MILWAUKEE -- Pat Murphy and his coaches are pushing every button to find the “on” switch for the Brewers’ offense.
On Friday, that meant a tumble down the lineup card for budding star Jackson Chourio, who dropped to the six-hole after a pregame sit-down with Milwaukee’s manager, then struck out in all four at-bats of a 3-0 loss to the surging Twins at American Family Field.
The Twins are hot, winners of 12 consecutive games. The Brewers are not, with three shutout losses in their last four games and five shutout losses this month.
“You want to spark something,” Murphy said. “We’re not here to make friends. We’re here to try to lead them and impact it. When you go through stretches like this, you can point to a lot of things. The bottom line is who we are, and what are we going to do about it?”
It marked the first time since last July that Chourio batted outside the one- or two-hole in the lineup, by which time the then-20-year-old had turned a rough start to his debut season into a late-season surge to finish third in NL Rookie of the Year Award balloting.
This season is again starting slowly for Chourio, who, even in his second season, was the youngest player in the Majors on Opening Day. But discussing the Brewers’ recent hitting woes earlier this week, he predicted Milwaukee would recuperate its confidence before long.
“We’re a very united group, and the overall feeling we have is we don’t need more than what we have in the room,” he said, with Brewers coach Daniel de Mondesert translating. “I think you’re going to see the moment when it comes and some of the hits fall, some of the homers start going out of the ballpark, and you start to see that confidence again.”
Murphy said he hoped the lineup move might take some of the pressure off Chourio, who is one of a number of Brewers hitters trying to swing the team out of its recent funk. The Brewers tried a team meeting on Tuesday night in Cleveland -- their second such gathering in less than three weeks -- and followed with a 9-5 win on Wednesday. But then they came back home Friday to another offensive outage against Minnesota starter Joe Ryan and three relievers.
Chourio had the toughest night of all. All four of his strikeouts came on pitches well outside the strike zone.
“Chourio didn’t accept this batting sixth very well,” Murphy said. “He had a rough night, but they pitched him tough, too. A lot of guys had a rough night.”
Was he receptive to the pregame lineup move?
“He wasn’t happy about it,” Murphy said. “I asked him, entiende?”
That translates to, “Do you understand?”
Murphy believes Chourio did understand, even if he wasn’t pleased about it. He’s far from the Brewers’ coldest hitter, slashing .253/.270/.447 through a team-high 190 plate appearances. But Murphy believed that Chourio’s ultra-aggressive approach wasn’t fitting at the top of the lineup or in the two-hole, so he made a change.
Asked whether he would keep Chourio in the bottom half of the order beyond Friday, Murphy said he would talk to the player about it.
“We’re trying to get him to understand the ball-strike thing a little better,” Murphy said. “When you’re hitting at the top of the order and you’re swinging at most every pitch, it makes it harder to run in front of him. And I’m not saying don’t swing when it’s a strike. But when you’re leaving the zone, it's hard to get your offense going.
“We saw some of this early last year, and he came out of it. Hopefully, he will again.”
Chourio had a .575 OPS through June 1 last year before ending with a flourish. He hit .305/.360/.528 from June 2 through the end of the regular season, with 16 of his 21 home runs and 15 of his 22 stolen bases, becoming the first player to secure a 20-20 season before his 21st birthday.
He wasn’t alone in having trouble Friday night. The Brewers managed only five hits in the game and were particularly shut down by the right-hander Ryan, who escaped a 30-pitch, two-baserunner first inning unscathed and then struck out nine Brewers hitters while holding them scoreless through the sixth.
“Give credit to the Twins,” Murphy said. “This is a team that’s playing really good and their mojo is going. The balls are falling. They’re playing good and they’re pitching really well.”