MILWAUKEE – The normally affable and occasionally verbose Pat Murphy needed just a handful of words to sum up his team’s last few days.
“That was a tough homestand,” the Milwaukee Brewers manager said Sunday after his team fell, 4-1, to the lowly Colorado Rockies. In the process, they lost a second consecutive series to an opponent likely to spend October watching the playoffs on television.
Along with dropping two of three to the Rockies, the Brewers also managed just one victory in a three-game set against the St. Louis Cardinals earlier in the week and have lost five of their last seven games, overall.
September Slump Continues for Brewers
The slump hasn’t made much of a difference in the Brewers’ quest for their second straight National League Central Division title – and third in four seasons – but it did knock Milwaukee back of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies, who currently hold the two best records in the NL and stand to receive first-round byes in the postseason.
With 20 regular season games remaining, there’s still time to catch either of those two teams, but doing so will be an even greater challenge thanks to a daunting slate of opponents over the next few weeks.
The Brewers hit the road Tuesday for a three-game set at San Francisco before heading to Phoenix where they’ll face the red-hot Diamondbacks. When they return home a week from Monday, none other than the NL-best Phillies will be waiting for them followed by another series against Arizona.
“This was a week when we could have made up some ground and really done some things,” Murphy said. “Now we’ve got some great opponents – we usually play better against great opponents but we’ve got some great opponents – we’ve got the Giants on the road and they have one of the best home-field advantages in all of baseball and then we’ve got the hottest team in baseball seven times and then the Phillies, who have the best record in the league.
“We’ve got to go in there right.”
Colorado held the #Brewers offense in check in the series finale and Milwaukee suffered their fourth loss in the last five games. #BrewersFinalPitch | #ThisIsMyCrew pic.twitter.com/DBWoZm1uak
— Bally Sports Wisconsin (@BallySportWI) September 8, 2024
For the Brewers, “right” means getting back to the principle that Murphy has tried to instill in his young, inexperienced team from the first day of spring training: win tonight.
Milwaukee’s unexpected, season-long stranglehold on the division lead happened by adhering to that dictum, predicated upon two other buzzwords Murphy continues to lean on this season: relentless and undaunted.
How to Right the Ship
The Brewers were winning games by focusing on each pitch, each play, each moment. But in the recent slide, Murphy sees a team that’s gotten away from those characteristics.
“Everybody goes through swoons. They could be tired. They could be feeling it,” said Murphy. He added, “They could be trying too hard. The young guys have to make a decision. The game’s not just going to come to you. You can’t just decide you’re going to get a result, you have to get into the process and meet the game halfway and you have to be ready to do that.
“There’s a responsibility and an awareness there and the young guys, they’ve gotta learn that.”
There’s reason to believe the Brewers will, since of all the factors leading to their success this season, none has been bigger than an ability to keep their slumps to a minimum. Milwaukee is the only team to lose no more than three games in a row this season.
Plus, despite struggling with teams lagging behind them in the standings, the Brewers have held serve against some of the game’s best, owning a 45-35 record against teams above .500 this season.
“You’re going to have down moments so you have to figure out how to maintain yourself and focus on the things you control,” shortstop Willy Adames said. “We’re still in first place, we just have to play better, execute, and make the adjustments. Everybody here knows. We have a lot of young guys but they know what to do. They’ve done it all year.
“It’s just been a tough week.”
Photo Credit: © Benny Sieu-Imagn Images
