Well, that’s not exactly how I expected the season to start.

For 8½ innings the Brewers looked just like we all hoped. They were hitting the ball all over the park and Gallardo looked in control of the Reds’ offense. Then John Axford happened. If you’re looking for a silver lining, the 8½ innings it took for the Brewers to combust was about 7½ more than it took in 2010. I’m not going to say that Axford looked terrible but 19 out of 21 pitches being fastballs isn’t the greatest way to shut down one of the best offenses in the majors. And if Casey makes a better tag at third or just throws to first for the sure out, the Brewers win game 1 and don’t have this 10,000 pound gorilla on their back.

I chalked up last Thursday’s loss as a fluke. You could point to Axford not getting enough reps in Spring Training because of illness or to him possibly having some extra butterfly’s now that he’s “the guy”. However, Saturday through Monday was an eye-opener. What were possible shortcomings as late as 1 week ago now appear to be glaring weaknesses.

The biggest problem I see is the huge discrepancy in offensive production between Weeks/Braun/Fielder/McGehee (for simplicity, these 4 will be referred to as The Beatles for the rest of this article) and basically the entire rest of the team (referred to as Wham! for the rest of this article). The Beatles thus far have produced 18 hits, 5 homers and 5 walks. Wham! has produced 10 hits, 2 homers and only 2 walks. That is just a gross difference. Wham! has left 148 runners in scoring position while the Beatles have left only 2 (these numbers are estimates…).

The pitching staff hasn’t been free of fault either. Narveson looked phenomenal on Monday and Gallardo, Marcum, Green, Loe, Mitre, and Braddock looked alright as well for their first action of the season. Saito and Wolf on the other hand, were basically piñatas to the Reds and Braves bats. Saito took what was Narveson’s best game as a pro and savagely trounced it with a bamboo cane. I’d be willing to bet these two are not on speaking terms. Then there’s Wolf, who in a mere 4 innings managed to give up 10 hits and 6 earned runs. My only explanation for his performance is that he had a large sum of money on Cincinnati.

The Crew will try to right the ship tonight against Derek Lowe, and with Gallardo taking the mound I feel pretty confident they will. Let’s just hope that Wham! starts to pull some of their weight.