MILWAUKEE — Paul Skenes is one of the most dominant pitchers in baseball this season. Not even he could slow down the Milwaukee Brewers.
The Pittsburgh Pirates‘ ace right-hander became Milwaukee’s latest victim after giving up the first two of five home runs Tuesday night in a 14-0 rout that extended the Brewers’ winning streak to 11.
“They’re hot right now,” said Skenes, who before Sal Frelick‘s leadoff home run had not given up a first-inning run in 24 starts this season, the second-longest streak to begin a season in MLB history. “I didn’t have my best stuff today, and they jumped on it.”
The Brewers’ 11-game winning streak is their second of the season and the second longest in franchise history. They are the third team since World War II with multiple win streaks of at least 11 games in a season, joining Cleveland in 1954 and the Toronto Blue Jays in 2015, and the Brewers are the first National League team to accomplish the feat since the 1935 Chicago Cubs.
Despite the Brewers’ success, home runs have not been a big part of the equation for most of the season.
Brewers general manager Matt Arnold eschewed major changes at the trade deadline to instead address depth, banking on the players on hand to be capable of carrying the offensive load.
That has paid off, as Milwaukee leads MLB with 23 home runs since the start of August — six by Brice Turang and three more from Andrew Vaughn, who has 32 RBIs since joining the Brewers on July 7 following a dismal start with the Chicago White Sox.
Milwaukee’s .567 slugging percentage, .393 on-base percentage and .960 OPS since the start of August are the best in baseball as well. Its .323 batting average is tied with Toronto for the best.
It hasn’t been all offense, either. Brewers pitchers have combined for a 3.09 ERA during the streak.
Milwaukee’s starting rotation has set the tone, giving up only 22 earned runs during the winning streak. Six of those happened Sunday in a rare blowup start from right-hander Quinn Priester. Aside from his outing, Brewers starters gave up more than two earned runs only two other times and held opponents to one run or fewer five times, including Tuesday night when Freddy Peralta spun six scoreless innings to keep the streak going.
“It’s been fun,” Frelick said. “Everyone’s clicking, the offense seems to be rolling and our [pitching] has done a great job. Obviously, we’ve been scoring a lot of runs, but they’ve been putting a lot of zeroes and ones on the board every game and that’s a credit to them.”
A victory Wednesday against the Pirates would give the Brewers a fourth consecutive series sweep and extend their streak to 12 games, one off the franchise record set when the team opened the 1987 season with 13 in a row.
A victory would also trigger a promotion from local diner chain George Webb, which has promised to give away free hamburgers if the Brewers win 12 straight. The tradition, which began during the days of the old minor league Brewers of the American Association, went unfulfilled during the Braves’ 13-season stint in Milwaukee but finally came to fruition in ’87, then again in 2018, when the Brewers closed the regular season with eight straight victories before winning four in a row to open the postseason.
“I heard about that,” Peralta said. “I’m excited for that.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
