MILWAUKEE -- Brewers fan Frank Vitucci will be the first to tell you that it’s the players who deserve all the credit for the incredible run that continued Wednesday with a 12-5 win over the Pirates at American Family Field. Barely five weeks removed from an 11-game winning streak, the Brewers have bettered that mark by winning 12 in a row, part of a stretch of 27 victories in their last 31 games and 51 of 67. In the 70 years they’ve played Major League Baseball in this town, there’s never been a regular season stretch like it.
It’s not magic and it’s not luck. It’s fun, fundamental baseball, like veteran starter Brandon Woodruff showing he paid attention during pitcher’s fielding practice by hustling over to cover first for a slick final out to finish a scoreless outing. Or the way Brewers hitters manufactured their first two runs by capitalizing on a pair of Pirates fielding miscues, then tacked on four more runs in the fourth with four consecutive two-out RBI hits in the span of six pitches.
Or in the sixth, when the Brewers answered a pair of Bryan Reynolds homers that cut a 6-0 lead to 6-5 by using a pair of tough walks -- plus a sacrifice bunt -- to score two huge insurance runs on William Contreras’ single. Contreras later took a bases-loaded walk in a four-run seventh to cap a four-RBI afternoon and a 10-hit, 12-RBI homestand for a catcher with a fractured finger.
The Brewers scored 33 runs in the series for their fourth consecutive three-game sweep. They are averaging 8.6 runs during the 12-game winning streak. They’re doing everything right.
“Obviously, it’s 100 percent true that it’s the players who are the ones on the field,” Vitucci said during a telephone conversation on Wednesday morning. “But it’s good to have someone in your corner upstairs.”
Vitucci is the fan who was behind the Brewers dugout for Monday’s series-opening win over the Pirates holding a “UECKER MAGIC” sign over his head. The 43-year-old from Brookfield, Wis., was fortunate to meet the late, legendary broadcaster Bob Uecker in person four times, whether chatting about his uncle Gordie Boucher’s aortic valve replacement or down at Barnacle Bud’s, a watering hole near the spot Uecker stored his fishing boat. Vitucci’s last name will sound familiar to locals who were familiar with the longtime establishment on North Ave., where a personalized baseball from Uecker sat behind the bar when it celebrated its 75th anniversary.
“I’ve been a huge Uecker fan my entire life,” said Vitucci, who had his friend Tom Kranick, a season ticketholder since 1970, to thank for those great seats. “He’s been part of my entire life. His voice was always in it. I [made the sign] because I always think of him. I firmly believe he is watching up above.”
What leads him to believe that?
“Just because he bled Brewers baseball,” Vitucci said. “For this to be happening the year after he passes, it’s just karma, if you believe in that sort of thing. This has to be the year that it would happen, right?”
Whatever happens in the fall, it’s been quite a summer. Twelve-game winning streaks have a mythical quality in these parts because of a prediction in the 1940s by local restaurateur George Webb that the Brewers -- then playing in the Minor Leagues -- would win that many. Eventually, his diners promised free hamburgers if they did, and in all the years since that premonition has only paid off twice, in 1987 and in 2018.
Now, Wisconsin will be fed once again. The restaurant says it will announce details of the promotion on Thursday.
“I was telling my wife last night that I wanted to win the burgers for everybody in the stands,” said Woodruff, who threw four scoreless innings on 65 pitches in a planned short start, considering it was his first outing on a five-day cycle in nearly two years. “You could tell the energy around today on a day game was a little bit more than usual.”
He wanted those hamburgers. Manager Pat Murphy just wanted a win.
“We’re playing with a relentlessness,” Murphy said. “I’m telling you, these are the games that if a line drive gets caught, one of their balls squeaks through, it’s a different game. … I think we were fortunate today, and I’m not taking anything away from our guys, because it’s just hard to keep winning Major League games. A lot has gone our way.”
It’s the sort of thing that makes you wonder whether Vitucci is on to something. This was not supposed to be the Brewers’ year, especially when a brutal spate of pitching injuries contributed to an 0-4 start, leaving the Brewers with a negative-32 run differential less than a week into the season. They didn’t have a multi-run comeback victory in a single game until May 25, nearly two months in.
But then, suddenly, they became unbeatable. Starting that day with an eighth-inning comeback in Pittsburgh, the Brewers are 51-16 with winning streaks of eight, 11 and 12 games. They now have the best run differential in the Majors at plus-159, the best home record (42-20) and the best road record (34-24). They have the Majors’ third-best ERA, score the second-most runs per game (5.17), have the best baserunning (according to Statcast) and rank second in Statcast’s outs above average on defense. In most every facet of the game besides hitting home runs, they have been among baseball’s best.
“I don’t think anybody wants to play this team right now,” said Reynolds, long a thorn in the Brewers’ side. “We just ran into that. They’re a great team.”
What needs to change with the Pirates to be more like that?
“I think we need to take a page out of the Brewers book,” Reynolds said. “They just do everything right. They base run, they take the extra base, they put the ball in play, swing at strikes. I think we could benefit a lot from trying to have the same kind of game style.”
And every now and then, there’s a moment that reminds everyone of Uecker. When rookie Isaac Collins hit his first career walk-off home run on Sunday to finish a sweep of the Mets, who eliminated Milwaukee in last year’s NL Wild Card Series in Uecker’s final game on the mic, radio play-by-play man Lane Grindle had tears in his eyes. And on Tuesday, after the national anthem performer raised his electric guitar in the air to reveal UECKER written in big letters on the back, a rainbow appeared in the blue sky.
That was particularly welcomed after days of rain and record flooding in Milwaukee left thousands of homeowners in the neighborhoods surrounding American Family Field facing a massive cleanup.
When the Brewers beat Paul Skenes that night, then won again Wednesday to make it 12 in a row, even Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson was celebrating.
“After the week we’ve had,” he said in a social media post, “a little good news goes a long way.”
The Brewers have been making a lot of good news lately. With a 13th consecutive victory on Friday at the Reds, they would tie 1987’s “Team Streak” for the longest winning spree in franchise history.
“It’s fun to think about what they’re creating,” Murphy said. “ There’s not a pre-season person that had us doing anything, much less being in a position to do some unprecedented things in the franchise. That’s what’s fun.”
Uecker would love it.
“Who couldn’t help but think of that in the Mets series? That was Ueck’s last series, and how those games played out, incredible,” Woodruff said. “There’s something to it. ‘Magical’ is a good word. It’s been fun. It’s just cool to be a part of.”