Photo Credit: Scott Paulus
Ryan Braun has had plenty of highlight reel-worthy moments already in the 2018 season, but unfortunately for the Brewers, he hasn’t provided much else.
An 0-for-4 game in the finale of the Marlins series on Sunday dropped Braun’s batting average to .221 and his on-base percentage to .247 through the Brewers’ first 23 games. His slugging is still high at .485, largely fueled by his five home runs, but his offensive contributions have been inconsistent and at times that’s been difficult for the Brewers to overcome.
Over the course of his eleven-year MLB career April has been Braun’s best month. He’s a career .304 batter in games played before May 1 (including a few contests in March), with a .373 on-base percentage and .567 slugging. Even in recent years, when Braun’s overall production has diminished a bit, he’s typically gotten off to good starts. That isn’t the case this year.
Much has been made over the years of Braun’s injury history, as he has often been limited or sidelined by relatively minor but notable maladies. Last week Paul Noonan suggested the Brewers could market a Braun-themed edition of the classic board game “Operation,” and they would certainly have plenty of material to use.
The Brewers have been a much better team with Braun than without him, however, so for a large portion of his career the Brewers have made an effort to find ways to keep Braun on the active roster even when minor injuries limit his production or availability. Some of the most prolonged slumps of Braun’s career have come in these situations, and it’s possible something similar is happening now: Christian Yelich’s recent absence and the Brewers’ plethora of minor injuries have led to Braun having to play more often than is probably ideal.
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Braun’s recent home runs moved March/April 2018 off of this list, but here are some of the worst prior months of his career and a look at how he rebounded:
September 2014
The first season following Braun’s 2013 suspension was a big step backward for him: The .777 on-base plus slugging (OPS) he posted was the worst of his career and his injury woes became a prominent storyline. This was the first season where Braun’s recurring thumb issue became noteworthy, and his play in September reflected the growing challenges it created. Braun batted .210 with a .319 OBP and .284 slugging in the season’s final month. In a related note, the Brewers went 9-17 that month and fell out of the running for a postseason berth.
Braun’s struggles down the stretch in 2014 led to notable changes both off the field and on: Braun underwent a cryotherapy procedure the following winter to freeze the nerve in the thumb, and in 2015 the Brewers started to get more intentional about finding ways to get him rest during the season.
July 2010
Braun went to five consecutive All Star Games and won five consecutive Silver Slugger Awards from 2008-2012, but in the middle of that run his numbers dipped a bit. In a streak that looked a lot like his current trend, Braun hit home runs in July of 2010 but didn’t produce much else, batting .200 with a .234 on-base percentage and a .381 slugging largely boosted by five homers. He had also struggled noticeably in June of that season, posting a .708 OPS in that month.
The good news is that Braun was able to rebound from that poor month and have an excellent stretch run. He played in 54 games combined between August, September and October and batted .364 with a .440 on-base and .583 slugging, reestablishing himself among the game’s elite hitters.
September 2008
Braun’s first full season in the majors didn’t end all that well: He had a .933 OPS entering play on September 1 but posted a .661 mark in the season’s final month. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Brewers also faded notably during that time. They went 10-16 over the regular season’s final 28 days and needed help on the final day to reach the postseason. Even though he was struggling, Braun played in every game for the Brewers that month.
Despite his rough end to the season, Braun was actually pretty good in a small sample in the postseason. He went 5-for-16 (.313) with a pair of doubles in four games against the Phillies, driving in a pair of runs. The following spring he was back to his old self and had a strong April.
While Braun’s start to the 2018 season is on pace to be better than these three stretches, it’s still a concern for the Brewers that he’s not off to his normal fast start. It’s also worth noting, however, that in each of these three cases he rebounded nicely when the calendar turned over to the next month.
