The Brewers have made a decision about scuffling DH Jesse Winker's playing time

Jesse Winker was not in the Milwaukee Brewers lineup Monday at American Family Field, marking the third time in the last five games against a right-handed starting pitcher he was relegated to reserve duties.

While the latest lineup decision was at least in part due to Cincinnati Reds starter Graham Ashcraft having reverse splits, Brewers manager Craig Counsell acknowledged he was cutting back on Winker's playing time due to a lack of production.

Counsell called Winker off the bench in the bottom of the ninth for a pinch-hit opportunity and delivered, as he poked a single into right field to put two runners on base before Christian Yelich's walk-off single.

Winker, as has been well-documented, has struggled immensely at the plate this season, batting .194 with a .559 OPS and just six extra-base hits in 60 games. Since July 2, he is 3 for 25 with a .433 OPS.

"At this point, truthfully, we just got to go with the guys who can produce more at that point of the season, for me," Counsell said.

The Brewers acquired Winker from the Seattle Mariners during the offseason in exchange for Kolten Wong – who coincidentally has had his fair share of struggles, as well – to be a big, middle-of-the-order bat. It hasn't worked out as hoped.

"Look, he’s struggling," Counsell said. "We need production out of that spot. He, unfortunately, up to this point hasn’t given us production out of that spot. I think he understands it. I think he understands it and just tries to be ready for an at-bat later in the day."

To this point, the Brewers have been incredibly patient with Winker. Before seeing his at-bats curtailed near the end of the team's road trip last week, Winker was playing on an everyday basis against right-handers and almost always batting second or cleanup.

These opportunities came regularly in spite of Winker having a slugging percentage, .242, which stands as the worst of any hitter in MLB history who played primarily as a designated hitter (85% of the time or more) and had at least as many plate appearances as Winker has (196).

“I’m not playing that well,” Winker said. “That doesn't mean you stop working and stop trying to put together good ABs and get good swings off. It’s just not going my way. It’s part of it, I guess. It’s definitely frustrating personally but keep at the work and just keep going.”

What led to the decision to finally pull back on Winker's playing time after riding out a season-long slump to this point?

"I don’t think there’s a hard and fast answer to that," Counsell said. "You have a player who’s produced at really high levels in the major leagues, you want to continue to give him chances to get back to that place that we’ve seen, which is an all-star level of offensive production. At some point, you try to take a step back and let him work on some things and make some adjustments and put him back in there and see if that does anything.

"You run through and kind of exhaust a bunch of different avenues to try to get a player back going and you keep doing that. That’s how it works."

The Brewers will seek pinch-hitting spots for Winker in the meantime while working with him behind the scenes to try to unlock some semblance of the batter who had a 123 OPS+ and 80 homers since 2017 when he arrived in Milwaukee.

"There’s pinch-hitting spots for Jesse that we still like," Counsell said. "Try to get William (Contreras') bat in the lineup more when he’s not catching and that will continue. We’re going to have to get (Christian) Yelich off his feet once in a while here. So, the DH days have gone away a little bit. And then today is just kind of a matchup thing."

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Brewers DH Jesse Winker will play less as he struggles on offense