Crew poised to be 2nd team ever to face reigning Cy Youngs back to back

DETROIT -- Brewers infielder David Hamilton was unaware that he was part of history last season with the Red Sox.

And it wasn’t until Wednesday afternoon that he realized he was about to do it again.

The Brewers are poised to face Tigers ace Tarik Skubal on Thursday at Comerica Park followed by a matchup with Pirates ace Paul Skenes on Friday at American Family Field. Barring some circumstance that jumbles the pitching probables, that means Milwaukee hitters are about to swing the bats against each of the reigning Cy Young Award winners in back-to-back games.

That’s only happened once before -- last May, when Hamilton’s Red Sox drew Skubal on a getaway day in Detroit, then came home two days later to host Chris Sale and the Braves in Boston. The Red Sox were the first team to face the reigning Cy Young Award winners in consecutive games, and while they lost both contests, they did manage to score five runs on seven hits off Skubal. Hamilton, a left-handed hitter, was limited to pinch-running duties in both games.

Informed he was about to become the only player to face this challenge a second time, Hamilton smiled.

“Lucky us,” he said.

It should be noted that the prospect of a two-game gauntlet like the one ahead of the Brewers only became a possibility relatively recently. While the Cy Young Award was established in 1956, it wasn’t awarded to a pitcher in each league until 1967. And prior to the start of Interleague Play in 1997, it took one of the winners not only changing teams (which happened only four times prior to ‘97), but changing leagues. That happened only once in that span, when 1989 NL Cy Young Award winner Mark Davis went from the Padres to the Royals via free agency.

Since ‘97, Interleague Play has offered a few more chances. But the odds didn’t really increase until a more balanced schedule was introduced for the 2023 season, when, for the first time, teams would play at least one series every year against every other team in MLB.

And sure enough, in 2025, the Red Sox became the first club to draw the sort of 1-2 punch that faces the Brewers over the next two days.

Ballplayers live such a moment-to-moment, game-to-game, series-to-series existence that some of them were unaware of the looming challenge. Take outfielder Garrett Mitchell, who gets most of his information from an app that delivers upcoming pitching probables, scouting information, reports about MLB’s automatic ball-strike (ABS) system and more delivered right to his phone.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the app wasn’t updated yet beyond the current series in Detroit. And that suited Mitchell just fine.

“Living in the moment is attacking who we have that day,” Mitchell said. “Then, once you’re done with that day, you move on to the next one.”

Since the beans had now been proverbially spilled, what did Mitchell think of the Skubal-Skenes task ahead?

“It’s a good test for us, having to face those guys early,” he said.

That’s how Brewers manager Pat Murphy was looking at it.

“It’s happened once, only?” Murphy asked. “What a great challenge. The game is so hard, to produce, score runs and all of that. It’s a hard game. So getting this opportunity, think of the upside for your team. Especially with our position players out.”

Yes, the Brewers are banged up. Three of the top five hitters in their projected Opening Day lineup are on the injured list -- Christian Yelich with a left groin strain and Jackson Chourio and Andrew Vaughn recovering from fractured left hands.

But the schedule rolls on. And while the Brewers haven’t yet solved Skubal, who is 2-0 with a 0.66 ERA and 19 strikeouts in a pair of starts against Milwaukee (pitching into the seventh inning of both games), they have had some success against Skenes. After dropping each of the first two matchups against him, the Brewers have won the last two, scoring four earned runs off Skenes each time and knocking him out of the game after four innings.

For Hamilton, the challenge was remaining in the moment.

“Crazy life, man,” he said. “You can’t look too far ahead, and you can’t look too far behind.”