Article: Whew. The Streak is Over. So What's The Damage?

[Caswell]

The Brewers won! Let’s dig into how much that losing streak changes their postseason outlook.

It hasn’t been easy watching the Crew the last few games. Before Sunday’s 4-1 win against the Nationals in D.C., they had lost 8 games in a row. This caused the Brewers to drop out of first place in the National League Central Division for the first time since they shared the top spot with the Cardinals back on April 24th. 

After that great first month, the Brewers had a significantly worse second month this season, which was highlighted by a recent post on Reddit. In this post, the graph shown below was shared, created by Ethan Peterson.

The Brewers rank 3rd worst, ahead of the Rockies and Angels, in the worst change in winning percentage from the first month of the season to the second. Interesting enough, from this graphic, we can see that all but the division leaders in the A.L. West, Astros, and A.L. East, Yankees, have a worse win percentage in the second month of the season compared to the first. We can also see that there are three teams from the N.L. Central - the Reds, the Cubs, and the Pirates - who have all bettered themselves from the first month of the season, which could be a concern. 

Where are the Brewers in the Central?
How does this streak affect their standings in the division which they’ve won two of the last four seasons, especially with the improvement of those three teams and the Cardinals being consistent? 

Well it is basically the same. Those three teams were never expected to be a contender in this division, and all of them actually had struggled quite a bit. A recent tweet on Friday June 10th by Bob Nightengale here, sums up how the entire division is struggling right now.

Going into Friday’s games the Reds had lost two in a row, while the Cubs, Pirates, and Cardinals had all lost three in a row. At the time, the first place Brewers had lost 6 on the bounce. Over the weekend, the Pirates’ and Cubs’ losing continued, meaning they have lost 6 in a row, while the Cardinals won the first two games of their series with the Reds, before dropping their finale on Sunday. 

As such, the standings remain relatively unchanged, with the Cardinals leading the Brewers by 0.5 games. After that, the Brewers are eight games ahead of the Pirates, 9.5 games ahead of the Cubs, and 12 games ahead of the Reds.

So even after that eight game losing streak, the Brewers are just half a game behind the Cardinals for the lead, and still have a healthy lead over the other teams in the division.

Where are the Brewers in the National League?
The goal going into the season, though, is making the playoffs and being successful there. Starting this year, six teams will be making the playoffs from each league, rather than just the five of the past. There won’t be a wild card game anymore, replacing it with a 3-game series. The three division winners will still make it, getting the top three seeds, while the next three best records will get the remaining three seeds in order of highest record.

An important distinction is that there will no longer be a possibility for game 163, which we last saw in 2018. The Brewers and Dodgers each won against the Cubs and the Rockies, respectively, to win their division, sending the loser to the Wild Card Game, where the Rockies eventually prevailed.

With the addition of a team, the format will have to change as well. The 3rd seed plays the 6th seed and the 4th and 5th seed play each other. The top 2 division winners both receive a bye in the first round. There isn’t any reseeding, so the number 1 seed has home field advantage for the winner of the 4th and 5th, and the 2nd seed hosts the winner of the 3rd and 6th. 

Now, all that being said, how are the Brewers looking in the entire National League? 

Well, it could be worse. The Brewers are currently the 7th seed. Below are standings for each of the divisions, graphed by wins.

Now, although the Brewers are the 7th seed, they actually have the same number of wins as the 3rd seeded Cardinals and the 6th seeded Braves, along with one more win than the 5th seeded Giants, and are only lower based on winning percentage. The Cards and Braves have each played 61 games this year, while the Giants have only played 59 games so far compared to the Brewers’ 62 games played.

So all-in-all, the Brewers really are in good shape in the N.L. despite how things have been going for just over a week. They sit half a game behind the Cardinals in the division and are half a game behind the 5th seeded Giants and 6th seeded Braves.

How does the Current Brewer Season compare to Recent Brewer Seasons?
With recent dismissals of Joe Girardi of the Phillies on June 3rd and Joe Maddon of the Angels on June 7th, two very successful managers - with six World Series wins as a coach or manager combined - find themselves without a job. It would be a jump to say the efforts of Craig Counsell are in vain, but the thoughts start to creep in. 

He is the longest tenured National League manager, and has made the postseason in the last 4 years, but hadn’t made the postseason in his first two full years, or the partial year when he began his managerial career. A knee-jerk reaction would say to jump ship, but right now, the Brewers are following the trend seen below. Everything is fine. 

They are currently at the same pace this far into the season as the 2019 Brewers, who went 89-73 and lost in the Wild Card Game as well as the 2021 Brewers who went 95-67 before becoming eliminated in the Division Series. 

Now, one may say, look at how that win count has not moved for so long, as they’ve lost eight in a row, but so did the 2021 Brewers, and the 2019 Brewers had a losing streak of five games. In reality, the amazing pace set in the first month of the season, which led to a winning percentage of 0.682, was the highest winning percentage in an April that had 20 or more games played since the 2014 team, which had a winning percentage of 0.704. That team only had one other month above 0.500, ending the season in 3rd place in the Central with a record of 82 and 80.

This year is also only 5th the highest winning percentage in any calendar month with more than 20 games played in Craig Counsell’s managerial career. Since Craig Counsell started, this season had the best April winning percentage at 0.682, and second best May winning percentage at 0.586. Finally, usually he has a harder time in June, and his best month is September. 

 

Conclusions

Yeah it stinks as a fan to see the Crew drop so many recently, but that is part of baseball. You’re going to lose a lot of games, just have to lose less than everyone else, and that is what is happening, especially after that great start, where the Brewers won so many. We are only 62 games in the year, with another 100 to play. Right now the Brewers are on pace to win 89 games this year, which makes the playoffs in every single year under the new playoff format since the strike shortened 1981 baseball year. 

Things aren’t great, but streaks happen.

Everything will even out.

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