It is the first week of May and as I write this the Brewers have just gone one-two-three to start game two of the Marlins series.  This is starting to sound familiar.  One-two-three innings, scoreless innings, bases loaded and only having one run to show for it innings.  What happened to the offense that played like it was paid by the home run?  The Brewers currently sit 17th in home runs and 26th in team batting average.  As I go deeper into the nerdery (Tommy Boy reference for those scoring at home), the Crew rank 21st in on-base percentage and 26th in hits.  I could go into the pitching stats but it might make the children cry.

The Brewers first five weeks have not been as pretty as people had hoped for.  So is it time to sound the alarm or march to Doug Melvin's home and demand the head of Ned Yost and Eric Gagne?  No, it is too early for that.  Still plenty of baseball left to be played in this month, let alone the entire season.  Every team has a patch of pitching or hitting problems.  You do have the right to raise that concerned eyebrow and wonder if the Brewers will live up to the hype.  The NL Central race is suddenly looking like a four pony race and you do not want to have a ton of distance that needs to be made up down the stretch.

The Crew stand at .500 as I write this but when a starter not named Ben Sheets has not won a game in a month, you have to wonder if the Crew's arms can get it down.  Gagne has proved to either be feast or famine.  I remember another Brewers closer who used to be like:  Derrick Turnbow.  We have all seen how that show ends.

The bats were supposed to be sending Bernie Brewer down his slide at least three times a game.  The only sliding Bernie has been doing is sliding his pants on.  You do not want the offense to panic because that is when pressing can occur and that can only make matters worse.  What can wake up the bats is just focusing on getting on base.  There in lies the problem with .319 OBP.  Still, more base runners means more pressure on the opposing pitcher which means a better chance for a good pitch to hit.  Instead, of taking more pitches (113 walks=16th in the league, not terrible but not great), the Crew are swinging away (223K's=10th in the league). 

There is still plenty of time for the sleeping giant to wake up.  At the rate the Cardinals are winning games, the alarm better go off soon or the giant might not having anything to chase when it wakes up.