MILWAUKEE -- Craig Counsell can’t exactly pinpoint why the Brewers’ offense has been so much better at making contact of late. He just knows that it’s true.
Take this homestand, when Milwaukee hitters were consistently tough outs against the Nationals and Reds, particularly late in games on the way to a pair of series victories. There was Saturday’s five-run eighth inning against Washington, including Christian Yelich’s two-strike grand slam, and consecutive two-run innings in the sixth and seventh on Sunday, in which three of those four runners who scored reached via walks.
In the first two games against the Reds, the Brewers scored six runs in their final two innings at-bat on Tuesday and three more runs in their final two-innings at-bat on Wednesday to secure a series victory against the team chasing them in the division standings.
“It’s one thing I feel like has really improved as the season has gone on for us, just making it tough to get outs [against] us, especially in the second half of the game,” Counsell said. “We faced a starter on top of his game [Wednesday night in the Reds’ Luis Castillo], but against teams’ bullpens in the second half of the game or as a starter is finishing his day, we’ve made it really tough on teams.
“You don’t get rewarded every night for that, but you’re going to get rewarded a lot for it. Lately we have. It’s just ‘give yourself a shot’ with guy after guy.”
Since June 26 (covering 51 games), the Brewers led National League clubs with 5.7 runs per game and a 114 wRC+ while batting .266 (second among NL clubs) and striking out every 4.68 plate appearances, the fourth-best rate in the NL during that span.
It’s a rather significant improvement from the start of the season to that point, when the Brewers struck out more frequently than any NL club -- once every 3.79 plate appearances.
How did this happen?
“That’s a tough question to answer,” Counsell said. “It’s probably the mystery of hitting that we’re still trying to solve. A little bit of it is just watching other guys do it and identifying the players who are going to do it for you over the course of a season. That’s kind of the Jace Peterson thing for me. When you get more guys doing it, I feel like it carries over and the line carries over. We’ve got to a place where I think our lineup is producing quality at-bats. There’s less ‘empty’ at-bats. And that’s how you score, you just have consistent tough at-bats.”
He added, “A ball in play is more valuable than the strikeout, which is a long fight with some of the Sabermetric world. But I think there’s some shifting going on that the value of the ball in play is better than the strikeout.”
Cousins ascending
It was something of a vote of confidence in rookie reliever Jake Cousins in the ninth inning on Wednesday that Counsell stuck with the right-hander after he surrendered Nick Castellanos’ one-out home run to make it a three-run game. Instead of going to closer Josh Hader, who’d been warming the previous inning, in what was now a save situation in a game against a division rival, Counsell remained in the dugout.
Cousins finished a 4-1 victory.
“Yeah, that felt good,” he said. “After giving up that first one, I knew that I just had to buckle down and get those last couple guys out. I didn’t want them to have to go to Hader. I didn’t want him to have to get up again and warm up two or three times and then sit down. So being able to finish that game out and having Hader available and fresher [for Thursday’s series finale] and going into the next couple series was big, and just for the bullpen in general.”
Cousins went into Thursday with a 0.87 ERA in 20 appearances after beginning his Major League career with 17 consecutive scoreless outings. He is seven outings removed from a bout of COVID-19, during which he lost his sense of taste and smell. He said he’s experienced no lingering effects from the virus.
“It was funky coming back from the 10-day COVID list,” Cousins said. “As awesome as it was to play catch and throw a bullpen, obviously that doesn’t compare to those big league reps. Getting back into the swing of things, finding everything -- the mechanics were off a little bit. So I’ve just been getting back into that rhythm where I felt comfortable before.”
Last call
The Brewers continue to list Eric Lauer, Adrian Houser and “TBA” as their scheduled starters for their weekend series at Minnesota. It’s clear now that Sunday’s starter will not be Freddy Peralta, who played catch Thursday and said he feels “great.” Peralta is eligible to return from the 10-day injured list beginning on Sunday after missing time with inflammation in his right shoulder.
Peralta plans to throw a bullpen session Friday, take a few days off, then throw another bullpen session before he’s cleared to rejoin the rotation. That probably puts his return late in the Brewers’ series at San Francisco (Monday though Thursday) or early on the following homestand.