The Brewers starting pitchers have not pitched a quality start in six games, since Gallardo's quality start no-decision at Wrigley Field. The result. along with an offense that scored 16 runs in 6 games, seems fairly obvious: no quality starts equal no wins (along with no offense, of course).

Part of me wonders if quality starts will actually be the answer, however. Because of the number of close games the bullpen has been thrown into, and the offensive woes, the Brewers have not capitalized on what few quality starts have been pitched. Of the 13 quality starts pitched thus far, 10 have gone for no decisions or a loss:

Quality Starts: 0-1, 10 GS, 66 IP, 50 H, 15 R, 38 K/20 BB; 2.05 runs average, 6.60 IP/GS

Suppan (4/8, 19, and 24): 0-0, 20.7 IP, 14 H, 4 R, 7 K/6 BB

Gallardo (4/20, 25, and 5/1): 0-0, 20 IP, 19 H, 4 R, 13 K/6 BB

Villanueva (4/21 and 26): 0-0, 13 IP, 9 H, 4 R, 6 K/4 BB

Sheets (3/31): 0-0, 6.3 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 7 K/2 BB

Bush (4/15): 0-1, 6.0 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 5 K/2 BB

Suppan's quality starts are the biggest benefactor of this bizarre trend, and this is a particularly difficult trend for Suppan because he is a pitcher that, while eating IP, only tends to pitch around 50% (perhaps more, perhaps a bit less) quality starts throughout a season. To waste his quality starts is problematic because the offense will then need to face the task of scoring enough runs to overcome his poor outings.

The same might be said for Villanueva and Bush, and even Sheets' quality starts shouldn't be wasted, although he pitches enough quality starts that it's not as big of a problem to waste one here or there.

The bottom line is, a quality start indicates that a pitcher has pitched fairly deep into the game, allowing 3 or fewer runs, a start that should certainly keep the team in the ballgame, and give the team a good chance of winning. I wholeheartedly believe that a team that pitches more quality starts more frequently than another team will have a much better chance at winning games -- so, not only do the Brewers find themselves in the difficult situation of not receiving many quality starts (only 13 thus far), they also find themselves in the position of failing to win a very large majority.