ATLANTA -- The sportswriters and broadcasters come seeking answers from the bard of Brewers baseball, in Los Angeles and Seattle and Washington D.C. and Atlanta, or wherever manager Pat Murphy’s club is about to take the field.
Murphy loves nothing more than a good conversation about baseball, so he welcomes them into afternoon media sessions and does his best to put words to how any of this is possible. How are the Brewers doing it with one of baseball’s lowest payrolls, after offseasons defined more by departures than arrivals year after year, with multiple rookies in the lineup every night and a staff of pitchers who never fared this well when they wore other uniforms?
How does a team that barely pieced together a starting rotation in April and doesn’t hit many home runs, find itself an MLB-best 25 games over .500 after Tuesday’s 7-2 win over the Braves at Truist Park?
“To say I know how our environment affects people? I have no idea,” Murphy said when an Atlantan was the latest to ask for Milwaukee’s secret sauce. “I really don't. And I don't want to know. I don't want it evaluated. I just want to keep trying to make the environment healthy and good and better -- and authentic.”
It’s hard to imagine the Brewers being much better than they’ve been. They are 23-6 in their last 29 road games, including 11-1 in the last 12 with six straight wins. Overall, they are 44-16 since May 25 for the best 60-game stretch of any season in franchise history. Their plus-126 run differential is best in the Majors, which is rather stunning considering it was minus-32 after an 0-4 start to this season.
Most eye-opening, with a 69-44 record entering Wednesday’s bid for a series sweep of the Braves and a perfect six-game road trip, the Brewers are three games ahead of the next best team in the Major Leagues (the 67-48 Blue Jays) and four games ahead of the rest of the National League, including the 65-48 Cubs in the NL Central.
“People always around [the game] don't believe in us, but for some reason we've been doing a great job,” said starter Freddy Peralta, who battled his command and Braves hitters for five innings on 108 pitches to become MLB’s first 13-game winner. “It’s something special that we have.”
The truth is that there’s no one explanation for that “something.” It was logical to expect a step back this season after All-Star closer Devin Williams was traded ahead of a contract year and shortstop and glue guy Willy Adames walked via free agency. But here they are again, contending thanks to a throwback style that values pitching, defense and speed over power. Murphy’s afternoon questioner could have simply waited until the top of the third inning to see how the Brewers have done it, because they cobbled together a rally that explained more than anything from Murphy, who last year became the first Brewers skipper to win his league’s Manager of the Year Award, and at this pace is en route to a repeat.
The inning began with a base hit from Blake Perkins, the switch-hitting defensive star whose fractured shin on the first day of live batting practice in February represented one of the many injury issues facing the Brewers come Opening Day. With one out he stole second base, the Brewers’ 125th steal of the season. Only the Rays have swiped more.
The Brewers continued to apply pressure on Braves starter Joey Wentz, with an infield single from light-hitting, slick-fielding shortstop Joey Ortiz and walk to load the bases to third baseman Caleb Durbin, the prospect picked up in the Williams trade and one of the rookies playing a prominent role for Milwaukee this season. Two batters later with two outs, Christian Yelich tied the game at 1-1 with another infield single, giving the Brewers’ 121 infield hits this year. No team has more. Only two other teams are in triple digits.
By that point, Wentz had already thrown 20 pitches in the inning and now had to tangle with Brewers first baseman Andrew Vaughn, the former top prospect who’d been demoted by the White Sox amid a deep slump and had a .679 OPS in Triple-A when the Brewers acquired him in a June trade. It was a lottery ticket for GM Matt Arnold, the reigning MLB Executive of the Year. Veteran starter Aaron Civale had requested a trade after top Brewers pitching prospect Jacob Misiorowski was called up to Milwaukee to take that spot in the rotation, and the Brewers’ options to deal Civale were extremely limited.
That lottery ticket has paid off in a big way. Vaughn entered Tuesday night on a 10-game hitting streak with a 1.118 OPS in a Brewers uniform, meaning Wentz would have to proceed carefully. Too carefully, it turned out, because on the fifth pitch he yanked a 1-2 fastball so far inside that it sailed to the backstop for a run-scoring wild pitch and a 2-1 Brewers lead.
Vaughn and the Brewers weren’t finished, however. On the 12th pitch of the at-bat, after hitting seven foul balls, Vaughn lined a single to left field that produced two runs because it was the fleet-footed Yelich running from second base. The Brewers have the best baserunners in the Majors by a wide margin, according to Statcast metrics.
When Wentz finally escaped the inning, the Brewers had pestered their way to a 4-1 lead.
“From the outside looking in the last couple years, you can always tell it’s a gritty ballclub,” Vaughn said. “From Day One, it’s a great group, great guys, great staff. I’m just excited.”
“They're hungry,” Murphy said. “They play hard. We try to create whatever we can create. I feel like we're always hanging on the cliff, you know what I mean? … You know, ‘risk’ isn't a word we worry about. We're not trying to ever play safe. We just want to go for it, and I think they kind of bought in.”
The manager ended the night with a public challenge to Brewers players.
“You really have to be disciplined right now more than ever before,” Murphy said. “I love this team. I love who they are, but you have to play the game a certain way, and you can't assume that everything's going to go our way going forward. You're going to have some bumps in the road, but you have 49 games in the regular season left to play, and if we take care of business there, then we'll have another season.”