The Brewer bats have been struggling as of late and the team has just three wins in the month of May.  Monday on the Mike Heller Show, J.P. Breen from Disciples of Uecker broke down the numbers.

Breen on Ryan Braun:

He's hitting the ball on the ground a ton more than he has been doing. I don't know if there is a real big reason for that other than that, especially early in the year, he wasn't really seeing the ball all that well and his contact rate has been down. He has been swinging and missing more and that was a big talk in April, besides his really hot streak when he was in San Diego.  Ryan Braun hasn't always been phenomenal at taking the ball all the way down left field, but what he does very very well is he hits the ball with power where it's pitched and he can turn on it. He doesn't tend to turn on it all the way down left field. I think there are some holes in what he's doing, but the fact that he is still producing in the way that he is producing this year is a testament to him as a hitter, because he is always adjusting and he's always finding ways to be productive even if he isn't at his top level.

Breen on the Brewer's Offense:

The biggest reason that the Brewers are in the position they are right now has been the starting rotation.  They have the worst starting rotation in the National League and when you don't have the offense clicking on all cylinders like it was last year, especially late last year, where they were the best offense in the National League when they're not producing at that level you can't overcome that starting rotation lapse.  If they want to get around it's not Rickie Weeks, it's not Jonathon Lucroy coming around, it's not Corey Hart coming back, the starting rotation has to improve. If they don't improve, the Brewers aren't going to be competing for the second or the first wildcard spot. It's just not something that's going to be in the cards.  I know everyone is looking at Rickie Weeks and I know that's where everyone's eyes are going, but that's not what the issue is this year, even though it's frustrating to watch, that's not what the issue is.  There are signals that things could be turning around, but anytime you see someone take a step forward it seems like they are taking two steps back and it's been a really frustrating season, especially when over the course of the last couple of years you know that they have the talent.

Breen on his Website Disciples of Uecker:

We try to put up an article or two every single day, trying to look at some of the more of the statistical stuff on the team, but also looking at the Minor Leagues and taking a really deep look at that. I have really detailed Minor League report where I talk to a few scouts for Wednesday.  Some good news and unfortunately some not so good news. 

Breen on Brewer's Farm Systems:

They have had to trade a lot of prospects in order to get a lot of quality talent.  There's depth in the Brewer's system, but the real reason they aren't ranking really well on a lot of farm system lists is that they don't have the impact talent.  They don't have a lot of guys sitting there ready to really pound down the door.  They've a lot of guys that can potentially play at the big league level, but it's just a matter of where are those big cornerstone guys going to be coming from and that's the reason that the farm system is really lacking. The Brewers really have to look at their farm system and they have to be able to improve.  You can't get in the habit of sacrificing first round picks when you don't have good farm system because four or five years down the road that's going to come calling in a very negative way.

Dick Trickle, 71, passed away Thursday from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound in a cemetary in North Carolina. Trickle, known as "America's Winningest Driver", spent years on the short tracks of Wisconsin before going on to win NASCAR Rookie of the Year in 1989 at the age of 48.

Jim Tretow from the Motor Racing Network and our very own Racing RoundUp show, joined the Mike Heller Show to talk about Trickle's legacy.

Adam Rygg from Brewer Nation joined the show on Friday.

Do you like the way the pitching rotation is stacking up for the Brewers?

“Yeah, I think so.  One of the things they wanted to keep was that Lohse and Gallardo pitched on consecutive days.  It did end up working that way the few times they’ve skipped the number five spot.  So even though Lohse pitched fourth at the beginning season, now you’ve at least got Gallardo back-to-back so they’re going to hit most series together…getting Burgos in there, he hasn’t pitched his last start, so he needs to get some time on the mound.”

Do you think they should consider giving Rickie Weeks a couple days off?:

”For me, if you want to give him a couple days off, Bronson Arroyo, we already mentioned he may be a good spot to sit him against, nobody hits him well anyway, and I don’t think you’d want him screwing up whatever timing Weeks is starting to get back to a little bit.  Weeks just had a streak of 18 consecutive games on base snapped, he hasn’t been going all that poorly.  He still strikes out, but he always has…batting average isn’t everything.  He’s still getting on base, he’s hitting the ball pretty well lately, they’re still finding a lot of gloves… he’s doing better, the results aren’t there yet, but the process has improved I think from watching him take swings.  I don’t think he’s probably as close as he himself feels that he is to breaking completely out of it, but he’s on the right path in my opinion.”

How are his teammates responding to his struggles?:

“In the locker room after the game, Jonathan Lucroy was asked about it, and he said that, Weeks is grinding through it right now…but he said that Rickie Weeks is one of the first guys he would want to go into battle with on the entire roster.  The guys love him, they love his mentality, and they love his personality on the field.  Rickie Weeks is basically the definition of an even keel player.  You never see him get too high or too low regardless of what’s going on.  That’s the type of guy that other players rally around.”

Jerry Augustine from Fox Sports Wisconsin joined the show on Thursday.

Even with replay in baseball, some calls are still being missed. How would you fix this problem?:

“Well a lot of things have been said about it…someone says have that eye in the sky, that umpire up above that can go to the replay instantly, and you could probably get a lot of things correct in how you use it, and what you use it for. I think what they’re going to do is they are going to look at it and try to figure out what’s the best route to go, and I think what you’re going to see, you’re going to see it in the Minors or in Spring Training. (They) will really test it and see what happens and kind of go from there. There’s so many things that you can get involved with in the game of baseball. One of the things is, how many times are you allowed to look at it… a lot of people say that if you have like College Football, if you have that eye in the sky, or that person who is close by that can look at it really closely, and an umpire wants something can call up to him and get it correct, I think that’s where you’re going to see things change.”

 Do you remember any times where you were playing for the Brewers where there a big time mistake?

“You might have seen them on a fair or foul ball or a bang-bang play at first base that might have been a double play ball that can really get you out of a tough situation, or help your team in a situation….the human error was there and you just kind of lived with it and went on, but most of the times when they had opportunities to replay it, they found out that the umpires were right a very high percentage of the time.”

The Brewers have such an up and down season with these winning and losing streaks, as a player do you get used to the ebbs and flows of winning and losing?:

 “You do, because with this ball club…first of all they are trying to get healthy and secondly they are trying to get their pitching straightened out, there’s a lot going on. The season is such a journey. It’s long and it’s about staying as close to .500 as you can, and then having a big run. And that’s usually who wins the division nine out of ten times. When you look at this ball club, with the injuries they’ve had, the ups and downs they’ve had…I think what you look at is this, they just look at what’s ahead of them now.”

Former Brewers’ pitcher and Hall of Famer Rollie Fingers joined the show on Wednesday to talk about what it’s like to get hit by a line drive.

What does it make you think when you see J.A. Happ get hit by that line drive?:

“Well it brings back memories because I’ve been there and done that, and you don’t really think about it that much until you get hit. I’ve been hit in all other parts of my body: shoulder, chest, legs, and I’ve had some other balls zip by my head. The reaction time is really quick, you don’t realize how fast it is. By the time you release ball and it goes to the bat and it comes back at you, it’s all less than one second. You don’t have a whole lot of time to really even think about it. It’s all in the training that you have growing up. My dad was a pitcher and he’s always told me (to) protect your face, cause you’re going to get a line drive, you are going to get a line drive, it’s inevitable. When I got hit was when I was in a Minor League game, opening day in Birmingham, Alabama, in the fourth inning, and I just got lazy, I got lazy on a pitch, and I threw a pitch that I didn’t think was going to be hit up the middle. I threw a slow breaking ball on the inside part of the plate, and I figured if he does anything with it, the hitter is going to pull it, and he didn’t, he hit a sinking line drive right up the middle. I saw it about half way, and I just threw my arms up in front of my face, and the ball went right between my arms and hit me in the right cheek bone. It shattered my cheek bone, I lost some teeth, I couldn’t see out of my right eye ,I broke my jaw. I was in the hospital for about nine days, and I went from 205 pounds down to 168 pounds in two months before I got all the wiring off my teeth. It’s not fun, but like I say, it’s part of the game, but you have to always protect your face. After you release the ball, you don’t really care too much about the rest of your body, but always try and have that glove up around your face somewhere because they come back really fast.”

What are your thoughts on the League making pitchers wear a lining in their hat?:

“At the Big League level, I think it’s going to be entirely up to the pitcher. If it’s something that’s not cumbersome, if it’s something that’s going to weigh a lot, if it’s going to bother you if you put it on, then you’re going to think that it’s there. If I put on a ball helmet, I want it to feel like a baseball hat, not like a helmet. I think right now, it’s like you’re only going to be protecting about 40 or 50 percent of your head, but there’s 40 or 50 percent that’s going to be protected in case there is a line drive. I don’t see anything happening with any kind of facial gear or like a hockey mask or anything like that. I don’t think players will ever go to that. You just have to be ready, and if you can protect your head 40 percent of the space around your head, I would certainly think that I might want to wear it just to be safe, if it doesn’t bother me as far as just having the helmet on."

Here is the question I have after watching this. Will MLB make it mandatory for pitchers to wear specialized padded caps after this?