Milwaukee Brewers had a hot weekend. They won three games out of four versus a very good Colorado Rockies team, and they’re rolling a little bit heading into Arizona. There are some that are still struggling. One of those guys is Ryan Braun. He went 0-for-5 last night, and that continues to be a theme for the former MVP. Braun is hitting .222 with an on-base percentage of .268 and slugging a mere .413. Those are not pretty numbers at all. And it begs the question, when should Craig Counsell think about moving him down the order?

Braun gets a longer leash than most because he can get hot at any moment and start stinging the ball all over the field. The thing is we haven’t seen that from him lately. He did have a calf injury that bothered him a couple weeks ago, and I wonder if that is affecting him overall. Braun should likely be hitting fifth or sixth depending on the pitcher. Jesus Aguilar is worth having hit in the third spot. We saw him get bumped to the second spot when the team gave Lorenzo Cain the day off. Aguilar should be hitting near the top of the lineup. Braun fits in either before or after Domingo Santana. Travis Shaw being a doubles machine could set the table for Braunie.

The other thing that might be worth exploring is hit Ryan Braun leadoff. We’ve seen other teams adapt this strategy like Washington with Bryce Harper and Chicago with Anthony Rizzo. This did help Rizzo work out his funk, and he’s back to hitting third for the team on most nights. The hope would be Braun sees more pitches and gets more opportunities to be a big hitter. Maybe that would work for Braun then hit Lorenzo Cain third which isn’t the worst idea and something Milwaukee has done in the past.

We’ll see if any lineup changes happen in the near future.

Charlie.