As Brewers boom, Attanasio in full voice

MILWAUKEE -- Before Freddy Peralta tallied nine more strikeouts Saturday night in a 5-4 victory over the Padres at American Family Field, former Brewers ace Ben Sheets wondered how he’d fit on this current Brewers pitching staff.

Back when Sheets was earning his way toward the club’s Walk of Fame -- the team’s highest honor short of number retirement -- the Brewers weren’t exactly flush with pitching. Now, Peralta, with the fifth-most strikeouts in the National League, is the third-best starter on a team pushing to make the postseason for the fifth time in the last six years. Times have changed.

“I’d be pretty good in Nashville,” said Sheets, referring to the Brewers’ Triple-A home.

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Sheets, the only Brewers pitcher to start an All-Star Game, who threw 95 mph with the best curveball in club history, is selling himself short. He would be right at home with these Brewers, who backed Peralta with a five-run fifth inning on the way to a seventh straight victory.

The Brewers are 15 games over .500 for the first time since 2021 and maintained a four-game cushion on the second-place Cubs in the NL Central standings.

“There was a day this week when the Brewers, the Cubs and the Reds would all be in the playoffs,” Brewers owner Mark Attanasio said. “So everybody says, ‘Oh, the NL Central is soft; it’s a weak division.’ When you have three playoff [contenders] in the division, it’s not a weak division.”

Attanasio took part in the Brewers’ tribute to Sheets and provided updates on a couple of business matters, notably the ongoing negotiations with lawmakers about funding American Family Field maintenance -- “We’re in the sixth inning, and we feel like we have a good bullpen,” said Attanasio, who indicated he’s open to an even longer lease extension than has been previously discussed, as far as 2050 -- as well as the future of manager Craig Counsell after his contract expires at season’s end.

“We actually met yesterday and decided that all the focus is going to be on the field,” Attanasio said. “Everything is going so well that we’ll get together as soon as the season is over, and we’ll talk about it.

“It’s up to Craig. We’d love to have him here, obviously, for a jillion reasons.”

Counsell’s club has been winning. The Brewers have gone from 1 1/2 games out of first place to four games ahead during a 15-7 August that includes victories in 11 of their last 14 games. The current seven-game winning streak is Milwaukee’s longest since 11 in a row in June and July of 2021.

Peralta did his part by holding the Padres to two hits and two runs while pitching into the sixth before the Brewers’ bullpen and defense took over.

Third baseman Andruw Monasterio, second baseman Brice Turang and first baseman Carlos Santana combined for a pretty double play to end the sixth inning as San Diego began to cut into Milwaukee’s 5-1 lead. Left fielder Christian Yelich saved at least one run with a catch against the wall in the seventh.

“A huge play,” Counsell said. “That’s a completely different inning if that’s a double.”

And Turang ranged far to make plays in both the eighth and the ninth.

But it’s also the offense. The Brewers have scored at least five runs in all seven games since they were held to three total runs while getting swept in three games at Dodger Stadium.

“We got kicked by them, and I remember after that we had a little meeting,” Peralta said. “Nothing bad, nothing wrong. We just tried to help reassure. We were like, ‘There are more games coming. We just have to keep playing hard, enjoy the game.’

“And look, everything has been great since then.”

The owner is enjoying it.

“I’m trying not to get too high, although we’re playing really well,” Attanasio said. “We have a really good clubhouse this year, and I think some of that, maybe a lot of that, is bringing young players who have terrific energy.

“We heard from Ben [during his Walk of Fame induction], and there were young players in that run. You go from 2004, when I was looking at [buying] the team, and guys in August had their golf clubs. Within a few short years, we were a playoff team.”

In the beginning of his Brewers tenure in the early 2000s, “We were really bad,” Sheets said. “But the pieces we were putting together were exciting. We were getting better each and every day, each and every year. To see where we ended up in ‘08, that was an incredible journey.”

The Brewers ended a 26-year postseason drought in 2008. In ’11, they won a postseason series for the first time in 26 years. In ’18, they were a win away from the World Series. But they haven’t taken that last step yet.

Sheets, now a fan, still hopes to see that happen.

“Once you kick down the door,” he said, “it’s like you open up a whole other thing for Milwaukee and its fans.”