Notes: Patience the buzzword with struggling young hitters
CHICAGO - Much has been made of the early season success of Eric Thames. Ryan Braun hasn't exactly been an offensive slouch, either.
But on the other end of the spectrum in the Milwaukee Brewers' regular lineup are players such as Jonathan Villar, Keon Broxton and Orlando Arcia, who are in the midst of profound struggles.
Despite being the only player on the team to play in all 15 games, Villar entered Wednesday hitting .133 overall and just .100 on the road trip. Broxton, meanwhile, was hitting .132/.148 and Arcia .196/.194.
With the Brewers wrapping up their nine-game, three-city jaunt against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field, a day off for one or more might have made sense. Yet Villar was in the leadoff spot once again, Broxton was batting seventh and Arcia eighth as manager Craig Counsell continued to roll with three of his key young players.
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Patience has been the buzzword for Counsell since the start of the team's rebuild, and that's not going to change because of some ugly early-season numbers.
"At the beginning of the season we’re going to do this more, always, because it always looks more extreme," Counsell said. "Certainly we’ve got a couple guys who are off to phenomenal starts and then we have some guys that are struggling. But I think if you start looking at the other teams, you can find pretty similar stories.
"Eric Thames has been absolutely tremendous; that’s pretty obvious. But we’re playing St. Louis (next), and I saw Dexter Fowler’s off to a rough start. It happens to guys. Next year there’s going to be a guy on our team that struggles. I don’t know who, but you can almost count on somebody getting off to a slow start."
Villar missed a couple of weeks of spring training while playing for the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic and hasn't caught up since returning.
He hit just .190 in 15 Cactus League games and had struck out a major-league-leading 23 times in 60 at-bats coming into Wednesday. The transition from shortstop to full-time second baseman hasn't been smooth either, and he's already made a number of the same baserunning mistakes that dotted his otherwise spectacular 2016 campaign.
Villar has homered three times and driven in eight runs, and his four stolen bases are tied with Braun for the team lead.
Broxton's spring was much better than Villar's, with a .311 average, three homers and 11 RBI. But he opened the season 0 for 6, was beaned in his first plate appearance of his third game and has yet to find his groove at the plate. He's struck out 19 times in 38 at-bats, and has just two extra-base hits.
Broxton has been playing solid defense in center field, with a diving catch on Tuesday his latest contribution.
Arcia hit .239 with three homers and 10 RBI in the spring. His .229 on-base percentage was slightly better than Villar's and Broxton's while hitting just ahead of the pitcher most games – a tough spot for even some veteran hitters.
Arcia's defense at shortstop has been stellar, however; he hadn't committed an error dating back to early last September and his range up the middle has been outstanding.
Now the question becomes: When does the talent begin taking over with the trio, and when do the numbers start to improve?
"I’m not focused on it, really. I don’t think about it a ton," Counsell said. "I know they’re going to play and they’re going to play through it. And that’s not to say that there’s a time where maybe the best way through it is to sit for a couple days and do some work, and that’s part of the growing, too.
"But I think Keon or Jonny Villar or whoever’s not quite on it yet need to be out there, and they need to be with us trying to figure it out."
Counsell only needs to point to Broxton's 2016 as an example of how patience can pay off. After bouncing back and forth four times between the majors and the minors, Broxton made a change to his stance by dropping his hands in the batter's box and hit .294 with eight home runs and 17 RBI over his final 46 games.
That showing earned him an unspoken starting nod coming into camp, and now the opportunity to try and dig himself out of an early hole.
"Development is not a straight line," Counsell said. "Failure is part of it. You don’t know for who and when, but you know that there’s going to be struggles, and you have to get through those times. That’s when most of the learning happens and the biggest adjustments are going to happen."
"Look, I don’t want to see guys struggle. It’s hard seeing guys struggle. But I know also a lot of good can come from the struggle, and that’s what I always remain hopeful about."
Mission accomplished: The Brewers put the wraps on their first road trip of 2017 with a 6-3 record. Although blowing early leads in the final two games wasn't the ideal way to end it, an above-.500 finish is still a good building block for a young team.
"Early-season successes always give you something to fall back on. That’s the big thing," Counsell said. "For a group that’s pretty new together, that’s important. It doesn’t give us anything on the next road trip. It doesn’t allow us to play any different. But it does give us something that we know happened already, something in your back pocket to fall back on a little bit. I think it’s certainly the way you’d like to start."