzalez to be in the rotation during the heart of the season. Hunter Renfroe’s recent absence has been felt both offensively and defensively in the outfield, as has Tyrone Taylor’s. Kolten Wong, Willy Adames and All-Star caliber pitcher Brandon Woodruff have missed time in the first half of the season as well.

So if you’re general manager David Stearns, what are you thinking as the Aug. 2 trade deadline nears? Certainly the Brewers figure to be in more of a buy mode than sell mode. It’s them and St. Louis in the Central, as we expected from day one. The Pirates and Cubs showed some young spunk last week, but 2022 isn’t their time yet. What does Stearns target to make sure the division is won? Another arm for the bullpen that for the first time last week maybe showed some weariness from all of the pressure outs it’s had to get? A starter to eat up late-season innings? Is another bat the priority to try to jumpstart an offense that, statistically, ranks pretty well among its MLB peers, but realistically is not getting the job done consistently? Is a veteran tool box kind of guy what the club needs –– someone who can get some hits and steady the defense, which has had some hiccups, but is relatively decent?

Any of the above wouldn’t hurt. A look at the multitude of offensive statistics that are out there is kind of fascinating. Going into Tuesday’s series opener against the Twins, the Brewers ranked second in the National League and fourth overall with 119 home runs. They’re 11th in the Majors in runs scored with 396 and eighth in runs batted in with 386. They’re just above average in hits, ranking 12th with 686.

But, only 133 of those hits have gone for doubles and just 11 are triples. They rank 22nd in doubles. So, their hits are generally singles or homers. Boom or bust, right? Their 768 strikeouts are fifth most in the Majors and the Atlanta Braves, with 815, are the only playoff-caliber team with more. Yes, strikeouts are a much more accepted part of the offense than they used to be. Still, they are rally killers and a pitcher’s best friend.

It was a little surprising to find the Brewers rank OK when it comes to hitting with runners in scoring position. Overall their RISP batting average is .257, part of a four-way tie for 11th. Not great, but not horrible. Their RISP batting average with two outs dips to .244, but that ranks 10th. They don’t strike out in those situations as much as you’d think either, ranking in the upper half of the league.

The Brewers leave 3.17 runners in scoring position per game, which actually is ninth-best too. Pittsburgh (2.94), Cincinnati (2.95), Oakland (2.95), Detroit (3.02) and the Los Angeles Angels (3.08) are the top five. All five also are among the worst teams in baseball because they don’t get runners on base, period.

Another interesting bunch of numbers can be found at baseballsavant.mlb. com. Through 87 games, the Brewers have had 2,154 batted ball events. In other words, that’s how often they’ve put the ball in play. Of those occasions, 22.2% have been line drives, third-worst in all of baseball. The league average is 23.8%. Only the A’s (21.8%) and Diamondbacks (21.4%) are worse. They’re bad teams. The Brewers pop up just 6.1% of the time, which actually is pretty good. Tied with four other teams for fifth best. It only feels like more because they always seem to come with a guy on third and less than two outs. The Brewers hit ground balls 42.9% of the time, which is a little below the league average of 43.5%. But ground balls result in double plays. The Brewers hit into 0.76 twin killings per game, tied for seventh-most. They’ve even hit into a triple play.

Of those 2,154 batted balls, 8.7% are considered to be barreled up, which ranks eighth. Another 6.2% are considered to be solid contact, right in the middle of the pack. So, bad luck could be part of the offensive inconsistency. The Brewers also are the third-best team in baseball when it comes to chasing bad pitches. They take the fewest first-pitch swings in baseball, doing it just 25.2% of the time. That could be good for driving up opponents’ pitch counts, bad for possibly letting the best pitch they’ll see in an at-bat go by.

Pitching-wise, the biggest numbers to me are the league-leading 33 saves as a team, 25 of which are by league leader Josh Hader. Sure, that means a lot of wins, but it also means a lot of close games.

That’s where the offense has to pull its weight down in the last two and a half months. Christian Yelich, Kolten Wong, Keston Hiura certainly are guys who are capable of doing better. While his 18 home runs are nice, Willy Adames can hit better than .217. Omar Narvaez needs to hit more than three homers in the second half of the season.

The object of the game is to score more runs than the other team. It’s equal part run scoring and run prevention. The Brewers have struggled at the scoring part for two and a half years now. A ton of hard-throwing talent around the league plus the success of defensive shifts have made offense tough. But it just feels like Milwaukee is going to have to be better with the bats –– and get healthier –– to make a serious run to October.

Matt Frey is the Sports Editor at The Star News.