Brewers Stat of the Day: August 2021

MLB.com is keeping track of a Stat of the Day for the Brewers this season, highlighting a unique, interesting or fun nugget from each game.

• Brewers Stat of the Day, July 2021

Aug. 31: Brewers 6, Giants 2 -- Brewers' brilliant August
With three consecutive wins to close the month -- including back-to-back wins behind Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff against a Giants team that entered the week with the best record in baseball -- the Brewers went 19-9 (.679) in August for their third-best winning percentage in that month in club history. They were 20-7 (.741) in CC Sabathia's first full month in a Brewers uniform in August 2008, capped by a near no-hitter in Pittsburgh on Aug. 31 of that season. The Crew set the franchise mark three years later with a 21-7 record (.750) in August 2011, the same year they won a club-record 96 regular-season games.

Aug. 30: Brewers 3, Giants 1 -- Elite company for Burnes
Corbin Burnes struck out nine and didn't walk a batter in another stellar performance that left him in some quality company, as noted by Twitter user @SaladinoWRLD. It was Burnes' eighth start this season with at least nine strikeouts and no walks, matching Curt Schilling (2002), Clayton Kershaw (2014) and Gerrit Cole (2019) for the most such starts in AL/NL play since 1901. Burnes has a 1.07 ERA in those eight starts, tops among that quartet of pitchers.

Aug. 29: Brewers 6, Twins 2 -- Rowdy in Minnesota
Rowdy Tellez's third-inning, three-run home run traveled 454 feet, tying Chicago’s Eloy Jiménez for the longest homer by an opponent at Target Field this season. It was Tellez's longest home run since a 459-foot blast on Aug. 12, 2020.

Aug. 28: Twins 6, Brewers 4 -- Bad times in Minnesota
Losing the first two games in Minnesota means the Brewers have lost a series for the first time since Aug. 6-8 (against San Francisco). Milwaukee had won five straight series, going 12-4 over that stretch.

Aug. 27: Twins 2, Brewers 0 -- Lauer's first
In his third start since recovering from COVID-19, left-hander Eric Lauer threw 102 pitches in his start against Minnesota. It's the most pitches Lauer has thrown for Milwaukee since he was acquired along with INF Luis Urías and a player to be named from the San Diego Padres for RHP Zach Davies and OF Trent Grisham on Nov. 27, 2019. Unfortunately, the Twins made Lauer as his season-high in pitches covered just 4 2/3 innings.

Aug. 26: Reds 5, Brewers 1 -- Another series win
The Brewers were denied a three-game sweep of the Reds, but they did secure their fifth consecutive series victory and their 10th series victories in 12 tries since the All-Star break. The Crew's only series losses so far in the second half were at home against the Royals (0-2), while Milwaukee's attention was on the Bucks winning the NBA Finals, and then at home against the Giants (1-2), when one misplayed fly ball with two outs in the ninth inning of the middle game was the difference between a series win and a series loss.

Aug. 25: Brewers 4, Reds 1 -- A sterling starting staff
Milwaukee starting pitchers have worked six-plus innings without allowing a run, earned or unearned, in a Major League-leading 19 games this year including Brandon Woodruff’s outing on Wednesday night. Here’s the breakdown of those outings: Corbin Burnes 7, Woodruff 5, Freddy Peralta 4, Brett Anderson 2, Eric Lauer 1. The A’s are second with 17 such starts this season, followed by the Cardinals, Dodgers and Reds with 15 apiece.

Aug. 24: Brewers 7, Reds 4 -- Burnes flirts with 100 mph
Corbin Burnes may have been a bit amped for the start of the Brewers’ final regular-season series against the team chasing Milwaukee in the National League Central standings. He threw his hardest pitch ever, per Statcast, a 99.8 mph sinker to strike out Reds catcher Tucker Barnhart to end the second inning that was also the hardest pitch thrown by a Brewers hurler this season. Josh Hader held that distinction before Tuesday with a 99.6 mph fastball against the Twins on Opening Day.

Aug. 22: Brewers 7, Nationals 3 -- Wong leads day dominance
The Brewers have the National League's best record in day games at 36-16 (.692), and one reason is Kolten Wong, who's hitting .317 (38-for-120) with six home runs during the day compared to .271 (54-for-199) with four home runs in 52 night games. In Sunday's win over the Nationals, Wong drove in three runs while notching a triple and a home run in the same game for the first time in his career. The Rays own the Majors' best record in day games at 35-14 (.714).

Aug. 21: Brewers 9, Nationals 6 -- Yeli loves first pitches
The first hint that Christian Yelich was in store for a big game came early, when he hit the first pitch he saw in the first inning for his first home run since July 18. For all his well-documented struggles this season, Yelich is 12-for-26 (.462) with three doubles, three home runs and 10 RBIs on the first pitch of an at-bat this year. Thirty-three of his 159 career home runs have come on the first pitch of an at-bat, his most in any pitch count.

Aug. 20: Nationals 4, Brewers 1 -- Avi's homer not enough
The Brewers were 22-1 entering the series opener when Avisaíl García hits a home run, including 20 wins in a row. The only other loss was back in April in extra innings against the Pirates. Milwaukee's .955 winning percentage in games where García homers was the highest for any player's team when he homers this season (min 15 games with a home run). But that streak came to an end after García went deep against Patrick Corbin to make it 3-1 in the seventh inning.

Aug. 19: Cardinals 8, Brewers 4 -- Yelich's hard contact
Christian Yelich went 1-for-4 to finish an 11-for-39 (.282) road trip in which he drove in four runs, hit three doubles and looked a little more like himself. Take the loss to the Cards, when his four balls in play averaged 104.7 mph, according to Statcast, including two fly balls to the outfield at 109.9 mph to deep left in the third inning off Jon Lester and 105.6 mph to deep right off Giovanny Gallegos to right in the eighth. It was the sort of loud contact in the air that has been missing for much of Yelich’s season so far.

Aug. 18: Brewers 6, Cardinals 4 (10) -- Extra, extra
There are extra innings, and then there are extra-extra innings. The Brewers' 10-inning win over the Cardinals was Milwaukee's 18th extra-inning game this season, second most in the Major Leagues to the Twins' 19, and approaching a Brewers franchise record. The Brewers played 22 extra-inning games in 2000, 20 in 2008 and 19 apiece in 1976 and '82.

Aug. 17: Brewers 2, Cardinals 0 -- Burnes' near-no-no
Corbin Burnes gave it a go, but came up 11 outs shy of doing something that hadn't been done in 115 years. As noted by St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Derrick Goold, the last time the Cardinals were held hitless in St. Louis was way back on July 20, 1906, when the Brooklyn Superbas' Mal Eason bounced back from being on the wrong end of a no-hitter in a loss to the Phillies that May by pitching a no-hitter of his own in a 2-0 win over the Cards two months later.

Aug. 15: Brewers 2, Pirates 1 -- Cousins yet to allow a run
Jake Cousins entered Sunday's series finale in Pittsburgh not having allowed a run in the Major Leagues. His streak continued for his 16th appearance with a scoreless inning, making him the first Brewer and 10th player in AL/NL history to start his career without allowing a run in his first 16 games.

Aug. 14: Pirates 14, Brewers 4 (Game 1); Brewers 6, Pirates 0 (Game 2) -- Tellez's monster shot
Rowdy Tellez entered Game 2 of Saturday's doubleheader as a pinch-hitter in the sixth inning, hoping to add to the Brewers' lead. On a 2-2 count, he smacked his 10th home run of the season. The ball traveled a Statcast-projected 445 feet, landing in the Allegheny River. He is the 47th player to hit a home run into the Allegheny, and it is the 63rd homer to have landed there.

Aug. 12: Brewers 17, Cubs 4 -- Crew completes cycle in the 2nd
According to ESPN Stats & Info, when the Brewers began Thursday's second inning with an Eduardo Escobar triple, a Luis Urías double, a Jace Peterson home run and a Manny Piña single, they became the second team this season (joining the Royals on April 3 against the Rangers) to hit for the cycle in an inning before recording an out. It's the first time the Brewers have done that since April 19, 2013, also against the Cubs, when Nori Aoki reached on an error leading off the bottom of the first and then Jean Segura singled, Ryan Braun homered, Rickie Weeks doubled and Jonathan Lucroy tripled off Jeff Samardzija.

If you don’t remember that, don’t be too hard on yourself. That game, a 5-4 Brewers win, is far better remembered as the night Segura stole first base -- you read that correctly -- amid a bizarre baserunning sequence in the eighth inning.

Aug. 11: Brewers 10, Cubs 0: For Wong, double the fun
Corbin Burnes stole the show with a pitching performance for the record books, but it was all set up by a seven-run cushion provided by the offense in the top of the first inning. Kolten Wong tallied two doubles before the Cubs sent their first batter to the plate. Wong became the second player in the Majors to tally two extra-base hits in the first inning of a game this season (Boston's Enrique Hernández, July 19) and, according to Elias, the first player in Brewers franchise history with two extra-base hits in the first inning of a game, home or away. The last Milwaukee player with two extra-base hits in any inning was a rookie outfielder named Lorenzo Cain in the second inning on Sept. 22, 2010, against Johnny Cueto and the Reds. Cain doubled twice in that inning during his 32nd career game.

"Once we started the game and put [up] seven runs in the first inning, all my ideas changed to just, ‘Strike one,’ not trying to mess around,” catcher Omar Narváez said. “It didn't matter how we got the outs, honestly. Just try to get the outs as quickly as possible and stretch Corbin today."

Aug. 10: Brewers 4, Cubs 2 (G1); Brewers 6, Cubs 3 (G2)
The Brewers are 11-3 against the Cubs so far this season, already the third-most victories against their Interstate 94 rivals in franchise history with five matchups remaining on the schedule -- two more games in this series plus three games next month at American Family Field. The Brewers' most victories over the Cubs in a season is 13, a mark set in 2012 (13-4) and matched in '13 (13-6).

Aug. 8: Giants 5, Brewers 4 -- Anderson on even keel
Starter Brett Anderson continued his hot streak on Sunday, holding San Francisco to one run across his five innings before left calf cramps forced him from the game. The lefty is 2-0 with a 1.40 ERA over his past five starts, and opponents are hitting just .169 against him during that stretch.

Aug. 7: Giants 9, Brewers 6 (11) -- Urías delivers in a pinch
Luis Urías came off the bench and swatted a pinch-hit two-run homer in the 10th inning, cutting the Giants' lead to 5-4 during the Brewers' rally that extended the game. It was Urías' first career pinch-hit homer. Before that, he was 1-for-12 with a double as a pinch-hitter over his four big league seasons.

Aug. 6: Brewers 2, Giants 1 (10) -- Counsell's milestone win
Craig Counsell isn't much for milestones, but even he had to take a moment Friday to savor his 500th regular-season victory as manager of his boyhood team. At 500-456 in regular-season games, Counsell is only the second Brewers skipper to reach that round number of victories, joining Phil Garner (563-617).

“I'll tell you the same thing as the first day I got the opportunity,” Counsell said. “I see this as a real responsibility. I feel responsible for baseball in this city. I'm grateful that I've been able to take that ride.”

Aug. 4: Brewers 4, Pirates 2 -- Most hits off Peralta since 2019
It took a day when Freddy Peralta wasn’t his best to appreciate just how good the 25-year-old has been for the Brewers. Peralta surrendered two runs on six hits in six innings against the Pirates, and somehow that qualified as a shaky outing compared to many of the starts he’s turned in this year. The six hits were the most Peralta had allowed in his last 21 starts dating back to June 2019, just before the Brewers shifted him to a multi-inning bullpen role and mostly kept him there in 2020. This season, armed with a reliable slider and now a changeup to go with the live fastball that got him to the big leagues, Peralta is a mainstay in the rotation. His .135 opponents' average is the best in baseball for a pitcher who has logged at least 100 innings. The runner-up as of Wednesday afternoon? Teammate Brandon Woodruff, at .177.

Aug. 3: Pirates 8, Brewers 5 (10) -- Houser reaches limit
Manager Craig Counsell was clear about his reasons, and rock-solid in his conviction that he and his staff had made the right call after making Adrian Houser the first pitcher in Brewers history to be lifted from a no-hit bid that stretched beyond the sixth inning. Before Houser on Tuesday, the only two Brewers pitchers to be removed from a game with a no-hitter intact after six full innings were Jordan Lyles on Aug. 23, 2019, and Ben McDonald on July 11, 1997.

Aug. 2: Brewers 6, Pirates 2 -- Crew stays hot vs. Bucs
Milwaukee has assumed a strong position in the National League Central in part by taking care of business against the division’s last-place club. The Brewers, playing a stretch of the schedule in which nine of their 16 games are against the Pirates, have won 11 of 14 matchups between the teams this season including 10 of the last 11. There are still two more games in this series, then another three-game series at PNC Park from Aug. 13-15.

Aug. 1: Brewers 2, Braves 1 -- Williams dealing lately
It was a disjointed start to 2021 for reigning National League Rookie of the Year Devin Williams, whose ’20 season was cut short by a right shoulder injury and who was eased into ’21. After some early struggles, relatively speaking, Williams has found a rhythm. Including his scoreless inning against the Braves on Sunday, he has a 0.56 ERA over his past 18 appearances (16 innings, one earned run) and has held opponents to a .179 average (10-for-56) with 26 strikeouts. Sunday marked Williams’ ninth consecutive scoreless outing.