Central Inefficiency

 

"Thank goodness for the shitty play of everyone else in the division." -David Ross.

Only one team in the NL Central has a positive W/L ratio in the past 10 days. Unsurprisingly, it is the Cardinals. It was nice while it lasted. Meanwhile the Cubs have completely fallen apart, the Pirates are plummeting back to earth, and even the Brewers have had trouble recently against great teams like the Astros and the Rays. It's just been a tough week. It doesn't mean this is a division of bad teams, it just means that having to play teams from other divisions more often leads to a more even W/L displacement, especially if the division is good. 

The Brewers are still in first, and are still one of the best teams in this division. They've had a rough week, yeah, but those happen. The Yankees had a rough week about a month ago, now they're good again. The Brewers definitely aren't out of it yet.

The biggest issues of this team so far have been with the injuries to the rotation. Woodruff, Lauer and Miley are all injured right now. Houser, Burnes and Peralta are doing well enough. The auxiliary choice, Colin Rea, is decent enough but very clearly is a replacement player. I'm not sure who the fifth guy is gonna be this week, probably Janson Junk but he hasn't been great in the majors. Ethan Small would be my pick but I don't know if the organization wants to keep control over him and give him fewer chances. They'll figure something out but it's not ideal.

Honestly, though, the lineup could be a lot worse. This isn't a classic Christian Yelich performance, but he still has 7 home runs, 24 RBIs and 10 steals. Still as versatile as ever, just not burning down the league like he had. Rowdy Tellez can still hit lots of homers, he's got 12. Adames and Contreras are still surging. Owen Miller's been incredible since the Brewers brought him up and is chasing rookie heir apparent Brice Turang. There's a lot of crafty hitters on this team, and it sets them apart from a lot of their competitors. 

The Brewers have to play relatively simple teams like the Giants and Reds and difficult teams like the Jays this week. It could level them further, or it could bring them back to where they'd like to be. We'll see where we're at in a few more weeks.

Coming Tonight: How many complete games is this guy capable of doing this year?