MILWAUKEE (AP) — This was expected to be the season the Milwaukee Brewers finally took a step back after making five playoff appearances over the last six years in Major League Baseball’s smallest market.
It hasn’t happened.
After losing manager Craig Counsell to the rival Chicago Cubs and trading 2021 Cy Young Award winner Corbin Burnes to the Baltimore Orioles, the Brewers have withstood numerous injuries to build the largest division lead of any team.
Milwaukee has won five straight and leads the NL Central by 11 games over the St. Louis Cardinals, who host the Brewers in a three-game series beginning Tuesday. Manager Pat Murphy says the Brewers are still “in the middle of a fight.”
“If you go back to your corner and look over and look at the scorecard, that doesn’t help you, you know what I mean?” Murphy said. “Go to the corner and put your head down. You know what’s going on. You know if you’re taking on water, pressure or whatever. You know the situation. You don’t need to look over your shoulder and wonder, ‘How many games?’
“You just need to stay the course. You need to stay in the ring, get some water, wait for the bell, go out there and try to win a decision every round you can.”
Murphy has a chance to be named manager of the year, an award no Brewers skipper has won. Murphy was an interim manager for the San Diego Padres in 2015, but this is his first full season managing.
Murphy had been the bench coach on Counsell’s Milwaukee staff since 2016, so he knows these players well. He has them believing they can overcome any setback.
“We just keep responding,” second baseman Brice Turang said. “We’ve got good players on our team. We’ve just going to keep moving forward, keep being competitive and try to win every pitch, every game that we can.”
The Brewers tend to outperform preseason prognostications, but they faced more hurdles than usual this year.
They played the first four months without two-time NL reliever of the year Devin Wiliams due to stress fractures in his back. The starting rotation that had been Milwaukee’s biggest strength for most of those playoff seasons was a major question.
Burnes is gone. Two-time All-Star Brandon Woodruff isn’t pitching this season while recovering from shoulder surgery. Veteran left-hander Wade Miley made just two starts and rookie lefty Robert Gasser made five before both had Tommy John surgery.
Milwaukee experienced its latest setback last week, when All-Star outfielder Christian Yelich had season-ending back surgery.
Yet the Brewers have remained “undaunted,” to borrow the word Murphy uses as a team slogan. They have gone 14-9 and their division lead has more than doubled since July 23, when Yelich played his last game.
“Because of guys like Yeli, they’ve built a culture in there that says, ‘OK, let’s win tonight somehow, whatever we’ve got to do,’” Murphy said. “If this guy’s not playing or this guy’s not doing this or this guy makes an error or this guy, you know, let’s just keep going, let’s just keep pecking away.”
