Give Brewers reliever Brent Suter this: He’s protective of his brand.

Suter, long ago dubbed “The Raptor” for the way he runs with arms akimbo and emerges from the bullpen to the Jurassic Park theme, has been baseball’s best vulture this season. That’s the term reserved for a reliever who swoops into a game and picks up a win when his team rallies for runs -- and nobody has done that better than the 31-year-old left-hander.

After he was credited with the win in Friday’s 11-6 victory over the Reds, Suter was tied for sixth in the Majors with nine wins this season, even though he’s only made one spot start and pitched 2 1/3 innings in that game, leaving him ineligible by rule for a win in that outing. Suter woke up on Saturday morning with as many wins as Gerrit Cole, Lance Lynn, Walker Buehler, Kevin Gausman, Nathan Eovaldi -- all of whom made the All-Star Game as starters -- and Clayton Kershaw to boot.

What does it mean? Nothing, probably. But it produced a humorous conversation between Suter and manager Craig Counsell.

“Brent doesn't want to be called a vulture,” Counsell said. “He told me that. He doesn't like that term. We were actually debating it. There's terms associated with the wins he's collected; he mentioned the word vulture and he doesn't want to be referred to as a vulture. I don't know if it has to do with the Raptor or not, but he does not like that connotation.”

Counsell is in the camp that considers the “win” statistic somewhat arbitrary, and in recent years many around the game have devalued that statistic in making judgments about players.

But it’s still there on the stat sheet, and thus fun to talk about.

“It just means there's a lot of scoring around Brent's appearances,” Counsell said. “It's probably good for us. There's a lot of wins there. We've scored a lot when he pitches. I don't know if he's a good cheerleader when he comes in the dugout, or if he inspires our offense. I'm not sure.”

Suter is the modern version of Jim Slaton, the longtime Brewers pitcher who was credited with 14 wins in 1983 without making a single start. Only five pitchers in Brewers history have reached double-digit wins while making more than 75 percent of their appearances in relief. With one more win in 2021, Suter would be the first since Dan Plesac was 10-7 with a 2.97 ERA in 51 games, all out of the bullpen, as a rookie in 1986.

Suter was 9-4 with a 3.38 ERA in his first 36 appearances this season, including that lone start. He also has five blown saves, one off the Major League lead, and has allowed seven of 11 inherited runners, or 64 percent, to score. Of the 159 relievers who have inherited at least 10 runners this season, Suter has the 13th highest percentage of runners scoring. The Reds’ Sean Doolittle was at the top of that list entering Saturday at 84.6 percent (11 of 13).

But all factors considered, Suter has been a valuable piece of Milwaukee’s ever-changing bullpen, Counsell said.

“He's been who he is, you know?” Counsell said. “You know [what] you're going to get. He's a durable reliever for us, he bounces back really well. Honestly, we've used him a little differently this year than we have in the past. It was probably more multiple innings -- almost exclusively, it felt like, multiple-inning stuff -- in the past, and frankly the strength of our starting pitching has changed that a little bit this year. But I still see him as very versatile as a reliever, and the left-handedness, it impacts us, for sure, with Josh [Hader] being at the end of games. [Suter's] role as a lefty is important.”

Last call
• Kolten Wong made a second straight start for the Brewers on Saturday after returning from the injured list for a left calf strain. The club is keeping a close eye on him to avoid another relapse, with Counsell saying, “It's not the calf, necessarily, that I'm worried about, it's just that he hasn't played for a month. He has to be sore today. If you haven't played for a month and you had a game like he had last night, your legs are going to be a little tired. Part of it, right? He's got to play to get through that.”

• The Brewers have named their starting pitchers for their next series against the Royals at American Family Field, a two-game set. Eric Lauer will start Tuesday and Brett Anderson will start Wednesday, pushing All-Star Freddy Peralta, as expected, to somewhere in the subsequent series against the White Sox.