Mysterious case of the Brewers' missing power
What happened to the Milwaukee Brewers being a power-hitting team?
Through nine games this season, they have just three home runs, which have driven in a combined six runs. It's still a small sample size, but that puts the Brewers on pace for just 54 home runs this season. Last year they ranked fifth in the National League with 150.
Since finishing tied for last in the majors in 2004, the Brewers have finished in the top seven in the National League in home runs each of the last 10 seasons, including league-leading totals of 231 in 2007, 185 in 2011 and 202 in 2012. During that same stretch, the '11 San Diego Padres posted the lowest single-season total with 91.
This season, Adam Lind, Carlos Gomez and Jean Segura are the three Brewers who have gone deep. That leaves Jonathan Lucroy, Ryan Braun, Aramis Ramirez and Khris Davis among those that have yet to hit one over the fence. The four sluggers have combined for 691 career home runs, with a combined 162-game average of 105.
With those names in the lineup, there's no doubt this team will get its home runs. But it does make their nine-game season-opening stretch puzzling.
So what's going on with the 2015 Brewers?
They're not hitting many fly balls, and the ones they do are staying in the park. That sounds obvious, but stay with me here.
The Brewers' 30.8 percent fly ball rate is 23rd in MLB, while their 4.7 percent HR/FB rate is 29th. Conversely, they have the seventh-highest ground ball rate at 49 percent and their 1.59 ground ball-to-fly ball ratio is seventh-highest in MLB. Milwaukee's 20.2 percent line-drive rate is in the middle of the pack at 19th.
Thanks in part to the low home run and fly ball rates, the Brewers have struggled to score runs. They have tallied just 23 through nine games, including two games in which they have been shut out. Milwaukee has topped two runs in a game just three times
They went homerless in three games at St. Louis, the team's seventh streak of three games or more without a home run since last May. The longest such streak was five games from June 6-11.
It's hard to put much stock in a "2014 hangover" even with the way the Brewers finished last season. But how else do you explain a power-filled lineup struggling so much out of the gate?
A lack of power is far from the Brewers' only problem. But fixing it would go a long way toward getting this team back on track.
Playoffs
Through eight games, Fangraphs had the Brewers with a 6.8 percent chance of making the playoffs, with 75 projected wins. In their season-to-date stats model, the Brewers' chances improved to 13.4 percent odds, but their projected win total drops to 70.
Baseball Prospectus puts Milwaukee's chances at 16.5 percent, with 78 projected wins.
Stat of the week
0-6: The Brewers' record when this season when their opponent scores first.
Power rankings
An ugly start has the Brewers dropping to 29th in both the USA TODAY Sports and ESPN rankings. MLB.com still does not have Milwaukee in its top 20 list.
They said it
• Lucroy on the offense: "We need some guys to get hot and move forward."
• Brewers manager Ron Roenicke after Wednesday's loss: "I thought we did a pretty good job putting people on base. We had some chances. We're just not stringing together a lot of hits."
• Gomez after Monday's win: "It's only seven games. You see the Red Sox in 2013, they lost 11 games straight and they won the World Series."
Top tweets
Squared up
What's Brewing
• Scooter Gennett and Segura are the Brewers' top leadoff options with Gomez headed to the DL.
• Lucroy isn't panicking over his slow start, but he is making adjustments.
• Roenicke passed up a clear opportunity to challenge a play earlier this week.
— Quotes via Associated Press
— jschelling@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @jordanschelling.