CHICAGO -- Before Friday’s 10-inning, 7-6 win over the White Sox, Craig Counsell joked that it didn’t matter who the Brewers played, it would probably be “a low-scoring game that’s a close game.”
That’s how things have gone for his team lately. This was their third consecutive extra-inning game, and the second in a row won by just a run. All wins count the same, but in the National League Central, where the top three teams are separated by just 2.5 games in the standings, another win can be valuable.
“It’s good that we can win all these close ballgames,” Mark Canha said. “Because coming down the stretch, you’re going to have to win games like this. You’re going to play some stiff competition, the games are going to be close.”
Since joining the Brewers on July 31 ahead of the Trade Deadline, Canha has a .549 OPS, but he has come up with clutch extra-inning doubles in back-to-back games. In Wednesday’s win over the Rockies, Canha tied the game with a 10th-inning double, and the only difference Friday night was that he drove in the winning run with a 10th-inning double.
In order to win close games, guys have to execute on the details. Before Canha came in to pinch-hit for Joey Wiemer in the 10th, Victor Caratini lined out to Tim Anderson at shortstop. The 100 mph liner should have left Brice Turang stranded on the basepaths for a sure White Sox double play, but Turang made it back to second base in time.
“Ninety-five percent of the league is doubled off on that ball, and that was really important. It gave Mark [Canha] a shot,” Counsell said.
Brewers starter Corbin Burnes battled through 5 2/3 innings, giving up eight hits and five runs, the most runs he’s surrendered in a start since June 19 against the D-backs. Shaky defense in the first inning contributed to Burnes’ struggles, and he said it took him until the second time through the order to feel like he was getting ahead in counts.
Burnes left the game in the sixth inning with Milwaukee ahead 6-5. In the seventh, Eloy Jiménez and Yoan Moncada had back-to-back hits to start a rally against Elvis Peguero that tied the game until Canha’s double in the 10th.
Joel Payamps, Devin Williams, and Abner Uribe pitched the last three innings, and Uribe earned his first career save. For the last out, Oscar Colás hit a grounder back to Uribe, who held onto the ball and ran it to first to touch the base himself. He joked afterward that he was afraid he would sail the throw to first if he didn’t just take it there on his own.
There are still over 40 games left in the season, and Counsell is no stranger to division races that are as tight as the last few games the Brewers have played. His team reached the playoffs four years in a row from 2018-2021, and the earliest the Brewers clinched a spot was in 2021, when they locked up their division on Sept. 26. In 2018, when Milwaukee won the division and eventually reached the NLCS, it happened at Wrigley Field in game 163.
As things currently stand, the Brewers’ 2.5 game lead over the Cubs and Reds is one of the narrowest in baseball. They have traded spots at the top with Cincinnati for much of the season, and the Cubs have gone 35-25 since June 1. But Counsell’s familiarity with close division races keeps the individual games in perspective.
“Your job is just to rack up wins, and if you just rack up wins, you kind of don’t worry about anybody else, and we accomplished that tonight. On to tomorrow,” he said.
“Frankly, I think it helps us now, when we’ve been given the feedback the last week of the season that every single game before that really mattered. And I think that’s where it does good for us. We’ve played the last six years of baseball down to the last two games of the year.”
The Brewers would prefer to stay away from close games and close division races in the next few weeks. They have been just five games above .500 since the start of June, but the sentiment in the clubhouse is that their best stretches are ahead.
“We aren’t playing our best baseball, and I think everyone in here knows that,” Burnes said. “We know that if we play our best baseball we are the best team in the division and we can win the division.”