[BirdWatcher]

Had I told you, at the beginning of the 1976 season, that a player on the Brewers team would have a slash line of .261/.338/.382 on June 12th, and asked you to name that player, who would you have guessed?

Perhaps utility infielder Joe Willemse? Nope. Little Joe, getting more starts due to the injury to Bobby Erbakan, is sitting at .306/.355/.378.

Maybe one of our catchers, who so clearly over-performed at the plate in 1975. Well, Zacarias Martell is hitting .294/.379/.413 and Kirk Patnode .310/.333/.352. So it isn't one of those guys.

How about slick fielding shortstop Rich White, who hadn't yet proved heading into the 1976 season that he could hit well at the big league level? Well, all Rich is doing, in addition to providing Gold Glove defense, is hitting .328/.372/.495. It's not him.

Brett Taranto is playing regularly for the first time in his big league career and though he hit well in limited action in 1975 it wouldn't be surprising if he had reverted to the mean a bit this year. But no- Taranto is hitting a blistering .366/.406/.508 and is pretty clearly the best hitter on the team so far in 1976.

Maybe Josh Schaeffer's notoriously bad work habits are finally catching up with him? Well, Josh has a pretty typical, for him, slash line of .286/.429/.351. So it's not Josh.

Okay, who the heck is it then?
Only the supposed best player on the team, Joe McPhillips, the man who was the MGL MVP in 1974 and the first runner up for the award in 1975.
What is going on with Joe? There is nothing from our scouting staff to indicate an obvious problem. Home runs are down league wide so his power drop is not terribly surprising. And with his great defense and terrific running he is still on pace for a 4.7 WAR season, which isn't too shabby. Still, he's got to get hot at the plate sometime, right? (Okay, his BABIP of .258 would indicate a strong degree of unluckiness, which can't last forever. We hope.)

And with Bobby Erbakan still out for at least a few more weeks and the Brewers currently playing their worst baseball of the season, Brewers fans hope that Joe snaps out of it sooner rather than later.