Brewers have given back much of margin they built during dreadful final week before break

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The Brewers' Lorenzo Cain sits on third base during a pitching change in the ninth inning.

PITTSBURGH – The Brewers have known all season that the schedule called for them to play 20 consecutive days entering the all-star break, though a rainout in June added a doubleheader Saturday against the Pirates, making the task tougher.

So, now that the final days entering the break have gone badly – very badly, in fact – it would be poor form to lodge complaints at this point in time. And, to their credit, the Brewers didn’t do so after adding two more losses to their ugly slide.

“No excuses,” Jesús Aguilar said after the Brewers were swept, 2-1 and 6-2, by Pittsburgh. “We’ve got to stay positive. We’ve got to stay strong.”

All good managers stick up for their teams, particularly during the tough times, so it was no surprise that Craig Counsell pushed back when I suggested to him that his team was tarnishing previous good work by losing six of the first seven games on this trip against two losing teams, Miami and Pittsburgh.

“I don’t agree with that at all,” Counsell responded vigorously. “We’re in a good spot here. This hasn’t taken away from the bulk of the season. We’re in a tough little stretch right now. We’re scuffling offensively a little bit, but we’re going to head into the break in a good place.

“One hundred percent, we’re heading into the break in a good place.”

First of all, the Brewers are not scuffling “a little bit” offensively. They have been putrid with the bats in this series, scoring nine runs in four games, including two meaningless runs in the ninth inning of Game 2 on Saturday while trailing, 6-0.

The Brewers have won all season in spite of their inconsistent, often puzzling offense, but we’ll get back to that later. Let’s address Counsell’s assertion that this skid hasn’t taken away from the bulk of the season, which in terms of wins and losses is not true.

BOX SCORE: Pirates 2, Brewers 1 (Game 1)

BOX SCORE: Pirates 6, Brewers 2 (Game 2)

THE GAMES:Five takeaways

MLB: Live scoreboard, box scores, standings, statistics

When the Brewers headed to Miami after a 6-1 home stand against Minnesota and Atlanta, they were a season-high 18 games over .500 (54-36) with a 1 ½ game lead over Chicago in the NL Central. By losing six of seven, including a season-worst five-game losing streak, they dropped to 13 games over .500 (55-42) and into second place, now 1 1/2 games behind Chicago, which won again in San Diego.

Worse yet, the Brewers dropped four games behind the Cubs in the loss column, the critical part of the standings. After falling one game short of the playoffs last season, the Brewers know as well as anyone that you have to take care of business when you have the chance.

The Brewers continue to insist they are not fatigued, which of course is not true. They have had little energy here, have looked flatter than an infield tarp on offense and generally have not been themselves.

Reports continued to surface that the Brewers are still involved in the Manny Machado sweepstakes and one wonders after the double dip if principal owner Mark Attansasio might have told general manager David Stearns to do whatever it takes. Don’t forget, the Brewers thought the offense would be much improved with the off-season additions of Lorenzo Cain and Christian Yelich, which too often has not been the case despite expected production from that duo.

The Brewers remain in the middle of the pack of the 30 big-league teams in runs scored but have been mostly dreadful in the clutch (.232 batting average with runners in scoring position and .159 with the bases loaded). In the doubleheader sweep by Pittsburgh, starter Chase Anderson allowed only two runs in 5 1/3 innings in the opener and Brent Suter only one run in five innings in Game 2.

That level of starting pitching should have been enough to win both games, given even moderate production from the offense. And the Brewers haven’t exactly been facing a bunch of Cy Young candidates in this series.

Yes, it hurts that Ryan Braun and Eric Thames are on the DL, though both have missed so much time it’s not as if they had become staples of the offense. And it certainly didn’t help that Orlando Arcia and Domingo Santana were so awful at the plate they were sent to the minors.

But all teams have personnel issues to deal with, and the Brewers had survived theirs in good fashion until this week. Maybe it was just too much to ask of a team with holes in its lineup to play 21 games in 20 days without giving back some victories.

“We’re not scoring runs,” Counsell said. “We hit a bunch of singles today; we didn’t get extra-base hits. Every offense needs extra-base hits to produce runs. We got two extra-base hits in the two games. It was a quiet day offensively.”

If you take a look at the Brewers’ schedule (vs. Dodgers, vs. Nationals, at Giants, at Dodgers) in the first two weeks after the all-star break, you’ll understand how costly it could be to falter against Miami and Pittsburgh on this trip.

“You have to weather these kind of things,” Counsell said. “You’ll go through these types of stretches. You don’t want to but you’re going to go through them. You have to weather it and we can do that by playing a good game tomorrow.”

I’ve never believed in calling games “must win” unless a team is actually one loss from elimination from something. That phrase gets overused as much as any in sports.

But, considering what has transpired this week, the Brewers’ first-half finale Sunday against Pittsburgh is as close to “must win” as a game gets this time of year. Though still squarely in the playoff hunt, they need something to feel good about before dispersing for their four-day break.