Monday, May 06, 2002
Brewers bats go cold
The Associated Press
MILWAUKEE — When the Milwaukee Brewers traded slugger Jeromy Burnitz for pitcher Glendon Rusch last winter, general manager Dean Taylor said hitting wasn't the club's problem. It is now.
The Brewers' bats are cold, and that's the main reason they've lost nine of their first 10 series after closing 2001 similarly.
Manager Davey Lopes was fired after the Brewers got off to the worst start in franchise history. Attendance at Miller Park, site of this year's All-Star game, has plummeted along with the club's fortunes.
Struggles weren't entirely unexpected when pitching ace Jamey Wright and closer Chad Fox joined Curtis Leskanic on the disabled list this spring.
Surprisingly, the pitching has held up thanks to fill-in starter Nelson Figueroa, a waiver wire pickup from Philadelphia, and hard-throwing Jose Vizcaino, a 27-year-old setup man who was traded twice in March.
“I wish we hadn't wasted some of those pitching performances, but you can't look back,” infielder Mark Loretta said. “There's too many games left. We know we're going to start hitting.”
The Brewers took a National League-worst 9-22 record and a league-low .234 batting average into today's game at Cincinnati.
“When we don't hit, we look very ugly,” said new manager Jerry Royster, whose club is 2-10 in one-run games.
No one on the club has an average above .300. Five players, including regulars Raul Casanova (.192) and Eric Young (.185), are hitting below .200.
Young was supposed to give the Brewers their first legitimate basestealing threat since Pat Listach, but he's been caught four times in nine chances. His on-base percentage is just .274, inadequate for a leadoff hitter and ninth-best on the team.
Matt Stairs (.167), Loretta (.161) and Lenny Harris (.136), baseball's career pinch-hit leader, also are struggling in limited opportunities.
Then, there's “slugger” Geoff Jenkins, who was expected to pick up the slack after Burnitz left. But his two homers and six RBIs put him on pace to hit 10 home runs and knock in 30 runs this season.
“I know that Geoff feels like he's really got to carry more than his share,” Loretta said. “It's a game of confidence, once he gets a few hits, gets a couple of RBIs, gets some home runs, he'll be all right.”
Jeffrey Hammonds is the Brewers' leading hitter with a .297 average, 17 points above his career mark, but he has homered just twice with nine RBIs, about half his career pace.
Jose Hernandez, a career .248 hitter, is batting .284 with six homers and 19 RBIs, second-best on the team. But his 39 strikeouts put him on a faster pace than last year, when he fanned 185 times.
Ronnie Belliard and Tyler Houston are fighting for the full-time third base job, but both were hitting .258 with no homers.
Despite leading the team with eight homers and 27 RBIs, Richie Sexson is off to his typically slow start, batting .252, 19 points below his career average.
Outfielder Alex Ochoa's .247 average was 44 points below his career mark but still 32 points better than Alex Sanchez, who's battling him for playing time.
Many times a decent club has overachieved because their hitters all had career years in the same summer. Can a decent club go bad because everybody has an off-year concurrently?
“The likelihood of that is very small,” said Loretta, who figures the prolonged slump is more a case of the ripple effect that simply can't last all season.
“This team is not going to have the worst year ever,” Loretta said.
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Brewers bats go cold 
