Woodruff throws 1st career complete-game shutout

MILWAUKEE -- One day, Corbin Burnes couldn’t buy a run in a heartbreaking, history-denying loss at Yankee Stadium. The next, Brandon Woodruff got them in bunches in a 12-0 win over the Marlins at American Family Field.

If the Brewers can stay somewhere in the middle, they could be a dangerous team in October.

“We’ve had two incredible performances by our guys the last two days,” said manager Craig Counsell, who is in the enviable position of running the reigning National League Pitcher of the Month to the mound on Tuesday, when Freddy Peralta will be aiming to win his sixth straight decision. “It makes you really appreciate what they’ve accomplished and what they do for your team.”

• Games remaining: vs. MIA (3), vs. WAS (3), at STL (4), at MIA (3), vs. STL (3), vs. CHC (3)
• Standings update: The Brewers (80-63) hold a three-game lead in the National League Central over the Cubs (78-67), who rallied in the ninth inning to beat the Rockies at Coors Field on Monday. Milwaukee is the third-best division leader, meaning it would host a best-of-three NL Wild Card Series against the final Wild Card entrant starting on Oct. 3.
• Magic number: The Brewers' magic number over the Cubs is 16 to clinch the NL Central.

It just takes a little run support. After the Brewers’ inability to score a single run for Burnes cost them a no-hitter -- and more importantly, a victory -- Willy Adames and the rest of Milwaukee’s hitters took out their frustration on Jesús Luzardo and the Marlins while setting a season high for hits (17) as Woodruff threw the Brewers’ first complete game and shutout in more than two years.

According to Elias Sports Bureau, Burnes and Woodruff became the first Brewers pitchers to deliver back-to-back scoreless outings of at least eight innings since CC Sabathia and Ben Sheets pitched consecutive shutouts on Aug. 8-9, 2008.

And after missing four months earlier this season with a strained muscle behind his throwing shoulder, Woodruff will ride a streak of 21 consecutive scoreless innings into his next start against the Nationals.

“He started the season pitching like this. This is how he finished the season last year. This is Brandon Woodruff,” Counsell said. “Performances like this and runs like this, they don’t shock you.”

Still, complete games are exceedingly rare nowadays. Before Woodruff’s six-hit, one-walk, seven-strikeout performance on Monday, the Brewers had produced one nine-inning complete game in the past six years: Adrian Houser’s three-hit shutout of the Cardinals on Sept. 4, 2021.

After Woodruff completed the eighth inning at the 92-pitch mark, Counsell gave him the ninth with one caveat: A cap at 105 pitches. Woodruff wound up exceeding that limit by one.

“I was nervous,” said Woodruff, who’d never exceeded eight innings in a start. “It was weird because after I knew that I was going back out, I’d never been in that position, so getting out there and warming up and having those warm-up pitches, my heart was just racing, to be honest. The first couple of pitches weren’t even close, and I just talked to myself a little bit and told myself to settle down and to just try to keep making pitches.”

Why did Woodruff want that final inning so badly?

“It’s a tough thing to do in this game, especially the way the game is now, and I’ve never done it before,” Woodruff said. “Opportunities like this just don’t come around much. Especially after the game [Sunday] -- it wasn’t on my mind, but it was a long game and we used a lot of guys, and we played well enough to win that game and we just didn’t. So today I just wanted to go out and give my team a chance to win.

“Thankfully I was able to finish it off.”

Said Counsell: “I’m glad he got it done. It was a great performance and on a night after yesterday, and what we’ve got ahead of us, that’s just a big-time performance.”

Woodruff had support from the start. With Christian Yelich still sidelined by a bad back, Mark Canha greeted Luzardo with a leadoff home run before the Brewers scored three runs in the third inning, two in the fifth to chase Luzardo from the game, then five in the sixth against his replacement, Daniel Castano.

Adames led the way with two doubles, a triple and four RBIs on a night the Brewers surpassed their previous season high for hits (they’d tallied 16 hits three times prior to Monday). Milwaukee is averaging better than six runs per game over its last 21 games since getting swept last month at Dodger Stadium -- the fifth-best scoring clip in baseball over that span.

In that same span, the team is 15-6 and Brewers pitchers have the best ERA in baseball at 3.14, with its top-heavy rotation back intact since Woodruff’s return.

If those starters stay healthy, it would be a lot for an opponent to handle in a short postseason series.

“I guess you daydream about it a little bit, but I’m not really thinking about that right now,” Canha said. “We’ve got a lot more baseball to play before we start talking about playoffs. I’d like to focus on being present and in the moment right now.”