Brewers history: Milwaukee welcomes back former manager for Memorial Day match

Memorial Day is something of a checkpoint in the 162-game marathon that is the MLB season. Not only does the long weekend mark the unofficial beginning of summer, when baseball takes a front seat in the sports world, but it also means that roughly one-third of the season is already in the rearview mirror. As such, sample sizes become significant enough for more accurate analyses to be drawn, teams are beginning to establish their identities, and "early-season variance" becomes a less-supported conclusion.

The late-May holiday is an important one for MLB teams. It serves as an opportunity to sit and assess what has gone right through the first two months of the season and what they need to do to stay competitive for the rest of the campaign.

On Memorial Day itself, most teams play an afternoon matinee, which is a rarity for a Monday. The league generally tries to optimize matchups for the holiday as well, so teams often find themselves matching up with division rivals for a late-May quality check. This year, the Milwaukee Brewers take on their rivals, the St. Louis Cardinals, on Memorial Day -- an NL Central matchup that most didn't expect to be competitive this year, but now will be after the Cardinals shockingly strong start to the season.

However, while this afternoon's game will undoubtedly be an exciting one, it pales in comparison to a Memorial Day matchup the Brew Crew experienced back in 2024. For the first time since he left to manage the Chicago Cubs following the 2023 season, Craig Counsell returned to American Family Field on Memorial Day two years ago.

Craig Counsell's return to American Family Field on Memorial Day 2024 ended in a thrilling Brewers victory

Two years ago, as Pat Murphy was settling into his role as the new Brewers' manager, Milwaukee welcomed their division rivals, the Cubs, to American Family Field for a four-game set beginning on Memorial Day. Entering the series, which was the two clubs' second meeting of the season but first at the Brewers' home ballpark, the Crew held a 3.5-game advantage over the second-place Cubs in the division.

Milwaukee was rolling, with a record of 30-22 to prove it, but they were relying on a rookie left-hander in their rotation, Robert Gasser. The young Gasser, who debuted on May 10, was called upon to start the Brewers' Memorial Day showdown with the North Siders, and performed excellently in what was just his fourth MLB start. Gasser tossed six shutout innings and struck out seven batters while allowing just three hits.

Unfortunately, despite Gasser's dominance, the Brewers' offense was dormant for the first seven innings of the game. In fact, both offenses were dormant until the bottom of the eighth inning. However, in the penultimate frame, the first three Brewers batters reached base, which led to their first run of the game, produced by a fielding error from Cubs' third baseman Nick Madrigal. Two batters later, with two runners on base, Willy Adames, the king of the three-run homer, popped a 427-foot bomb to center field that gave the Crew a commanding lead.

A Joey Ortiz walk and Jackson Chourio double led to a fifth run in the bottom of the eighth for the Brew Crew, leaving Hoby Milner with plenty of wiggle room to close out the victory in the ninth. The crafty southpaw did allow one run, but the Brewers still won a comfortable 5-1 ballgame.

The victory carried extra weight given Counsell's return to Milwaukee, and it also kicked off what has been a rather entertaining two seasons between the Brewers and Cubs since the Crew's former manager switched sides. To this point, the Brewers have taken care of business when facing Counsell and the Cubs, which includes a victory in the 2025 National League Division Series and a sweep in the two teams' first meeting of 2026. Given the way the campaign has started, and where things sit at the unofficial one-third point of the season, it appears as if another chapter to the Brewers and Cubs growing rivalry will be added this year.

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