Lorenzo Cain powered the Brewers to a win over the Cubs by hitting a pair of home runs Wednesday, but he also played good defense.

Unsolicited during his postgame interview, Cain delivered a heartfelt endorsement of Brewers hitting coaches Andy Haines and Jacob Cruz after the Brewers completed their second series of 2021. After posting an .823 OPS during Spring Training -- the fifth-highest mark in the Majors -- the Brewers entered Thursday’s series opener in St. Louis with the lowest team OPS in the Majors (.515) and the third-worst strikeout rate at 32 percent.

Cain wasn’t asked about that in the wake of Wednesday’s 4-2 win at Wrigley Field, but he brought it up anyway.

“I do want to say this: that Andy Haines and my guy ‘Cruiser’ are definitely two of the hardest working hitting coaches in the league, for me,” Cain said. “I don't think things are going the way we want it early on, but I'll vouch for those two guys any day of the week. And us as men, we've got to step up, we've got to go out there and get the job done.

“Hopefully things change. Hopefully it gets better. Good or bad the rest of the season, I'll definitely vouch for those two guys, one hundred percent.”

It’s a baseball tradition as old as peanuts and Cracker Jack: Players don’t hit, blame the hitting coach. Cain is famously averse to social media, but somehow, he got word that some Brewers fans had already reached that point.

“It bothers me,” Cain said. “I don't like to blame the hitting coach for anything. We're grown men, we've been doing this for a while. They're there to give us the best info possible, help us to improve as a hitter. But at the end of the day, we've got to go up there and get it done in the box. … But yeah, I mean, that's the thing, that's how this game works; everybody's looking for somebody to blame other than themselves. I'm the type of guy, I need to go up there and step up as a hitter, step up as a player and continue to work my tail off in the cage. I know all these hitters are working their butts off every day.

“I know everyone's probably pressing right now because we're not hitting the way we should be, but at the same time, this group works hard and I think we're going to continue to improve as hitters, and hopefully we go up there and score a lot more runs consistently.”

Ditto for Brewers newcomer Kolten Wong, who joined the Brewers over the winter and said that Haines and Cruz have been “amazing” to work with.

“To say what Lorenzo has been saying, obviously we’re not hitting right now, but everybody saw what we did in Spring Training,” Wong said. “They saw the kind of at-bats and the kind of games we can put up when everybody is clicking.

“That’s the thing, there’s always that [adage] that you don’t want to hit well in Spring Training because it’s always hard to carry that into the season, and I think we’re going through that tough stretch right now, just trying to get back to where we were. Haines and [Cruz], they’ve been putting in so much work with us and trying to get us information. It’s always tough because it’s never on the coaches, it’s always on the players, but those are the guys who tend to ‘wear it’ the most. We’re just trying to figure out our way around this and how to get hot. We know how it works. We can run off some wins and we can really put some damage on teams.”

Brewers hitters didn't fare much better in Thursday's 3-1 loss to the Cardinals when they had six hits, went 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position, got their only run courtesy of a fluke play on which the Cards committed a pair of errors, and lost Wong to an oblique injury that could require a stint on the injured list.

Last call
• After playing at American Family Field while the Brewers have been on the road, the club’s alternate training site returns to Appleton, Wis., beginning Monday, and this time, fans are welcome. The Class A Advanced Wisconsin Timber Rattlers are selling $15 tickets for a scrimmage on Monday (the cost includes a $10 food and beverage credit), and for $50, fans can purchase a season pass that gets them a ticket every day that the group is on the field for a practice or a scrimmage. See the Timber Rattlers’ website for details.

• Brewers manager Craig Counsell isn’t losing faith in reliever Devin Williams, who has surrendered a run in each of his first two outings of 2021. When they were mapping pitchers’ spring schedules back in late January, Brewers officials opted to hold Williams back compared to the other pitchers, believing that he’d benefit from the extra time coming off of a rotator cuff injury at the end of last year. All told, Williams has pitched only six times between Spring Training and the regular season.

“This season was not going to be the same for Devin Williams,” Counsell said. “The league presents players with challenges. It’s incredible at doing that. Devin and I had that conversation this offseason. Devin threw the ball great [Wednesday against the Cubs]. He’s going to be really good this year, and I thought [Wednesday] was a big step forward from Monday night.”

• The Brewers have agreed to sign veteran infielder Dee Strange-Gordon to a Minor League contract, according to a report from MLB Network insider Ken Rosenthal. The Brewers have not yet confirmed the deal. Strange-Gordon, a 10-year Major League veteran and two-time All-Star who has primarily played second base, was released by the Reds at the end of Spring Training.