Brewers' hitters meeting sets tone for 5-1 homestand

July 27th, 2022

MILWAUKEE -- That was some hitters meeting coming out of the All-Star break.

Continuing the patient, potent approach that permeated all but one game of a winning homestand, the Brewers worked the Twins' pitching for a season-high 10 walks and got a pair of three-run home runs from for a 10-4 win on Wednesday at American Family Field. The bats picked up starter after a rare wobble to sweep the two-game series and cap a 5-1 homestand -- all after a meeting on Friday afternoon to set an offensive tone for the second half.

It worked.

The Brewers averaged 8.4 runs in their five wins during the homestand and drew 31 walks in the six games overall.

“The way we’ve played offense all season, you hope you get some rewards for it sometimes,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. “Today we certainly did. We got a bunch of men on base through patience, and we got some homers after that. That’s a good way to score runs, obviously, because they’re not solo shots. They’re big game-changers, and we got a couple of those today.”

Throughout the opening homestand, hitters referenced their meeting coming out of the break with players and staff, including hitting coaches Connor Dawson, Ozzie Timmons and Matt Erickson. Pre-series hitters meetings are commonplace, but this one was expanded, Dawson said, to analyze a first half in which the Brewers led MLB in pitches per plate appearance and ranked fourth in MLB and second in the National League with 124 home runs, but were 12th of 30 MLB teams in runs per game (4.48) and 15th in on-base percentage (.314). They were third in OPS with runners in scoring position (.805) but 15th in batting average (.255) and 25th in plate appearances (796).

It was not a lineup running at optimal efficiency.

“It’s not like we were bad by any means,” Dawson said. “But there was definitely room for improvement if we wanted to get where we want to go, which is the World Series.”

So they met about it.

“The whole theme of what we wanted to talk about was taking advantage of opportunities when we have them,” Dawson said, “whether that be bases loaded with nobody out, whether it be an opening in the field, a guy who [has] heavy heater [usage], and we know we’re getting something. When we have opportunities, take advantage. Focus when we have opportunities. It was awesome in this homestand seeing them do that. Just top to bottom.”

Said Counsell: “It wasn’t, ‘Change our approach.’ It was just, ‘Let’s be a little bit better.’ We’re not asking for big, drastic things from anybody in our approach, we’re just trying to do everything in every moment just a little bit better.”

Tellez believes the Brewers’ challenging schedule played a part in the way the team drifted before the break, with losses in three straight games, six of eight and eight of 11. The Brewers played more road games in the first half (53) than any team in baseball, including three three-city trips in May and June.

“We were just getting tired,” Tellez said.

He added, “But that's just an excuse. We can be better. The good teams win from the first day of the season to the last day. We took our break, our time away from everybody, and when we came back, we had a good talk. It was just, ‘Let's get this right, let's get this going; we're better than we're showing offensively.’”

It took multiple rallies on Wednesday because Burnes hit a rough patch to open the second inning, right after Tellez’s three-run homer in the first off Twins starter Chris Archer had spotted the Brewers ace an early lead. Burnes lost that margin in the span of five hitters, allowing a solo home run, two doubles and a single for a 3-3 tie before he recorded the second out of the second inning.

But Burnes settled in to retire the next 13 Twins hitters, and the Brewers reclaimed the lead with a five-run rally in the fourth that featured only one hit: Tellez’s second three-run homer of the day.

Four batters walked in that half-inning alone, including  with the bases loaded for the go-ahead RBI.

“It's been the baseball that we want to play,” said Burnes, who finished with 11 strikeouts in his 20th career double-digit performance to extend his own club record. “I think from the pitching side of it, there's still some things we want to clean up. I feel like there's a lot of room to grow there.

“But the offense has done great.”