MILWAUKEE, WI (LEARFIELD-WSAU)It has not been an easy start to the season for the Milwaukee Brewers’ new hitting coach. Darnell Coles replaced Johnny Narron. He was fired last fall, after the Brewers went into a collective September slump in which Milwaukee missed the playoffs after leading their division for 150 days. Last week, Coles watched as his hitters produced only 16 runs in six games with a .282 on-base percentage. That’s 32 points below last year’s Major League average of .314 — and that’s down almost 20 points over the past five years.
The 52-year-old Coles spent four years in Milwaukee’s farm system before serving as the assistant hitting coach for the Detroit Tigers a year ago. He tells the Journal Sentinel the Brewers’ offense needs to get consistent with many of the things they worked on at Spring Training — and it’s still early. Coles says the hitters’ overall approaches have been good, although they’ve missed pitches which put them in bad counts.
One bright spot for Coles is the improvement by shortstop Jean Segura. He’s hitting .304 with a .360 on-base percentage, after jumping at bad pitches and struggling a year ago. Segura has a .522 slugging percentage, way up from last year’s .326.
After a day off yesterday, the 2-and-5 Brewers resume their series at Saint Louis tonight. Right-hander Wily Peralta starts against Cardinals’ right-hander Lance Lynn. You can hear the game on WSAU at 6:40
