Otto Lopez Is Hitting .336 and Milwaukee Doesn’t Care Enough

Miami’s Otto Lopez is quietly putting together one of the more underappreciated batting average seasons in baseball, sitting at .336, and his trip to Milwaukee should receive more attention than it will. Max Meyer takes the mound for the Marlins against Shane Drohan for the Brewers in a game that the standings suggest shouldn’t be close but the narrative suggests might be interesting.

Milwaukee counters with William Contreras at .280 and Jake Bauers with 18 home runs providing a functional middle of the order. The Brewers are MIL -1.5 RL favorites — home, better record, more to play for in a competitive NL Central picture. Heriberto Hernandez adds 13 home runs for Miami, showing the organization is not completely without power development.

The Lopez average is a genuine subplot hiding in plain sight, the kind of story that only gets told when someone finally notices. For now, this is a modest mid-July contest between a team building upward and a team trying to stay above the division waterline.

The Lopez thread gives this one a flavor bump — rating it a chunky.