Mid-season viewing fatigue, Brewers split with Pirates

Woah, we're halfway there. Woah, livin' on a prayer.

The long and winding road that is a Major League Baseball season rolls on. 81 games down, 81 to go. The Milwaukee Brewers completed a 4-2 road trip by following up their two game sweep of the Tampa Bay Rays with two wins out of four against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Great outings from Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff showed that the top of the rotation is back to its best. A 19-run outburst in Game 2 showed just what the offense is capable of when clicking on all cylinders. Despite inconsistencies early in the season, the team now has 13 players with an OPS of .700 or higher (counting Tyrone Taylor and Hunter Renfroe who are on the IL).

Andrew and Adam talk about the grinding nature of baseball season, both for players and fans. They also recap the Pirates series and look at the road ahead of the Brewers going into the All-Star break.

Master Brewer Leaderboard (through 81 games)

(The Master Brewer Leaderboard is a season-long leaderboard tracking and ranking exceptional performances from Brewers players in the form of Master Brew Points 🍺, which at the end of the season will tally up to crown our Crewsing for a Brewsing Player of the Year.)

Corbin Burnes 🍺

Sometimes an ace needs to find a way to limit damage when they don’t have their sharpest command. That’s exactly what Burnes did on Friday night. Burnes pitched 6 innings and allowed just a single run despite walking four Pirates. The Brewers offensive outburst meant he had some room for error, but that didn’t matter. Burnes battled to his last pitch as if it was a one-run game.

Brandon Woodruff 🍺

This makes back to back beers for Brandon Woodruff. He looks refreshed and ready to attack the second half of the season. In the series finale against the Pirates, Woodruff pitched six scoreless innings with eight strikeouts. He’s lowered his season ERA to 3.95, the lowest it’s been all season. Cue the John Wick meme.

Christian Yelich 🍺

Yelich’s consistency at the leadoff spot is more fact of life than trend at the moment. This time he even added a little power back into the mix. Yelich finished the series 5-for-15 with a triple, a homer, three walks, six runs scored, and three RBI.

Luis Urias 🍺

Luis Urias’ bounce back looks to be in full swing. A 5-for-17 showing against Pittsburgh, that included another homer, has his season batting line up to .229/.321/.401. His trajectory could see his performance normalize to a level similar to 2021 where he compiled a 111 WRC+ across 150 games.

Andrew McCutchen 🍺

Andrew McCutchen loves being back in Pittsburgh. 8 hits against his former team helped his resurgence also continue. After a rough April and May, McCutchen is now batting .257/.322/.383 with seven homers and 23 RBI.

Jace Peterson 🍺

Peterson nearly reached base in half his at-bats this weekend. Peterson went 5-for-11 in three games, mashing three doubles with two runs scored and an RBI.

Kolten Wong 🍺

Kolten Wong had his best series since coming off of the IL. Wong scored four runs, drove in four runs, hit a pair of doubles, and slugged a home-run over a 5-for-16 series.

Leaderboard through 81 games

Rowdy Tellez: 🍺 x12

Corbin Burnes: 🍺 x10

Christian Yelich: 🍺 x9

Jace Peterson: 🍺 x8

Josh Hader: 🍺 x7

Andrew McCutchen, Willy Adames: 🍺 x6

Tyrone Taylor, Devin Williams, Hunter Renfroe 🍺 x5

Brandon Woodruff, Luis Urias, Kolten Wong🍺 x4

Hoby Milner, Jason Alexander, Aaron Ashby, Freddy Peralta, Eric Lauer: 🍺 x3

Brad Boxberger, Victor Caratini, Omar Narvaez, Adrian Houser, Keston Hiura: 🍺 x2

Jonathan Davis, Trevor Gott, Luke Barker, Peter Strzelecki: 🍺