Burnes keeps Brewers hot on Wild Card trail

MILWAUKEE -- Andrew McCutchen wasn’t in the Brewers’ starting lineup on Friday night, but he was looking forward to being a spectator.

“This kind of matchup between these kinds of guys? With six games left?” McCutchen said of the Corbin Burnes vs. Sandy Alcantara battle to come, pitting the reigning National League Cy Young Award winner against his presumptive successor. “You don’t see that every day.”

Three hours before the first pitch, McCutchen liked the Brewers’ chances behind Burnes.

“He knows we need to win it,” McCutchen said.

Burnes did his part. Brewers hitters did just enough.

Milwaukee manufactured a run against Alcantara in the sixth inning to settle a pitchers’ duel that absolutely lived up to the hype, with Burnes’ eight scoreless innings leading the way to a 1-0 win over the Marlins at American Family Field to keep the Brewers within striking distance of a playoff spot.

After scattering four singles and holding Miami scoreless with no walks and seven strikeouts, Burnes has time to make one more start in the regular season. He hopes it’s a meaningful one. The Brewers ended Friday where they began: one-half game back of the Phillies in the chase for the NL’s third Wild Card, though it’s effectively 1 1/2 games behind because the Phils won the head-to-head season series and hold the tiebreaker.

If Thursday’s late-inning loss to the Marlins was one of the Brewers’ worst defeats, then Friday’s win, with Burnes covering the first eight innings and Devin Williams stranding the bases loaded in the ninth, was among their very best victories. If Burnes had a vote for the NL Cy Young Award, he said, Alcantara would be atop his ballot.

“He’s probably the best pitcher in the league this year as far as going deep into games and limiting runs scored, and he did it again tonight,” Burnes said.

The Brewers scored the game’s only run in the sixth inning. Garrett Mitchell, who’d struck out with a runner at third and one out in his prior at-bat, led off with a base hit and stole second, then moved to third on Willy Adames’ bouncing single through the left side of the infield and scored on Rowdy Tellez’s sacrifice fly.

Burnes never came close to relinquishing that lead, though manager Craig Counsell said he made the decision immediately after the eighth inning to pull the plug on Burnes after 103 pitches and no runners in scoring position in favor of a rested Williams.

Said Counsell, who has managed Burnes ever since the former fourth-round Draft pick debuted in the Majors in 2018, through his fall in ‘19 and his rise to one of baseball’s best pitchers beginning in ‘20, “He was done.”

Burnes had done a lot, pushing his career-high innings total to 199 and breaking his personal record for strikeouts in a season. Last year, on the way to becoming the first Brewers pitcher in 39 years to win a Cy Young Award, Burnes had 234 strikeouts.

This year, he has 238 and counting. His latest performance, heavier than usual on breaking balls and lighter on cutters against the aggressive Marlins, brought his ERA back down to 2.98.

“He's great,” Alcantara said. “You guys can see what he did against us today, especially when you've got a nasty cutter like that. Both sides, we did good. We fought tonight. They fought tonight.”

“That's what great players do. They step up and give you great performances when you need them most,” Counsell said. “That's exactly what Corbin did tonight. Not only was it eight dominant innings, but it helps us out a ton going into the weekend.”

Aaron Ashby is slated to start Saturday on a limited pitch count and all five of Milwaukee’s remaining games are at home; two more against Miami followed by three against Arizona. The Phillies? They have six games remaining on the road at the Nationals and Astros, starting with a doubleheader on Saturday in Washington D.C. if Mother Nature plays along.

That twin bill was initially moved to Friday because the remnants of Hurricane Ian were moving in, but the nightcap was postponed by rain after the Phils snapped a five-game losing streak with a win in Game 1.

With plenty more rain expected there in the coming days, Philadelphia’s remaining schedule could get quite complicated.

The Brewers, meanwhile, just need to keep winning. They closed the month of September with six wins in nine games. Now, the calendar has flipped to October.

“Whatever happens these last five games, even in the postseason, if we have to adjust a routine to go a day early or whatever it may be, maybe we’ll do that,” Burnes said. “But it’s still about checking all the boxes and going through the process, the routine. So when I go on the mound, I know I’m fully prepared.”