How bad will it get for the Brewers this year?

Glass Half Full: Why the Brewers can turn it around

Here’s the thing about having a bad 19-game stretch: it’s only 19 games. Sure, that sounds obvious, but when it comes in April, it’s the only thing we have to go on and we tend to overreact to it. But it’s a 162 game season, and 19 games is only 11.7 percent of a full season, meaning it really can tell us nothing.

So we shouldn’t be writing off any bad teams just yet; there’s plenty of time for the 5-14 Brewers to have a 14-5 stretch, and suddenly they’re .500 and right back in it.

To do that, they’ll need to rely on underperforming players starting to live up to preseason expectations. That means Carlos Gomez needs to return quickly and start playing like his 2013 and ’14 self. It means pitchers like Wily Peralta and Kyle Lohse need to find some of their lost velocity, and Matt Garza needs to stop walking so many people.

This wasn’t an especially bad team going into the year, like the Phillies, and there’s reason to believe that most or all of the players listed above can return to their old form. After all, we’ve seen them do so as recently as last year. A few players returning to form could be all it takes for the Brewers to go on a hot streak or two and make us all forget that this slow start ever happened.

Next: Glass Half Empty