Regardless of how his season ends, the Summer of Andrew Vaughn has etched a permanent place in Milwaukee Brewers archives. From White Sox disaster to certified masher, his turnaround in Milwaukee made for one of the season’s most compelling stories in all of baseball.
Of course, the fairy-tale hot streak couldn’t last forever, but as the inevitable cold spell drags on, it’s fair for Brewers fans to be concerned. While guys like Brice Turang and William Contreras, have picked up the slack, Vaughn is not the same four-or-five-hole threat in the lineup that he had been. The slump has continued long enough to force the Brewers to address it.
Vaughn’s sluggish stretch is lasting longer than Brewers would like
In Friday’s lineup, as he has been for several games now, Vaughn, a right-handed hitter, is penciled in at No. 6. Facing a southpaw starter in Ranger Suarez yesterday did not change his place in the order. Hunting matchups, manager Pat Murphy has readily pinch-hit for Vaughn with the likes of Anthony Siegler. Jake Bauers, who bats left-handed, is getting more at-bats in Vaughn’s place.
For a while, with both Bauers and Rhys Hoskins out injured, Vaughn was the team’s only first baseman. The Brewers didn’t have much choice whether to play him or not, and Vaughn rendered concern irrelevant by hitting everything in sight. In his first 29 games in Milwaukee, covering 120 plate appearances, he hit .343/.403/.648 with nine homeruns and 35 RBIs.
His cool down is creeping up in length. Spanning a 17-game period (68 PA’s), the first baseman had posted an ice-cold .183/.265/.200 slash line before yesterday. Vaughn has not hit a homer since August 15.
Some negative regression is no cause for alarm, but it’s also true that this slump constitutes over one-third of Vaughn’s time with the Brewers. Encouragingly, Vaughn went 3-4 in the series finale against the Phillies. He sat out game 2 in addition to the team’s scheduled day off on Tuesday; maybe some time off his feet did the trick.
The Brewers don’t need him to be Barry Bonds over these final weeks and into the postseason. They just need him to find a middle ground. If there was any truth at all to his first month-plus in Milwaukee – it sure seems so- he should be able to find his way there.
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