Brewers erupt for 12 hits, hang on vs. Braves

MILWAUKEE -- Brewers president of baseball operations David Stearns said he wants solutions for the team’s ongoing hitting woes, not heads on a proverbial pike.

Right on cue, Brewers hitters showed the boss what he’s been looking for. They set a season high for runs and came up one shy of a season high for hits -- and needed every bit of offense to win on Sunday, 10-9 over the Braves at American Family Field after the pitching and defense lapsed in the late innings.

When the Brewers could finally exhale, they were 21-20 with the first quarter of the regular season in the books. Stearns said he was “fine” with that record, but acknowledged they need to get the bats going on a more consistent basis.

“I think both of those statements can be true,” Stearns said on Sunday morning. “We can be in a fine spot here sitting 20-20 over the first 40 games and still feel very good about our prospects going forward. And we can also be frustrated with the performance, particularly over the last couple of weeks, with our offense. That's how I'd put it.

“We have to score more runs, no question. Hasn't been good enough. We all recognize that.”

They scored enough on Sunday afternoon. Daniel Vogelbach’s two-out, two-run double in the third inning snapped Milwaukee’s streak of 18 hitless at-bats with runners in scoring position, and Avisaíl García hit a two-run home run in the fifth that briefly settled into the glove of leaping Braves center fielder Ender Inciarte, then slipped out on the far side of the wall.

The lead grew to 8-0 before the Braves mounted a stunning rally in a seven-run seventh, when usually-reliable reliever J.P. Feyereisen struggled, as did shortstop Luis Urías. He fielded a pair of one-out ground balls cleanly but didn’t get an out on either of them, extending the inning for Freddie Freeman’s grand slam, which made it an 8-7 game.

It was 10-7 in the eighth when Urías made his second error in as many innings and let in another Braves run, and 10-8 going into the ninth before the Braves put up a series of long at-bats against Josh Hader.

But those Brewers scoring rallies held up.

“Today was a great day, but we all know that's just one game,” said Lorenzo Cain, who reached safely four times on three singles and a walk, and whose two-run single in the seventh stood as the game’s decisive hit. “Like I said before, it starts with me. I have to keep rolling, keep getting on base for these guys. As a whole, as a group, we have to find ways to be consistent and keep being on base to give ourselves a chance day in and day out. Today was a great day of that. But we still have a long season to go.”

“I think we did it in all shapes and forms today. I think it was a complete offensive game for us,” said manager Craig Counsell.

Naturally, when a team struggles to hit, the focus goes to the hitting coaches, who in Milwaukee’s case are third-year hitting coach Andy Haines and second-year assistant hitting coach Jacob Cruz. Offense is down all-around in baseball, particularly under their watch in Milwaukee.

The Brewers entered Sunday last in the National League in weighted runs created plus (81, or 19 percent below average), last in weighted on-base average (.290), last in batting average (.290) and batting average with runners in scoring position (.195), and last in OPS (.651). They were second-worst in strikeouts (26.6 percent) and third-worst in runs per game (3.6).

And over their last 100 games -- 60 regular-season games during the shortened 2020 season and the first 40 games of ’21 -- the Brewers had the league’s worst batting average (.218) and strikeout rate (26.6 percent), second-worst average with runners in scoring position (.218), wOBA (.300) and OPS (.682) and third-worst wRC+ (86), ranking ahead of only the Rockies and Pirates.

Asked for his view of coaches’ responsibility in that, Stearns responded, "I'm less concerned about ascribing responsibility or blame at this point and more focused on finding solutions and helping us get better. We're all very rightfully evaluated on how our team performs and what the results are. And any objective evaluation for any of us over the last two weeks is not going to be a positive one. And so, we all have to take that and understand why that is the case, and do what we can to be better. That's what we're going to do."

“We're all in this together this season, good or bad,” said Cain, a vocal backer of Haines and Cruz earlier this season when the Brewers were in another losing skid.

“These guys are in the cage every day, taking our hacks,” Cain said. “So it is not because of lack of effort, I will say that. We just have to go out there and get it done on the field.”

Stearns acknowledged that injuries help tell the story, particularly the back trouble that has limited Christian Yelich to only one game since April 11. Yelich played a third straight day at Triple-A Nashville on Sunday and flew out in both of his at-bats. Stearns will consult with him and the team’s medical staff ahead of Tuesday’s game in Kansas City to determine the next step.

The Brewers have also had Kolten Wong (oblique), Cain (quad) and Omar Narváez (hamstring) on the injured list this season. Those help tell the story, too. But it does not account entirely for what Stearns called their “run-scoring challenges.”

“We've also had periods, specifically over the last two weeks, where we just haven't taken very good at-bats,” Stearns said. “When that happens, and to the extent it happens with a level of consistency, we have to look in and try to determine why that is the case. Two weeks over the course of a six-month season, at the end of it, is a blip. So, I'm not necessarily concerned with two weeks. My level of concern will increase if this continues for a sustainable period of time here going forward, especially as we continue to get healthy."

Getting Yelich back -- and hitting, after a down year in 2020 -- would be significant, to put it mildly. He began a Minor League rehab assignment with three innings and two plate appearances on Friday for Nashville, followed by six innings and three plate appearances on Saturday. Yelich was scheduled for just a couple of plate appearances on Sunday before the club re-evaluates.

“Getting Christian back is a huge part of our team,” Stearns said. “Everyone understands that. But he can’t do this alone. We’re going to have to have quality at-bats consistently around him as well.”