Does the Brewers' Poor Road Start Portend A Lost Season?

Okay, let’s face it. The Milwaukee Brewers haven’t been very good in games in enemy territory over the first month of this season. In fact, they have been downright pathetic. But, there is good news.

Historical precedent tells us that the Brewers have a 33% chance of making the playoffs this season after their sad performances at Yankee Stadium, Chase Field, Oracle Park, and Busch Stadium. In the team’s first 19 away games, they won just seven of them. Over the last 14 seasons, only three Brewer teams have done worse: 2016 and 2013 (six wins), and 2011 (just five wins).

I mentioned good news. In a relatively compressed history of Brewers baseball (my editor would prefer that I avoid using the phrase ‘small sample size’) since the 2010 season, in their first 19 games, the Brew Crew had six seasons in which they started out playing sub-.500 ball in early road contests. But, in two of those campaigns, the Brewers bounced back from sluggish road starts to get to the playoffs.

In 2011, the Brewers finished the year with a 96-66 record and made it all the way to the NLCS, losing in six games to St. Louis. Eight years later, the Brewers ended at 89-73 and lost a disappointing Wild Card game to Washington in which Josh Hader surrendered three runs in the eighth inning in a 4-3 loss.

The bad news component is that the Brewers also had three losing seasons after the crappy road start, going 73-89 in 2016, 68-94 in 2015, and 74-88 in 2013. Or, they could just finish with an ‘average’ mark like they did in 2012 when they went 83-79 and missed the postseason. So, there is a 67% chance that the Brewers won’t make the playoffs at all. Hey, I called it 'good news', not 'the best news you've ever heard'.

In all six of those seasons, the Brewers had a negative run differential:

This season, the Brewers have scored 100 runs and have allowed 98 in their 7-12 start on the road. We know the team can score runs, but they also give up runs. I prefer to look at the ‘bright side’ when I say that the Brewers will continue to put runs on the board—except for the last two games—and, in time, with a healthy pitching staff, start to allow fewer runs.

Joey Ortiz will perform better. Christian Yelich will perform better. That means more runs. Add to that a return of healthy pitchers such as Brandon Woodruff, the Aarons (Ashby, Civale) and the staff should allow fewer runs. And if top prospect Jacob Misiorowski comes to Milwaukee and gives the team a boost like Logan Henderson did in his first big-league start, that will improve the staff and create more excitement at Am Fam Field.

That, my friends, is a whole lot of ‘ifs,’ but we as Brewer fans need to keep the faith and expect that our boys will be in the thick of things come September.

It would help if they could win a few games outside of Wisconsin, though.