Brewers: Revisiting the Regular Season Games Against The Braves

The Milwaukee Brewers and Atlanta Braves first faced off in Milwaukee between May 14th and May 16th. Let’s see how their offenses performed.

For the Brewers, this was a week before they traded for Willy Adames and basically turned their season around. The team’s batting average went up 30 points, their OPS up almost .100 and run average improved by 1.3.

The Brewers lost 6-3 in the first game. Luis Urias has two RBIs and a home run and Manny Pina also homered in the ninth inning, but it was too late. The Braves were already up by five runs after the pitching staff struggled. Marcell Ozuna, while he was still playing, and Ozzie Albies hit back-to-back home runs in the fifth to push Atlanta ahead. The Crew would lose the next day 5-1. Urias would get an RBI again with a sacrifice fly, but the Brewers only had three hits the whole game. This was definitely a peak period of the offense struggling before they hit their stride.

Milwaukee closed out their series in Atlanta with a 10-9 win. It was an all-around team effort. Daniel Vogelbach had three RBIs and a walk, Lorenzo Cain and Avisail Garcia had two RBIs, while Cain, Narvaez and Wong had three hits apiece. With 19 total runs scored, it was a slugfest that ended with a nail-biting save from Josh Hader.

Besides the Sunday game, the Brewers offense wasn’t close to matching Atlanta. But, that was without Adames or Rowdy Tellez and the Braves had a completely different outfield playing with Ozuna and Ronald Acuna Jr. still in the daily lineup.

How did their pitching groups perform during their first series meeting in May?

Milwaukee didn’t have the best pitching going for them in the first Braves series. Adrian Houser only lasted three innings in his start. He gave up two runs and five walks. Eric Lauer came in to replace him and didn’t do great either. He gave up three earned runs over three innings, including the back-to-back home runs that blew the game open for Atlanta.

Josh Lindblom would get the ball the last two innings, and give up another run and leave the game with a 9.95 ERA. Braves starter Drew Smyly went six innings and only gave up one run and one walk and took the win. Their bullpen did give up two runs, but kept the Brewers in check.

The second game was a lot of the same. Brett Anderson didn’t make it out of the fourth inning. He had four earned runs. The bullpen did pretty good containing after that, but Hoby Milner did give up a home run in the 8th. Ian Anderson took the mound for the Braves in Game 2. He also went six innings, and only gave up one run. Their rotation can consistently pitch five or six innings of low-run baseball.

For Game 3, the Braves finally had to face one of the big three for the Brewers and went against Freddy Peralta. The Braves would score nine runs in this game, but none against Peralta. He had six strong innings with eight Ks off two hits. J.P Feyereisen would give up their first four runs and Brent Suter would give up two in the seventh. The Crew held onto the win, but Peralta’s start helped the team avoid a sweep

The Brewers and Braves would meet again in late July and the beginning of August. Their teams were fresh off the trade deadline.

Atlanta walked away from the deadline with Eddie Rosario, Jorge Soler, Adam Duvall and Joc Pederson. The Brewers now had Adames, Tellez and Eduardo Escobar. Both teams had added bullpen arms as well.

The offense for both teams showed up again in Game 1, but the Brewers came up on top 9-5. After being down 4-0 in the bottom of the first, Milwaukee ended up with 13 hits and had home runs from Garcia, Adames and Escobar. It would be 8-4 Brewers by the end of the 4th inning.

For Game 2, both teams weren’t able to get much going for the first half of the game. But, Atlanta then attacked Milwaukee’s new relievers John Curtiss and Daniel Norris and ended up winning 5-1.

Game 3 was a classic low-scoring pitchers’ duel and the Brewers won 2-1. Willy Adames homered in the first inning and JBJ brought in a ground ball run in the fifth. Austin Riley got an RBI in the sixth with two men on base, but that was it. The Brewers won and only needed three hits to do it. It was a day the Crew needed the Braves bat to also be cold, and they luckily were.

Both of these teams can easily put up runs, but can also go cold. You could basically say the same for most teams, but the Brewers match up well with Atlanta. Both teams play well on the road, and both have plenty of offensive weapons. You could see some very low or very high scoring games during the NLDS.

The Braves now had to face off against two of the Brewers best pitchers in their next series meeting. Milwaukee was able to win the series without the best pitching performances from their aces.

Corbin Burnes took the mound on Friday, July 30th and had one of his worst outings. He only went four innings and gave up five runs and two walks. He had six strikeouts.

On Saturday, Brandon Woodruff took the mound and didn’t have the best game either. He pitched 5.1 innings and had six Ks, but gave up three runs. He would take the loss as well. On Sunday, Brett Anderson pitched well. He went almost six innings with only three hits and one earned run. Hader was able to close the door on the 2-1 victory and Anderson even got the win.

Luckily for Milwaukee, the Braves rotation didn’t do much better.

Touki Toussaint didn’t make it out of the fourth inning, and gave up seven runs. Kyle Muller pitched on Saturday and only went five innings. He would had one earned run and seven strikeouts, but didn’t give his bullpen too much rest. Milwaukee’s offense couldn’t get anything going, and the Braves basically got away with a win on Saturday. On Sunday, Charlie Morton matched with Anderson and had a solid outing. His only downside is that he gave up two runs instead of one. He went six innings, only gave up three hits and had six punch outs. The Braves had zero save opportunities the entire series.

But the MLB Playoffs are a whole new ballgame, how will the Brewers and Braves regular season stats carry over to the postseason?

While it might be a little concerning Burnes and Woodruff didn’t pitch great against Atlanta, the team stats are still in Milwaukee’s favor. The Brewers were third in team ERA and the Braves were 11th. Milwaukee was second in strikeouts while Atlanta was 14th. In all major pitching categories, The Brewers were in the Top 5-10 while the Braves were around the 15-20 range.

The Braves have the edge on offensive rankings though. They ended up 12th for batting average, and the Brewers ended up 27th (woof). Atlanta was third in home runs while the Brewers were 18th. They were closer for RBIs, with the Braves being seventh and the Brewers being 11th. Atlanta was actually near the bottom for stolen bases, but were in the middle for overall hits while Milwaukee was near the bottom again at 27.

So it was no surprise that these teams ended 3-3 against each other. The Braves have an edge on their offensive power, while Milwaukee has one of the best rotations and bullpens in baseball.

If Milwaukee can contain the bats and the starting rotation can pitch like everyone know they can, the Brewers offense can do more than enough to win these games.

And as we saw in the regular season series, they can pull out some wins even if the pitching isn’t top notch because of their depth.