Jack Stern

Image courtesy of © Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images Sit in on just a few Pat Murphy media sessions, and you'll learn that the Brewers manager regularly goes off on tangents. Many of those asides have nothing to do with baseball, but sometimes, when Murphy is dissatisfied with the pregame questions he's received from the press, he'll keep the baseball talk going himself. That's what he did one day in April, in response to a question about Joey Ortiz's recent at-bats. "I'll let you in on this," Murphy said to the writers and broadcasters assembled in his office, gesturing to one of the many papers strewn across his desk. When he assesses the Brewers' at-bats during his postgame interview, Murphy often consults that sheet of paper, which, at first glance, appears to be a traditional scorecard. It's more than that, though. The card, Murphy explained, is filled with shorthand symbols. It's his method of evaluating at-bats in real time. "I make notations on the type of at-bat it is," he said. "If it's a dot, that means solid at-bat. If it's a plus, that means really good. If it's a minus, that means ******. If it's an equal sign, that means, 'Meh.'" Box scores date back to the beginning of professional baseball, but today's players, coaches, and analysts have more information than ever to quantify process, not just outcomes. Rather than chasing results, hitters are better off focusing on actions they can control—swinging at the right pitches and making the right kind of contact—that produce good results more often than not. That's what Murphy is doing. In essence, his notations are his simplified version of a live Statcast feed. He's tracking the process, not just the results. At times, there's extra nuance due to the game situation or other less tangible factors. "If it's an 11-pitch strikeout, I might give them an equal sign. Good battle," Murphy said. "But the key is to not have too many minuses. That's what gets guys in trouble, the minus, minus, minus. Poor at-bats, at-bats that hurt us." A hitter's Statcast overview on their Baseball Savant page includes several metrics evaluating how well they impact the ball. There's hard-hit rate, which is based solely on exit velocity. Sweet spot rate focuses more on launch angle, reporting how many batted balls are hit at the best trajectories for line drives and fly balls to the outfield gaps. It won't give a hitter credit for hard-hit ground balls or pop-ups. Murphy doesn't read Baseball Savant pages. He'll say that his eyes can see what the technology tracks. There's a good chance he doesn't know that sweet spot rate is a stat, but he tracks a crude version of it on his card. "Hard contacts are usually a plus," Murphy said. "If it's straight down or straight up, I can't give you a plus. I can give you a dot, not a plus." He even tracks his own version of what Statcast defines as a barrel: a ball hit at least 98 mph within a certain launch angle range (in other words, a very hard-hit ball in the air). It's not the same term, nor exactly the same criteria, but it's the same concept. "If you get one good and it goes on that perfect trajectory… I'll give you a plus with a circle," Murphy said. As with most information gleaned from the eye test, it's not nearly as accurate as numbers tracked by state-of-the-art technology. It's probably safe to say the Brewers don't build their models to include direct input from Murphy's scorecards. "It's not scientific," Murphy said with a laugh. "It's really for me to remember without putting the actual scoring down there." There's still a benefit to it, though, and it reinforces how a manager with an old-school background continues working productively with an analytical front office. Even if Murphy's evaluation method is less scientific, he and the ivory tower often value the same skills and the same approach to the game. He just needs that information to be tracked and packaged in a language that makes sense to his baseball mind. View full article

At first glance, it doesn’t look like much has changed for Grant Anderson. After emerging as a versatile and durable middle reliever in his first season with the Brewers last year, the right-hander has resumed that role in 2026 with the same results. From a process standpoint, however, Anderson has not been quite the same guy. He’s issued slightly more walks, and his strikeout rate has dropped by five percentage points. As a result, most ERA estimators believe he’s pitched a bit worse than last year, and it looks as though an abnormally low batting average on balls in play is helping him maintain that shiny ERA. Season K-BB% BABIP ERA xERA FIP DRA- 2025 15.1% .274 3.23 3.72 3.84 91 2026 8.9% .221 3.32 3.30 4.44 108 Aside from those increased walks, it’s not really fair to say that Anderson has pitched worse this season. The real takeaway is that his stuff is playing differently, particularly his signature four-seam fastball. When Anderson arrived in Milwaukee, he and the Brewers originally leaned into a sinker-sweeper approach and worked in a few elevated four-seamers to left-handed hitters. Over time, that four-seamer took over as Anderson’s primary fastball, becoming just as integral to his breakout as his new sweeper. The key was his low arm slot, which made it look like the ball was rising as it entered the top of the zone. Despite its pedestrian velocity, opponents whiffed on nearly 40% of swings against Anderson’s four-seamer because it was so challenging to get the bat on top of it. This year, his slot has increased ever so slightly, creating a ripple effect on how that fastball plays. Season Arm Angle IVB VAA Whiff% Under% LA wOBAcon 2025 8° 12.2 -3.51 39% 68% 28° .383 2026 12° 12.6 -3.87 23% 48% 35° .340 The change is most reflected in the vertical approach angle of Anderson’s fastball, which measures the steepness at which the pitch crosses home plate. Last year, it had the ninth-lowest VAA among qualified four-seamers, meaning it entered the zone at one of the flattest angles in baseball, prompting so many swings underneath the ball. This year, its VAA ranks 19th. That’s still elite, but in a game of inches, it reduces how far underneath those swings are. Fewer swings from opposing hitters have been underneath Anderson’s four-seamer this year, which is a big reason why it’s gotten significantly fewer whiffs. However, the average launch angle against it has increased. That means many of those swings and misses have instead become high fly balls and pop-ups, which are still nearly automatic outs. It’s a slightly different way of getting to the same result. The small change to his arm slot has effectively transformed Anderson from a swing-and-miss pitcher to a pop-up king. His whiff rate has dropped from an excellent 30.9% last year to a below-average 24.1% this year, but his 13.8% pop-up rate ranks ninth among qualified pitchers, according to Statcast. Pitchers who allow such high fly balls usually have a lower BABIP, so Anderson is not necessarily getting lucky that more of them are finding gloves. It’s why xERA – a Statcast-based metric that looks at how often batted balls of each exit velocity and launch angle combination go for hits – believes he has actually been better, even as most of his peripheral stats have taken a step backward. Hitters are making more contact, but in ways that typically lead to fewer hits. Ideally, Anderson will rediscover that lower release, allowing him to be a more balanced pitcher who can get swings and misses when he needs them. But outs are outs, and he still has a reliable way to get them. View full article

Image courtesy of © Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images Despite being one of the best offensive catchers in baseball for most of the current decade, William Contreras has not fully tapped into his talent at the plate. Contreras has flashed prodigious power over the years, hitting baseballs at elite exit velocities. Even while playing with a broken finger last season, he still posted an excellent 90th-percentile exit velocity of 107.4 mph. The issue has been Contreras hitting more than half of his contact on the ground in most seasons, running one of baseball’s highest ground-ball rates. If he could find a way to launch those hard-hit balls in the air, he could also become one of the game’s best power hitters. That change to his flight plan has technically happened this year. Contreras’s ground-ball rate has fallen to a career-low 43.5% in 2026. For the first time since a cup of coffee with Atlanta in 2021, his 17.2% pull air rate slightly exceeds the league average. And yet, Contreras is hitting for less power than he ever has as a full-time player, managing just a .118 isolated power and a modest .406 slugging average. His 107 wRC+ is the lowest of his Brewers career. There’s a bit of misfortune here, as Contreras’s .340 xwOBA suggests he should have notched a few more extra-base hits. More importantly, though, his seemingly improved pull air rate is misleading. Not every batted ball pulled in the air is equally productive. Contreras’s overall hard-hit rate is down to 43.5% this season. That’s still slightly above the league average, but it’s the worst mark of his career. When he is hitting the ball at power trajectories—a high enough angle for a fly ball to travel into a gap or over the fence—he’s often hitting it around 90 mph, which typically makes for a routine flyout. Contreras’s xwOBA on contact this year is .360, an improvement over last season, but still lower than his best years in 2023 and 2024. Back in May, Matt Trueblood covered how this year’s changes to Contreras’s stance, stride, and swing path have pushed his contact point further out in front without an increase in power. Now, we’ve seen how those shifts have played out in the first half. Contreras is still making great contact against fastballs, slugging .475 against them with a .499 xSLG. According to Statcast’s swing timing data, his bat is more lined up on hard stuff than ever before. However, by forcing his contact point further in front, he’s been unable to wait back as consistently on breaking and offspeed pitches. With that slightly flatter bat path, Contreras doesn't roll over the ball as often when he’s early. He’s meeting soft stuff in a better spot vertically, but many of those early swings are producing harmless pop-ups. Last season, Contreras slugged .367 against breaking pitches and .403 against offspeed pitches, hitting a combined eight of his 16 home runs against them. This year, he’s slugging .258 and .361, respectively, with just one homer. He's already popped out 15 times against non-fastballs this year. On 10 of them, he was well out in front, making contact at least 32 inches in front of his body. For the fourth straight season, the Brewers have one of baseball’s lowest pull air rates as an offense. They’re not against pulling the ball in the air, but they want their hitters to get there in what they deem the right way, while still having a balanced approach. Contreras seems to have strayed from that a bit, and the ironic result has been less damage for a hitter who has long carried the potential to be even more than he already is, despite hitting balls in the general direction and on the general trajectory people have always cried out for. View full article

Image courtesy of © Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images When Blake Perkins stepped into the left-handed batter’s box to face Arizona Diamondbacks right-hander Taylor Clarke on Friday night, it was his first plate appearance from the left side in nearly a month. The switch-hitting Perkins last hit left-handed in Las Vegas on June 8, and like his at-bat in Arizona, it only happened because the game went to extra innings after he entered as a pinch-runner. Since May 16, he has taken just six plate appearances as a left-handed hitter. A natural right-handed hitter, Perkins has typically fared best from that side, making more contact and hitting for more power. As a lefty, he’s never truly been close to an average hitter, but that matchup flexibility added enough value to his glove-first profile to make him a solid big-leaguer. That hasn’t been true this year, as his very limited production from the left side has bottomed out. He has just two left-handed hits, one of which was a bunt single. {C}%3C!%2D%2Dtd%20%7Bborder%3A%201px%20solid%20%23cccccc%3B%7Dbr%20%7Bmso-data-placement%3Asame-cell%3B%7D%2D%2D%3E--> Season wOBA (LHB) xwOBA (LHB) K% (LHB) wOBA (RHB) xwOBA (RHB) K% (RHB) 2023 .313 .254 30.3% .302 .286 15.2% 2024 .280 .276 30.4% .299 .303 16.4% 2025 .256 .265 29.3% .286 .326 22.0% 2026 .136 .204 30.0% .352 .309 23.6% Perkins continues to swing from both sides, but in reality, he does not function as a switch-hitter on the 2026 Brewers. That raises the question of whether he should hit exclusively right-handed moving forward, a transition he considered a few times earlier in his career. There are numerous fairly recent examples of hitters giving up switch-hitting during their big-league careers. Perkins wouldn’t be the first Brewer to do it within the last two seasons. In Triple-A last year, the club encouraged Anthony Seigler to focus solely on hitting from his best side before his eventual debut. However, many of those players, including Seigler, stopped hitting right-handed to focus solely on their left-handed swing. That’s usually a worthwhile tradeoff, as left-handed hitters have the platoon advantage the majority of the time, particularly against starting pitchers. In every season of the pitch-tracking era (since 2008), right-handed pitchers have thrown more than 70% of all pitches. For Perkins, it might make some sense in the short term to focus solely on being an average right-handed hitter against lefties, but he’s more likely to prolong his opportunities beyond this season by becoming passable again from both sides. His offense will probably never be good enough to make him a full-time player, but he’ll have a much better chance of getting starts in center field with a future team if he can hit left-handed. That may still be a possibility, as his left-handed swing does not look irretrievably broken. According to Statcast, Perkins’s bat speed and swing path from the left side are nearly identical to his career averages. In a small sample this year, he’s gotten underneath or been jammed by too many fastballs, and he’s waved early at slower stuff. That’s left him hitting too many pop-ups and ground balls, a poor combination for any hitter. This version of Perkins only helps the Brewers in a limited role. He also owes most of those opportunities to injuries, as the club has been down a right-handed-hitting outfielder—first Jackson Chourio, then Brandon Lockridge—for most of the year. Once Lockridge and Luis Lara start factoring into the mix, Perkins could head back to Triple-A, where he’d have more opportunities to get right. Those opportunities won’t matter much for the Brewers, but they may still matter to Perkins, who will have to start thinking more broadly about his career prospects. With Lockridge still two seasons away from arbitration and Lara on a recently signed extension, Perkins's time as a productive fourth outfielder in Milwaukee is probably nearing its end. He's a beloved teammate and has defensive and baserunning value, though, so this stop need not be the last one on his tour of the major leagues. View full article

Image courtesy of © Michael McLoone-Imagn Images Nearly every pitcher will say that above all else, their objective on the mound is to compete. Each individual is wired differently, though. Some can maintain that competitive focus while thinking with precise detail about pitch sequencing and strategy. Some can diagnose and correct mechanical problems in the middle of the game. Others function best when they block out all of the noise and simply throw with conviction. Chad Patrick leans toward that approach. "As far as being on the mound, I try not to think about those things," Patrick said. "I think this game is based off of confidence, and it's a mental game. If I'm not out there thinking I'm good enough to be out there, then I shouldn't be out there." That mindset has shaped how Patrick's coaches present information to him and how they evaluate his performance. He needs space to do his thing. "Chad is a feel guy," pitching coach Chris Hook said in Cincinnati last week. "I think you could look into him every time, and he's a little bit different. I can't cage that. He flows. He wants to go." In a data-driven era of player development, pitching has become more of a science than ever. But in many ways, it's also still an art, and Patrick approaches it as such. Like a creator, his work is often driven by what he's feeling in that moment. That's why the brightest lights—the situations where the competitive juices flow the strongest—have often unleashed the best version of Patrick's stuff. "He's an artist," Hook said. "He's got a nice little paintbrush, but he's got to be in position to use it." Patrick's cutter has always been a unique pitch capable of special brushstrokes, and he should now have a better mastery of his canvas than he did early in the season. After a couple of tweaks since his move to the bullpen, his stuff is the best it's been all year. The Brewers want all of their pitchers to move quickly and repeatably. Patrick was doing neither early in the year as a starter, when he pitched out of the windup with the bases empty. As a reliever, Patrick has pitched exclusively out of the stretch, and he's moving more explosively, with a much quicker time to the plate. patrick mechanics.mp4 "He's ready to throw the baseball more often," Hook said. "I like him out of the stretch. I think it just takes the thinking out of it. I mean, we're seeing it all over baseball." "I think it does simplify a lot of different things, a lot of moving pieces," Patrick said. "Like, my windup's a little unconventional. It's a step forward, a rock back, my foot slides a little bit. So I kind of [have] to gather myself over the rubber better, whereas in the stretch I'm already in that position of being successful." By pitching in shorter stints and moving faster down the mound, Patrick has increased his velocity. His four-seamer and two-seamer averaged 94.2 MPH as a starter, but they've averaged 95.8 MPH since his last traditional start on May 4. Finding the best version of Patrick's cutter (or, more accurately, his two cutters) has been an ongoing process. He still manipulates it between a shorter version for back-door called strikes to left-handed hitters and a longer version to jam them or get swings and misses off the outside corner against righties. This spring, he temporarily switched to a four-seam cutter grip, and it often backed up, with slight arm-side movement rather than true cut. In late April, Patrick revived his normal cutter, a sweeper grip that has more velocity and carry than a breaking pitch due to how his long fingers spin the ball. That restored some of the glove-side movement, but the rest of it returned more consistently after a mechanical tweak. Patrick didn't just need space mentally. He literally needed more physical space between his head and his right hand in his delivery. "It's probably not a recommendation we talk about for guys, to say, 'Let's keep your head away from your hand,'" said pitching coordinator Jim Henderson. "He's just kind of a unique cat with that." Patrick throws his best cutters when his hand can drive through the pitch along the outside of the baseball and spin it on the proper axis. Creating space between his head and his hand lowers his arm slot slightly, putting him in the best position to execute his cutter. He was in that spot late last year, but this spring, his hand was getting stuck in that higher slot. Because he wasn't releasing the ball on time at foot strike (the moment a pitcher's front foot hits the ground), Patrick was yanking too many cutters and throwing them with too much backspin. "Sweeper guys have to kind of have some freedom," Henderson said. "He can't be tight with a curveball kind of arm angle or arm slot. You kind of have to have some freedom with it. When he gets [his arm] a little bit closer to his head on his cutter, we just notice that there's not as great movement." With the adjustment, Patrick's stride has become slightly more cross-fire toward home plate, and his arm angle has kept dropping. His slot is now comparable to last September, when he began a dominant stretch of relief pitching that extended into the postseason. To confirm that Patrick is working through the ball properly, the Brewers monitor his horizontal release point. When he throws his cutter, Hook wants to see him release the ball about 1.5 feet from the center of the rubber toward the third-base side. Since May 22, Patrick's average cutter release point is -1.4 feet. Before that, it was -1.2 feet. "I think his release side got a little close to his head early on, and as part of it, there just was no hip-shoulder separation at all," Hook said. "It was just like he was a one-piece mover, and when you're one-piece, and you're kind of stuck, and you're close to your head, he just couldn't get his hand through the ball the way he wanted." Since May 22, most of Patrick's cutters have had true glove-side movement. The lower arm slot and synced-up mechanics have also turned his two-seamer into more of a true sinker, with less carry and more depth. "Two-seams, you have to drive through this ball," Henderson said. "If you leak front side early, or you lose your lower half, you're not gonna be able to hold onto this. You'll just be on the side of the ball, and it would be more [running, not sinking]. So just to be able to get a little bit more on top of the baseball and making sure the front side is strong is going to give you a better sinker, in my opinion." Better velocity and better movement sound nice on paper, but Patrick has found himself weathering storms throughout the last three weeks. Since June 10, he's pitched to a 9.95 ERA, 7.07 xERA, and 7.45 FIP. Free bases and home runs have been the problems, as Patrick has issued six walks and allowed five home runs while facing 60 batters during that time. Patrick's stuff has continued to play well against right-handers. Most of the damage has come against lefties, who have pulverized his cutter. He must jam them with the pitch for it to miss barrels, and he's left more of them down the middle lately. In his manager's eyes, the tone of Patrick's art changed. "He's a great competitor, but he's also very critical of himself, and he's very emotional," Pat Murphy said. "He's very anxiety-ridden, and things easily bother him. We got to get him over that." Patrick may have turned a corner this week, logging scoreless multi-inning outings with no walks on consecutive nights. He felt he was moving too fast in some of his recent appearances and said he found a way to move quickly while still being in control of his body. That's not something he wants to think about on the mound, though. "It's not really physical," Patrick said. "It comes down to competing." As their bullpen searches for consistency behind Trevor Megill, Abner Uribe, and Aaron Ashby, the Brewers need big innings from Patrick. He's been closer to figuring things out than it seemed for most of June. The artist just needs space to work. "I still consider him a young major leaguer," Hook said. "He's still figuring out what he needs to do. He's such a feel guy, so we're kind of always balancing all of those things." View full article

Image courtesy of © Michael McLoone-Imagn Images In the bottom of the sixth inning on Monday night, with runners on first and second and the Brewers trailing 3-2, Pat Murphy pinch-hit David Hamilton for Cooper Pratt. The decision could be seen as securing the platoon advantage by batting the left-handed Hamilton against the right-handed Chase Petty, but the changeup specialist has pronounced reverse splits in his limited big-league innings. He’s also been generally unsuccessful against big-league hitters overall during that time. In reality, it was a big spot, and a struggling Pratt was not a great fit for the moment. He was an on-base machine during his first two series in the majors, but he has since gone 1-for-19. In his last three games, Pratt is hitless with four strikeouts and zero walks. On Sunday and Monday, to put it bluntly, he looked like a mess. He chased a handful of high fastballs, several of them well above the strike zone: Murphy said the buildup of those poor swings contributed to the substitution, and his last at-bat on Monday triggered the move. His first time up, Pratt chased a 2-1 changeup just below the zone, prompting him to swing through a borderline two-strike fastball at the top of the zone for a strikeout. In that second at-bat, he lofted a changeup straddling the outside corner for a routine flyout. “I made the decision early in the game,” Murphy said. “I was going to pinch-hit for him when I saw his second at-bat.” Pratt’s chase rate was too high throughout the minor leagues, and improving his swing decisions is near the top of his development checklist. Before his last two games, he had contained his chase rate enough to match the league average. For the most part, he did what the Brewers asked him to do: swing at strikes, let the ball get deep, and use the opposite field to maximize his on-base potential. That’s changed during this lull. “He’s trying to do too much. He’s trying to take another step, instead of just do what you were doing,” Murphy said. “Not just the success. The pitch selection was very, very good. He took his walks. He had a better flight plan. He wasn’t punching out. He’s gotten away from it a little bit the last couple series.” After hitting 40% of his batted balls to the opposite field over his first nine games, Pratt has hit none that way in his last four games. His swing has been slightly longer and faster in that very brief sample, a sign that he’s unloading on more swings and trying to force damage. That kind of offense has not yet been developed in his 21-year-old body. Murphy took action beyond Monday night, also withholding Pratt from the starting lineup on Tuesday. It wasn’t a punishment, but rather a mental break to help Pratt slow things down before his struggles continued snowballing. “I called him in today and talked to him,” Murphy said. “It’s perspective.” He took a similar approach with Jackson Chourio early in his rookie season. The former top prospect struggled to a .207/.251/.323 line (60 wRC+) over his first 176 plate appearances. During that stretch, Murphy did not start him for three straight games in early May, then for two straight games near the end of the month. There’s a fine line between productive breaks and preventing a young player from getting going by limiting his reps, but things worked out fine for Chourio. He went on a tear in the second half as a rookie and has since remained a mainstay near the top of the lineup. Murphy thinks Pratt is already more mature than Chourio was at that time and won’t require as many resets. “I think he’ll get back on his game quicker,” he said. “I think he’s done great. His baserunning, his defense has been nearly impeccable.” Thirteen games into his career, Pratt is hitting just .211/.295/.237 with a 55 wRC+, though his .320 xwOBA and 81 DRC+ indicate the quality of his plate appearances has been a bit better than his results. More than anything, the last few days are a reminder that Pratt will probably take some lumps at the plate for a bit. His defense and baseball instincts made him big league-ready, but the bat could take a few years to come around. “I was just really sincere with him about it and reinforced with him how much we believed in him and how proud I am of the way he transitioned when he first got here,” Murphy said. “A lot of guys don’t do that.” View full article

Image courtesy of © Dale Zanine-Imagn Images Let's get this out of the way first: the Brewers have not permanently forgotten how to hit with runners in scoring position. During the course of a 162-game regular season, teams go through ebbs and flows, especially on offense. The Brewers still have an .800 OPS with runners in scoring position this year, the third-highest in baseball. Last year, they ranked ninth. The year before, they ranked second. Before last Monday, the Brewers still had an .842 OPS with runners in scoring position in June. It's been one bad week. They'll bounce back sooner than later. "We're just going through a rough stretch of it," Christian Yelich said. "We've been really good at it at times. Right now, we're in one of those times where we're really bad at it, but we'll come through on the other side of it, and I think we'll start getting back to normal." It truly has been an abysmal week, though. Since the start of their series in Cincinnati, Milwaukee hitters have slashed .118/.216/.230 with runners in scoring position. The Brewers managed to go 4-2 during that stretch, but the lack of timely hits proved costly on Sunday, when they dropped a 4-3 contest to lose a three-game series to the Chicago Cubs. Performance with runners in scoring position is a particularly fickle stat, especially in such a small sample. However, the quality of the Brewers' at-bats in run-scoring situations has been much worse lately. As their lack of production has continued, they're getting jumpy in the box. "Sometimes guys maybe try to do too much, and that's where we try to preach you've got to take what the game gives you," offense and strategy coordinator Jason Lane said postgame on Sunday. "And that might be taking pitches and handing it to the next guy. But there weren't too many mistakes in those situations, from what I saw. Just, we offered at some pitches on the edges that got a couple ground balls, a pop-up, and a strikeout in those situations." The numbers bear out what Lane is saying. During this stretch, the Brewers have chased significantly more pitches outside the strike zone with runners in scoring position. RISP Split Avg LA Under% K% Z-Swing% Z-Contact% O-Swing% O-Contact% Thru 6/21 7° 20.3% 21.3% 65.9% 85.5% 29.3% 59.0% Since 6/22 13° 33.3% 31.7% 64.1% 72.0% 34.8% 50.0% That's not the full story, though. The Brewers have also whiffed at an alarming number of in-zone pitches, and they're making more contact underneath the ball. It goes without saying that striking out and hitting pop-ups with runners in scoring position is a poor recipe for success. It's not worth looking further into those chases. Pitches outside the zone are much harder to reach, so those swings will never be lined up with the ball particularly well. Swinging at those pitches in the first place is the problem, not the quality of swings at those pitches. Instead, the question is what the Brewers are doing differently on more hittable pitches. Once again, the answer is that they're too jumpy. According to Statcast, on pitches in the heart of the strike zone, they've been more on time, but for the wrong reason. The Brewers want many of their hitters to let the ball get deep, so the fact that they're late less often means they're cheating to pitches in attempts to force damage. As a result, they're pulling off the ball and flailing at more pitches, running out of bat to make contact. Split Late% (Fastballs) Late% (Breaking) Late% (Offspeed) Flail% (Fastballs) Flail% (Breaking) Flail% (Offspeed) Thru 6/21 24% 10% 6% 10% 13% 22% Since 6/22 19% 4% 0% 15% 17% 33% In other words, the hitters are feeling pressure to deliver. They're trying too hard to make something happen, and it's leading to more chases and whiffs. "Trying harder and wanting it more isn't going to make it happen," Yelich said. "Obviously, you want to get the job done. Everybody wants to get the job done. There's no right answer for how to do that. It's just, oftentimes, you've got to slow that down and try to focus." Look no further than a few key at-bats on Sunday. With runners on first and third and one out in the third inning, Jackson Chourio and Brice Turang stranded them with back-to-back strikeouts. Chourio chased a high fastball for strike three, while Turang expanded the zone on a pair of fastballs during the middle of his at-bat. In the fourth, after Andrew Vaughn's leadoff triple, Jake Bauers rolled over a 2-1 changeup on the outside corner, and Gary Sánchez popped up an up-and-in curveball. Sal Frelick hit a 100-mph groundout, but it was already too late; no more productive outs were available. With runners on first and second in the ninth, Cooper Pratt and Joey Ortiz chased several high fastballs to abruptly extinguish a potential walk-off rally. The Cubs would score three runs against Joel Kuhnel in the top of the 10th, and the Brewers fell short of a comeback in the bottom half of the inning. That was too many brutal at-bats in one game, the latest entries in what has become an unfortunate recent trend for the offense. "You feel like you kind of left one out there today, but it is what it is," Yelich said. "Part of the season, and you've just got to keep grinding through it." Given the Brewers' track record, it's safe to assume they will round back into form. That must happen sooner rather than later, though. For this particular lineup, which lacks the tremendous in-game power to sell out for damage on too many pitches, less is often more. "Maybe we could have waited for a better pitch, but that's the battle of driving in runs," Lane said. "It's the hardest thing to do at the plate sometimes, and it's where your discipline has to show up, and we didn't do a great job of that today." View full article