William Contreras' 16-game hitting streak ends in the most frustrating way possible

Without Jackson Chourio, Andrew Vaughn, and Christian Yelich in their lineup, the Milwaukee Brewers' offense has relied heavily on the duo of Brice Turang and William Contreras to stay afloat. Gary Sánchez and Jake Bauers absolutely deserve mentions as well -- they lead the team with five home runs each -- but from a consistency standpoint, it's been Turang and Contreras whom the Brewers have counted on while they await the return of their injured trio.

That consistency was evidenced by a pair of impressive streaks that Turang and Contreras were maintaining at the plate. Turang had reached base in 21 straight games to start the 2026 season before failing to do so in yesterday's game against the Detroit Tigers. His 21-game on-base streak trails only Ryan Braun (28) and Robin Yount (23) as the longest such streak to start a season in franchise history.

Meanwhile, Contreras was in the midst of a 16-game hitting streak that remained intact on Thursday after the Brewers' catcher smoked a double off Tarik Skubal. The one caveat with Contreras' hitting streak was that it was limited to games he started. He appeared as a pinch hitter in the series finale against the Miami Marlins and lined out to left field in his lone at-bat. Pinch hit appearances do count in regards to hitting streaks, so by official MLB standards, Contreras' then 13-game hitting streak was put to an end, but his hitting streak in games started remained intact.

Now, the technicality is moot, as MLB has officially gone back and changed Contreras' lone hit in game two of the Marlins series to an error. Brewers' Sr. Director of Media Relations, Mike Vassallo, reported the news on X earlier today.

MLB should not have changed William Contreras' April 18 double into a fielding error

Streak aside, the scoring change from MLB is not insignificant to Contreras' stat line. Not only does it impact his batting average, as Vassallo notes above, but it takes away an extra-base hit from the Brewers' catcher. The worst part is, the play was difficult enough that MLB absolutely could have just left it as it is, and no one would have questioned it. Let's take a look at the play in question.

Okay, so there's definitely an argument to be made that it's an error -- MLB wouldn't have changed the scoring if there wasn't. However, given the fact that Xavier Edwards, Miami's second baseman, is 10 feet left of second base, there's also a strong argument that it's simply a difficult play to make, and the ball was hit in the perfect spot given the Marlins' infield shift.

Should Edwards have made the play? Probably. Would Turang have made the play? Almost certainly. But regardless, the point here is that the misplay from Edwards wasn't egregious enough for MLB to go back and change the scoring decision of the play nearly a full week later. Now Edwards adds a tough error to his stat line and Contreras has a hustle double taken away and nobody is happy.

Overall, there was simply no need to make this change. Sure, the play probably should have been made, but if it was scored as a double in the moment and remained that way for the next six days, why change it now?

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