Brewers win 11th straight to take 1st place in NL Central, best record in MLB

SEATTLE -- This magical run for Milwaukee began July 6 with Brandon Woodruff on the mound in Miami, back from shoulder surgery and painting the corners in his first big league start in nearly two years. Since then, he hasn’t looked back.

Neither have the Brewers, who have surged to the best record in baseball with 100 games in the books.

Held hitless for five innings by Seattle starter George Kirby, Milwaukee broke through for four runs in the sixth to send Woodruff and two relievers on the way to an 11th consecutive victory, 6-0 over the Mariners at T-Mobile Park. At 60-40, the Brewers have surged past the Cubs to claim outright possession of first place in the National League Central for the first time this season, and past the Tigers for the best record in MLB after Chicago and Detroit both lost Monday.

“I’m proud to be a part of it,” said Woodruff, the longest-tenured Brewer. “Each and every day you come to the field your mind doesn’t want to go to, ‘When is it going to stop?’ I think we’re in a spot where we’re continuing to play good baseball.”

They’ve been better than good. The last time the Brewers had baseball’s best record this late in a season, it was 1982 and they were on a path that led to the World Series.

But you won’t hear anyone talk about that in today’s clubhouse. Not yet. Not even close.

“Have we done everything we can do in 100 games? Have we played as good as we can all play?” said Brewers manager Pat Murphy before answering his own questions in the negative. “So, there’s more to be done. There’s more opportunity. There’s no reason to coast. There’s every reason to know you’re in a fight. When you drop your guard, ‘whack!’”

Still, what a run for Woodruff, who has a 1.65 ERA, 23 strikeouts and no walks in his three starts back from the injured list after navigating six innings of Monday’s victory on only 62 pitches before cramping in his right calf prompted a precautionary exit. And what a run for the Brewers, who traded All-Star closer Devin Williams last December after trading ace Corbin Burnes the year before, lost shortstop Willy Adames and his team-leading power production to free agency, and yet are rewriting the club record books. They have matched their 1979 club for the best 100-game start to a season in franchise history while matching their 2021 club for the second-longest winning streak in franchise history.

Only 1987’s “Team Streak,” which set an American League record by beginning that season 13-0, have had a longer winning spree in Milwaukee’s Major League history – including the Braves and Brewers.

They’ll try to make it 12 in a row on Tuesday night with a big arm on the mound, as Jacob Misiorowski is set to make his first start since topping 102 mph in last week’s All-Star Game. He’s just at the start of his career. Woodruff, meanwhile, at 32, is trying to keep his going.

“Honestly, it’s a different spot for me this year,” Woodruff said. “My main goal this year is to be healthy and I’m trying to do everything I can to just go win today. I think that’s a good mentality to have.”

He doesn’t have the “angry” fastball that made him the Brewers’ all-time ERA leader among pitchers who have logged at least 500 innings for the club, but he’s getting results. Monday’s start, 10 days since his last, began with three popups on four pitches in the first inning. He threw 12 pitches in the second, 15 in the third, 10 in the fourth, eight in the fifth and 13 in the sixth, when he felt some minor cramping in his right calf on a handful of deliveries. Woodruff called it a “non-issue” moving forward.

He doesn’t want to miss any more time with a team that the manager has alternatively described in recent days as “Average Joe’s” – a reference that makes sense to anyone who rooted for the budget-conscious underdogs in the film “Dodgeball” – and as the annoying woodpecker who won’t stop pecking away outside your bedroom window at 4 a.m.

That’s how Brewers hitters beat Kirby, who allowed a Blake Perkins walk but nothing else until the sixth, when Joey Ortiz lined a one-out single over shortstop that sparked a rally with five hits, a sacrifice fly and four players driving in a run apiece. Then Ortiz made the defensive play of the day in the eighth when he dove for a Julio Rodríguez grounder in the hole and fired to first for the final out of the frame, helping relievers Aaron Ashby and Grant Anderson finish a five-hit shutout.

“The job is definitely not done yet,” Ortiz said.

Woodruff knows that. He would love for this to be the year the Brewers author a different ending.

“There’s a reason why we’ve done this over the last 8-9 years,” Woodruff said. “You have to put the right guys in the room. It may not be household names, and that’s fine. But when you’re winning baseball games, that speaks more than anything.”