Tom Haudricourt

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

LOS ANGELES – When the Brewers finish their weekend series at Dodger Stadium on Sunday afternoon, they will have played 16 games this season.

That figure will represent approximately 10% of their 2019 schedule.

The point of that math presentation is there’s still a long, long way to go in this season, which means anything that has gone bad thus far can change for the better, and vice versa. Much of the early angst among residents of Brewer Nation has revolved around the pitching, some focusing on the starting rotation and others on the bullpen.

Yes, there have been some rough spots with the pitching. Over a five-game period, Brewers pitchers allowed at least 10 runs three times. Their 5.41 team earned run average entering Saturday ranked 13th in the National League, behind every NL Central club other than Chicago (14th at 5.47).

With many poor showings in the early going, the Brewers’ starting rotation had dropped to last among the 15 NL clubs with a 5.93 ERA. The only divisional foe close to that low standing was Chicago, 12th with a 5.12 ERA despite a starting rotation making many, many more millions of dollars.

The Brewers’ bullpen ranked seventh in the NL with a 4.70 ERA, again ahead of only Chicago (13th at 5.94) in their division. If you subtracted the nine scoreless innings by relief ace Josh Hader, the other relievers had compiled a collective 5.69 ERA.

You don’t need a deep understanding of baseball analytics to know those numbers are not good. In general, the first two weeks of the season were not kind to the Brewers’ pitchers, which made their 9-5 record entering Saturday more impressive.

The rotation issues have centered primarily on the three young starters – Freddy Peralta, Brandon Woodruff and Corbin Burnes. Peralta has a 6.91 ERA through his first three starts despite pitching eight shutout innings his second time out against Cincinnati. Woodruff has a 6.00 ERA through his first three starts, and Burnes has an ugly 10.05 ERA through three starts, with a whopping nine home runs allowed in 14 1/3 innings.

The knee-jerk reaction among disgruntled fans is that the Brewers erred in committing three rotation spots to pitchers unproven as starters in the major leagues. Why didn’t they keep Wade Miley? Why haven’t they signed Dallas Keuchel, who is still lingering on the free-agent market? Why was Junior Guerra shunted to bullpen duty? Can Ben Sheets make a comeback?

The fact remains that committing to Peralta, Woodruff and Burnes at this point in time was the right thing to do for the organization, for both 2019 and the future. The Brewers boosted their opening day payroll to all all-time high of $125 million this year, but there are limitations to what they can spend on starting pitching if they want to field a deep lineup, including the $28 million used to grab catcher Yasmani Grandal and infielder Mike Moustakas off the market.

The Chicago Cubs, who began the season with a payroll approaching $200 million, have $80.4 million committed this season to the starting rotation of Jon Lester, Cole Hamels, Yu Darvish, Jose Quintana and Kyle Hendricks. The Brewers are paying their starting rotation just over $10 million, with staff ace Jhoulys Chacín making by far the most money with a $6 million salary.

Peralta, Burnes and Woodruff are at the minimum-salary, pre-arbitration stage of their careers, but the Brewers didn’t put them in the rotation based on their paychecks. Burnes and Woodruff are former pitchers of the year in the farm system and Peralta soared through the farm system at a very young age, arriving in the majors last year at 21 and striking out 13 in his debut in Colorado.

Burnes and Woodruff turned in outstanding work out of the bullpen during the stretch run last year as the Brewers soared to the NL Central crown and deep into the playoffs. But the plan all along was to return them to starting roles, which they filled successfully in climbing through the minors.

When Chase Anderson struggled with his pitching mechanics during exhibition season and continued to have trouble keeping the ball in the park, the decision was made to shift him to bullpen duty for the present. The opening rotation consisted of Chacín, the three young pitchers and Zach Davies, who by the way is still only 26 and won 17 games in 2017 before being derailed by injuries last season.

The Brewers are not going to give up on this rotation after a few rough starts. If the growing pains with Peralta, Burnes and Woodruff continue for an extended period, adjustments likely will be made but manager Craig Counsell made it clear the leashes would be long.

"I'm almost more encouraged after watching them pitch three times," Counsell said. "There's going to have to be patience. I know the results haven't been exactly what we wanted.

"But, if you just watch those guys pitch, there's a lot to work with there. They're going to 'out-stuff' hitters. That's a really good place to start."

As for the bullpen, working out the kinks isn’t as easy to project at this point. Consider the arms the Brewers are missing from last year’s lockdown bullpen: Corey Knebel, out for the year after undergoing Tommy John surgery; Jeremy Jeffress, on minor-league rehab trying to get past a shoulder issue; and Burnes and Woodruff, now in the rotation.

That’s a lot of talent not at the disposal of Counsell, who likes to use his relief corps liberally. As sensational as he continues to be, Hader can’t do it all by himself. Others will have to step up, with the return of Jeffress expected to take some pressure off.

The outcry to sign free agent Craig Kimbrel continues, and there’s no doubt he could help the Brewers’ bullpen, though at this point who knows when he could be ready to pitch in the majors? General manager David Stearns reached out to see if there was common ground to reach a deal, but Kimbrel, who reportedly sought a $100 million deal at the outset of the winter, apparently wasn’t ready to lower his demands to any significant extent.

If Kimbrel realizes he needs to lower his financial expectations to get a job, perhaps the Brewers will take another run at him. In the meantime, they must figure out the best way to make use of what they have, both on the big-league staff and in the system.

But it’s too early to push the panic button on this pitching staff. Perhaps the point will come where changes must be made but not when there’s 90% of the season to go. A lot of the favored teams are off to much rougher starts, in terms of wins and losses, than the Brewers, who have time to figure out their pitching.