Game Thirty Four: Cardinals 3, Brewers 1

Box Score

Another day, another feeble offensive performance. What we are seeing from the Brewers offense is the result of three things:

1) The quality of pitching across the majors has increased tremendously over the past few seasons.
2) The Brewers' offense is not as good as advertised.
3) The Brewers are going through one of the worst offensive slumps you will ever see.

There is not much that can be done about (1) other than make sure you have good starting pitchers, which Doug Melvin has done. Regarding (2), the Brewers were 4th in the NL in runs scored last season and 3rd in 2009. They have a good offense and at the end of the season I expect the numbers to show this. However, they are not a juggernaut and they are clearly prone to stretches of futility. Regarding (3), we'll just have to wait this one out. The Brewers are on an unsustainable pace of awfulness that seems like it will go on forever, but it won't. I think.

Today's game was mostly a dud. I say mostly because Narveson had a good outing and the 14-pitch AB Counsell had in the top of the 9th was amazing to watch. If the Brewers fire Dale Sveum as the hitting coach they should hire Counsell to immediately take his place.

Craig Counsell does not hit for average or power. He also does not swing at bad pitches or anything out of the zone. He's at his best in situations were pitchers have to throw strikes, such as when the bases are loaded.  He's a career .376/.403/.554 hitter with the bases loaded, and that's not a surprise. The sooner the rest of the Brewers can take his approach at the plate, the better.

Thirteen of the next sixteen games are against teams with losing records and twelve of those game are at home. We're about to find out just where this season is heading.