Milwaukee Brewers: Top Moments of 2017 – #10-6

Orlando Arcia provided a memorable moment with that rundown escape as the country celebrated the Fourth of July. But he also showed some more patriotism prior to the final game of the season.

While the NFL squabbles over kneeling during the anthem, the Venezuelan shortstop couldn’t stop standing for America’s National Anthem, getting into a heated standoff with Cardinals pitcher Carlos Martinez, of the Dominican Republic.

Arcia wins it! Martinez was decked out in a reflective vest and an umbrella while Arcia had third-base coach Ed Sedar’s helmet and a towel. But Martinez moved toward the dugout first and Arcia is declared the winner.

The best part about this standoff is that it embodies what this team was all season: a group of guys just trying to have fun. There’s nothing more fun and harmless than a little standoff. Usually the umpires have to force one player or the other to leave first and in this case it was Martinez.

In the midst of a national crisis about the anthem, America’s Pastime provides the ultimate support for it. Winning the standoff against the Brewers rivals, the St. Louis Cardinals, in their home ballpark, however, is even sweeter.

This game was the day after the Milwaukee Brewers just got eliminated from playoff contention. They would’ve had every right to go into this game kind of upset and not in the mood for anything like this. But even elimination couldn’t dampen the spirits of this team, perhaps that’s why Brewers fans love them so much.

For embodying the spirit of this 2017 Brewers team on the final game of the season, Orlando Arcia earns the tenth spot on this list.

Brett Philllips has a cannon, hose, torpedo, gun, bazooka, rifle, rocket, whatever weapon or gardening equipment you choose, he has that for a throwing arm. And Maverick is not afraid to show it off.

He gave fans a little preview during his Major League debut in June but it was in September when Phillips forced everyone to take notice of his throwing arm, at the expense of David Freese.

That throw came in at 104 MPH! Phillips gunned down David Freese to end the fourth inning en route to a 8-2 victory over the Pirates. With this victory, the Brewers moved back into second place behind the Cubs after falling down to third place amidst their second half struggles.

This was around the time that Phillips began to get more regular playing time in the outfield over incumbent centerfielder Keon Broxton. While Broxton is lauded for his defense, Phillips began to prove that he can bring even more defensively than Broxton can.

This throw made MLB Pipeline rethink their scouting grade on Phillips’ arm. That’s how good it was. After that, the rest of the league will start to think twice about sending runners against the young outfielder.

The Brewers outfield is already full of good arms and Phillips is just the latest to join the mix. Even with Phillips being on the prospect radar for awhile now, Brewers fans were still just getting to know Phillips as a baseball player. Everyone already knew about his incredible laugh, but they didn’t really know what he brought to the table as a player.

Now everyone is aware, not just Brewers fans, that Phillips has a cannon, or a bazooka, or whatever you want to call it, for an arm and that lands him at the ninth best moment of the season.

Next up on our list is Eric Thames’ walk off home run on June 16th against the San Diego Padres. It wasn’t exactly his longest homer of the season but it was just barely long enough.

This home run was actually the second game in a row where Thames hit a dinger that hit the top of the wall and bounced out. Plus, it was in the middle of a four-game homer streak for Thames. After posting a five game streak back in April, adding a four game streak just piled on to the legendary season Thames put up.

But this dinger was special, it was Eric Thames’ first walk off of his career. Over in Korea, the walk off celebrations are rather tame. That wasn’t what the rest of the Milwaukee Brewers had in mind however as they proceeded to rip off his jersey and try to rip off his undershirt, exposing Thames’ impressive pectorals.

Also, his postgame interview gave rise to the popular nickname for Brewers catcher Manny Pina, who Thames dubbed, “Manny Pineapple”. A great moment all the way around.

In this game, Junior Guerra gave up four runs in the first inning, forcing the Brewers to climb all the way back. They tied the game in the fourth but lost the lead in the eighth before tying it again. But Eric Thames gave the Milwaukee Brewers their only lead of the game, the only one they would need, in the bottom of the tenth inning.

It was right around this moment that people began to realize the Brewers were for real and they could actually make a run at the postseason.

The resiliency that the team showed in this game after falling behind early was a recurring theme of the 2017 Milwaukee Brewers. All of this combines to land Eric Thames at number eight on this list of the Top Moments of the Season.

Jesus Aguilar was a surprise contributor for this Milwaukee Brewers team this year, and few contributions could top his Grand Slam in New York against the Yankees on July 7th.

The Yankees have always given the Brewers trouble and this year heading into the series prior to the All Star Break, all anyone could talk about was Aaron Judge. He  was so big and he hit so many home runs that no one could believe it and it had the Yankees in contention for a playoff spot.

But Jesus Aguilar is a big man, too, and he can hit some big home runs as well.

At the time, the Brewers were tied at four with the Yankees in the seventh inning. Not any longer. The Brewers wound up winning the game 9-4, despite committing five errors.

This was the first game of the Yankees series and the Milwaukee Brewers had just gotten into town after having to play a game in Chicago. The Brewers won nine of 11 heading into the All-Star Break and it was moments like this from Jesus Aguilar that led to the Brewers capturing a 5 1/2 game lead in the division.

This whole game from Aguilar was remarkable, he went 3-for-4 with two homers and seven RBIs. This was in a sense a coming out party for Aguilar, who mostly sat behind Eric Thames for the first half of the season. But when Thames’ production plummeted, Aguilar stepped in more often and began to do things like this.

After coming off a big win in Chicago, the Milwaukee Brewers were able to keep the hot streak going and get a big win in their first game of the series against the Yankees.

The Brewers moved to 49-40 with this win and that was certainly a place no one expected the Brewers to be in this season. The go-ahead slam in the seventh by Aguilar put them there and it lands at the seventh spot on this list.

The Milwaukee Brewers rivalry with the Chicago Cubs got a lot hotter this season after a series of events that played out in the early part of the season. It all culminated into one big butt-whooping the Crew put on the Cubs on July 6th.

It all started back in April when a few members of the Cubs tried to suggest Eric Thames was on steroids. That obviously didn’t go over well. Then in May, the Cubs called a game on account of rain but IT DIDN’T RAIN! The Milwaukee Brewers were extremely upset to say the least. The game was cancelled and the front office practically accused the Cubs of gamesmanship.

The Cubs ran through their bullpen the day before in a loss in what were terrible conditions and the next day had much better weather but the Cubs declined to play. The makeup game was scheduled for a mutual off-day on July 6th. So now the Brewers would have to go down to Chicago before their big series with the Yankees prior to the All Star Break.

So the Brewers go down into Chicago on July 6th and straight up embarrass the Cubs in an 11-2 victory that saw the Crew score seven runs in the third inning. Cubs starter Mike Montgomery couldn’t get out of the third inning and his replacement, Jack Leathersich almost couldn’t get out of it either. He gave up three straight walks to enter the game, two of them with the bases loaded.

What’s remarkable about this win is that the home run dependent Brewers scored 11 runs while only hitting one homer. Normally it would take three or four homers for this team to get to 11 runs. Considering the team had a stretch where 17 straight runs were scored from long balls, that’s quite a feat.

Zach Davies pitched great, giving up only two runs in six innings. Michael Blazek and Rob Scahill finished out the game for the Crew and the team left Chicago in a great mood.

The Cubs had been stuck in a World Series hangover and seemed to be doing everything they could to throw off the upstart Brewers who were the only thing standing in the way of the Cubs winning the division again. But the Brewers just kept on winning during the first half. It wasn’t until the second when the Brewers regressed a bit and the games with the Cubs began to present more of a challenge.

The fact that a big win in a heated rivalry like this only lands at six on the list of the best moments of the season shows how special this team was. Stay tuned to find out what the top five moments of the 2017 Milwaukee Brewers season were.

Next: Were the 2017 Brewers similar to the 1980 Brewers?

Over the course of 162 games, there are plenty of opportunities for big moments. Sometimes there may be weeks without a special moment, sometimes they happen on back to back days. The sixth and seventh spot on this list happened to be on back to back days. That stretch right before the break almost pushed the Cubs to sell.