MILWAUKEE -- How indescribably hot are the best-in-baseball Brewers?
So hot that even the stingiest pitcher in the game couldn’t stand in the way of their latest winning spree.
Make it 11 consecutive victories and counting for the Brewers, who needed four innings to knock out Pirates ace Paul Skenes on the way to a 14-0 win on Tuesday night at American Family Field, with Sal Frelick denting Skenes’ MLB-leading ERA with a leadoff home run to start a huge night at the plate, Brice Turang going deep for the sixth time in August, and Christian Yelich, Andrew Vaughn and Caleb Durbin launching insurance homers after Skenes hit the showers.
That kind of firepower is not at all representative of how the Brewers have been winning ballgames, but who was complaining? They are riding their second 11-game winning streak in a little more than a month, making the 2025 Brewers the 14th team since 1900 to have two streaks that long in the same season, according to Elias, and the first since the 2015 Blue Jays. Before the 2015 Blue Jays, you have to go back to the 1954 Indians. And the 1935 Cubs were the last National League club to do so. (Milwaukee was originally credited as the 13th team to achieve that feat, but upon further review, Elias says the 1946 Red Sox also belongs on the list.)
Even wilder, Milwaukee has packed both of its 11-game sprees into the span of 38 days -- and that includes four idle days over the All-Star break.
“I don’t even know how to [describe it],” said starter Freddy Peralta, who became the Majors’ first 14-game winner with six scoreless innings that lowered his ERA to 2.90 after 25 starts. “It’s something crazy, some moments that we’ve been really enjoying. We’ve been together in all this.”
The streaks bookend a 26-4 run that represents the best 30-game stretch of any season in franchise history, and lifted the Brewers from four games back of the Cubs in the National League Central standings going into Brandon Woodruff’s July 6 return to the rotation – the start of the first 11-game winning streak – to 7 1/2 games ahead after Chicago (67-51) lost on Tuesday night.
Milwaukee (75-44) is the 12th team to win at least 26 times during a 30-game stretch of a season in the Expansion Era (since 1961). It’s pushed the club more than 30 games over .500 for a third season in franchise history, something only the 1982 Brewers (who peaked as high as 31 over) and the 2021 Brewers (34 over) can claim.
And if they saved some runs for Wednesday’s series finale, the Brewers will try to make it 12 consecutive regular-season victories for the first time since their record-setting 13-0 start in 1987.
“Our brand of baseball is different than everybody else’s, but it works,” Frelick said. “And we love playing that brand, too. Every guy we get loves playing that brand, and it’s why it’s so cool when you see guys like [Brandon] Lockridge or ‘Vaughner’ come in here and just embrace it.
“You’ve got veterans like Yeli who’s an MVP, hits 40 homers earlier in his career, and he’ll bunt a guy over if it’s a tough matchup or find a way with two strikes to just put the ball in play to get a run across. That’s what we take pride in, and that’s what we’ll always take pride in first, more than trying to hit homers or trying to be flashy.”
On Tuesday, however, it was OK to be a little flashy.
That started with Frelick, whose homer accounted for the first run off Skenes in any first inning this season after 24 scoreless to start the year. That had been the second-longest season-opening streak of scoreless first innings in Major League history, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
Milwaukee was off and running from there. Frelick reached safely in each of his first four plate appearances, delivered a pair of run-scoring hits off Skenes after going into the game 0-for-8 against him, and scored three runs before the end of the sixth inning. Frelick, Yelich and William Contreras all tallied multiple hits, multiple RBIs and multiple runs scored. Turang homered for the fourth consecutive start before departing with a minor finger injury, and the Brewers’ five homers were a season high.
The game got so out of hand that position players pitched for both sides. After rookie infielder Anthony Seigler recorded the final three outs, he had a 0.00 lifetime ERA on his record.
Chalk that up among the things that have gone right lately.
“It’s fun,” Frelick said. “I think a lot of the guys in this room, and it’s a credit to the front office and ‘Murph’ [manager Pat Murphy] and [associate manager] Rickie [Weeks], they understand the type of player it takes to play in this offense and on this team.
“It’s guys who take pride in baserunning and defense and pitching. It’s the little things more than the numbers you see on the board when a player goes to the plate. Guys don’t care if they go 0-for-4 and we win 10-0. Guys don’t care if they go 3-for-3 when we lose. That’s just not who this team is, and it’s really fun to be part of it.”