The Brewers Are What We Expected, but Also Better

Every baseball season, we see something unexpected. “You can’t predict baseball,” in the words of an axiom from a decade ago. And it’s true. But because baseball occurs in such great volume, over such a long period of time, unexpected things can happen in different ways, and at different rates. Sometimes, an overachieving team picks up one extra game every two weeks, gently floating to the top of the standings with minimal fuss. We get drip-fed this surprise gradually, like an irrigation system designed not to drown your basil plants.

And sometimes you fall into a lake.

On either side of the All-Star break, the Milwaukee Brewers won 11 games in a row. Even after that streak ended with a paper-thin 1-0 loss in Seattle on Tuesday, they are the hottest team in baseball right now. They’re red hot. No, white hot. They are, to quote the poet, so hot it’s hurting everyone’s feelings.

This is not the first time this season that a team has won 11 games in a row; in fact, there have been four double-digit win streaks in the majors this season so far. And in a fun coincidence, three — the Brewers’ streak, plus 10-game win streaks by the Red Sox and Blue Jays — were active at the same time in early July.

A winning streak like this doesn’t always make a team’s season; the Twins won 13 in a row in May and are currently contemplating a sell-off. (If they miss the postseason, that will go down as the second-longest winning streak by a non-playoff team in the Wild Card era, behind the 1999 Padres and their futile 14-game run.)

But for a team that’s in Wild Card position already, past the halfway point of the season, winning 11 games in a row has a pretty profound effect. After the Brewers lost to Miami on July 5, dropping them to 49-40, they had a 61.6% chance of making the playoffs and a 15.9% chance of winning the division. Solid odds overall, but a clear step behind the division-leading Cubs.

Eleven games later, the Brewers had increased their odds of both making the playoffs and winning the division by at least 30 percentage points. Over that same span, the Cubs had the third-best record in the NL and saw their odds of winning the division drop by 25 percentage points. In less nerdy numbers, the Brewers made up five games on Chicago in 11 days, and in the process climbed into sole possession of first place in the NL Central for the first time this season. (Though Tuesday evening’s results restored the Battle of I-94 to a state of parity.)

It helps Milwaukee’s cause that everyone else in the NL treaded water on either side of the break — that third-best record in the league by the Cubs was 6-5 — but the Brewers had something to do with making that happen. When Milwaukee’s streak started, the Los Angeles Dodgers, eternal National League favorite, led the NL in both wins and runs scored. Even so, the Brewers’ winning streak includes a perfect 6-0 record against their 2018 NLCS antagonists. In the first four of those games, the Brewers held the Dodgers to four runs in total.

And that — run prevention — has been the real key.

Over the past seven seasons, the Brewers have made the playoffs six times and won the NL Central four times. In that time, Milwaukee’s overwhelming strength has been pitching. Not the same pitchers, mind you. Brandon Woodruff is the only pitcher who’s remained in Milwaukee for this entire run. Corbin Burnes, Josh Hader, Devin Williams — they’ve all been traded, and their roster spots rolled over. But replacement arms (Freddy Peralta, Quinn Priester, Abner Uribe, Chad Patrick, and so on) seem to grow on trees. Not to mention Jacob Misiorowski, who seems to be a tree.

The Brewers’ offense has, conversely, been relatively poor. Usually around the median in terms of batting and run production, but at or near the bottom among playoff teams. This is how a team with so much pitching talent has connived to win just two postseason games and zero postseason rounds since 2019. Not so much Harvey’s Wallbangers as Craig and Pat’s Virgin Banana Daiquiris.

Even in this era of Wisconsinite domination, that criticism remains valid. As the Brewers lapped the field in the NL (again, they gained at least 3 1/2 games on literally every single team in the NL in about two weeks’ worth of actual games), they were outscored by five clubs and out-wRC+’d by six. (Including the Angels in both cases.) Nor is there a single hitter carrying the offense; the Brewers’ hottest bat has belonged to Andrew Vaughn, who had a 194 wRC+ in 34 plate appearances during the streak. Vaughn is one of three Brewers who homered twice during that 11-game run; nobody else hit more.

Good offense, then, even very good offense over an 11-game span, but not world-beating. Indeed, it was a 1-0 loss that brought the streak to an end. If the Brewers’ lineup had shown any signs of life (albeit against an extremely tricky set of Mariners pitchers), they’d probably be celebrating their 12th consecutive win this morning.

Again, it’s the pitching. Especially the starting pitching. During their run, Milwaukee’s starter allowed one or zero runs eight times:

From July 6 to July 21, Brewers starters struck out 31.8% of their opponents, by far the highest mark in baseball. Only the Tigers (who got two double-digit strikeout starts from Tarik Skubal) and Phillies (who got two double-digit strikeout starts from Zack Wheeler) were even at 25% over that span.

OK, but what about Misiorowski? Is String Cheese floating the entire Milwaukee rotation in the same manner?

No! Miz, who was somewhat controversially added to the All-Star roster during this win streak, struck out 12 in six innings on July 8. But he only made his second-half debut on Tuesday evening; Misiorowski struck out seven Mariners in 3 2/3 scoreless innings, but lost his pitchers’ duel to Logan Gilbert, who punched out 10 and allowed two hits and no walks over 6 1/3 innings.

Peralta’s been terrific in his past three starts; four of the five runs he’s allowed during this streak came in one inning against the Dodgers. Otherwise he’s been nearly unhittable. But the big news has been Woodruff’s return.

Forgive me a rather lengthy digression here; I promise it’s setting up a worthwhile stinger.

While this win streak has completely rewritten the National League standings, it has done relatively little to change (and I don’t want to speak for everyone here) my perception of the Brewers.

I already thought this was a playoff team. I already thought Misiorowski was prodigiously talented, that Peralta was a terrific starter, and that the rotation as a whole was world-class. The offense is streaky, and light on power, but good enough to win if the starters are pitching up to their potential. Certainly, Vaughn seems like a new man (i.e. no longer one of the worst all-around players in the majors) since his liberation from the White Sox. I don’t think anyone in this lineup terrifies opposing pitchers, but Joey Ortiz has been the only automatic out this season, which is saying something.

I’ll even go so far as to say this: I think it’s fair to expect the Brewers to have a weird overachieving stint every year. You don’t hear their fans griping about our preseason playoff odds as much as some do. (You know who you are.) But our brain-in-a-jar has traditionally been a little light on Milwaukee; or, perhaps more accurately, the Brewers have strung together a few right-tail outcomes during the past decade:

The only thing that’s really changed since the start of the month is Woodruff.

As you might remember, the former Mississippi State standout was a foundational part of Milwaukee’s success since 2018. At his peak, he was billed as Burnes’ co-ace. All that changed in late 2023, when a nagging shoulder injury necessitated capsule repair surgery in October, wiping out his entire 2024 campaign.

I wrote about Woodruff’s injury at the time in an overwhelmingly pessimistic tone. We’ve gotten pretty blasé about elbow injuries, and appropriately so, as Tommy John surgery has gotten more reliable and routine, and advances like the internal brace have cut down on recovery times.

But the shoulder is a different animal. The injury Woodruff suffered is still a career-ender in many cases. (Don’t believe me? The other guy in the headline of that post was Kyle Wright.)

Well, he’s back now. In fact, Woodruff’s return coincides almost exactly with the start of this winning streak. And in three starts so far, Woodruff has 23 strikeouts and zero walks in 16 1/3 innings. He’s allowed just nine hits and three runs, all on solo homers. Woodruff’s velocity is down substantially from 2022, but he’s also diversified his pitch mix by (say it with me) adding a cutter. And also, 23 strikeouts in 16 1/3 innings with no walks speaks for itself. I don’t care if he’s throwing underhand; that’ll play.

The more anxious among you might worry about the calf cramp that forced Woodruff to exit his last start after just 62 pitches on Monday, but fear not. That move was precautionary; manager Pat Murphy said there’s nothing to worry about. Also, 62 pitches was enough for Woodruff to complete six scoreless innings, marking the eighth time in the 11-game streak that a Brewers starter made it that far.

If Woodruff is well and truly back, for my money he’s a bigger add than any starter who’s likely to get moved at the deadline. And he’s joining a rotation that already includes Peralta, Misiorowski, Priester, and the wily Jose Quintana. Great Brewers rotations have made me look foolish before, but that’s a formidable group in a pitching-scarce playoff bracket.

We already knew the Brewers were a contender. But it’s nice to have a reminder.