Best Play: Down 2-1 early, the Brewers didn’t quit against Brandon Finnegan and the Reds. With two down in the third inning, Jonathan Villar drew a walk; four pitches later, Hernan Perez smacked a four-seam fastball into center field for a double. Villar slid home, knotting the score at two runs apiece.
Villar’s two-bagger (+.134) raised the Brewers’ win expectancy from 40.3 to 53.7 percent, the first time they’d had odds better than 50 percent since the first inning. When Jonathan Lucroy doubled in Villar to give the Brewers a 3-2 edge, their chances increased to 64.2 percent, after which they’d remain above 60 percent for the remainder of the game.
In my humble opinion, Villar’s shining moment came earlier in the game: Following a leadoff single, he sprinted from first to third on a pop foul, as he’s done in the past. The hero here was Perez, who has somehow succeeded at the plate this season. Despite entering 2016 with a lifetime TAv of .201, he’s pounded out a .310 mark to this point, on the back of a .203 ISO and .347 BABIP. Extra-base lasers like the one he laced on Sunday aren’t flukes, so if the 25-year-old utility man can continue to accumulate them, he’ll get the playing time he deserves.
Worst Play: Jimmy Nelson allowed two baserunners in the first inning, but neither of them came around (as we’ll discuss below). He didn’t get so lucky in the second frame. Facing Nelson for the second time, Jay Bruce deposited a 1-0 four-seamer into the second deck in right field, evening the score at 1-1.
Bruce’s homer (-.105) made the game a coin flip, cutting the Brewers’ odds from 60.5 to 50.0 percent. The next three Reds batters would reach base as well, and one of them would cross home plate to give the Reds a 2-1 advantage. By the time Nelson escaped the inning, the home team had just a 44.9 percent chance of winning.
Nelson settled down as the game progressed: He allowed just one hit and two walks between the third and seventh innings, during which time his teammates took back the lead. Overall, it amounted to a quality start — his eighth this season in 11 outings — for the de facto Brewers ace. Still, the early hiccups caused some concern, especially the homer. Nelson has now served up nine long balls on the year, half of his total from 2015. While Nelson has pitched fairly well this season, he hasn’t earned his 2.88 ERA, and if he keeps letting the ball leave the yard like this, his regression might be harder than the Brewers can bear.
Trend to Watch: Still, a victory should be cause for celebration! So instead of harping on the negatives, let’s focus on the biggest positive: Lucroy. In the first inning, he threw out Brandon Phillips trying to steal second; that combined with a pickoff from Nelson erased the two baserunners. (Hamilton would manage to steal third later in the game, but nobody’s perfect.) For 2016 as a whole, Lucroy has cut down 22 attempted base stealers, out of 52 attempts. That’s a 42.3 percent rate, far higher than his previous career high of 31.5 percent from 2010.
Interestingly, Lucroy hasn’t gotten much help from his pitchers. According to Baseball-Reference, they’ve given him 581 stolen-base opportunities — plate appearances where a runner has an open base ahead of him — over 360.1 innings, an average of 1,612 per 1,000 frames. Lucroy has averaged above 1,600 only once before, in 2012. Generally, Milwaukee hurlers haven’t put this many men on base before; the added pressure hasn’t gotten to Lucroy, though.
By the advanced metrics, Lucroy still doesn’t have an especially great arm. BP’s Throwing Runs metric grades him as a +0.1-run defender thus far. He’s nevertheless improved from previous years — between 2012 and 2015, he cost the Brewers 6.4 runs by BP’s calculations. While Lucroy’s framing prowess has never correlated to control of the running game, that might be changing soon.
Up Next: The Brewers take on the Cardinals in a three-game series to wrap up the homestand. After Junior Guerra and Carlos Martinez kick things off Monday, Wily Peralta and Mike Leake take the hill on Tuesday, and Zach Davies and Jaime Garcia wrap things up on Thursday. Villar and Perez probably won’t keep up their hot streaks, nor will Nelson, but this team could still end May on a high note.