All good things are finite, including winning streaks, even by the arguable best team in baseball. But the Brewers' 14-game winning streak — the best in franchise history — ended, with a Sunday loss to the Reds, after they streaked by sweeping the Nationals, the Braves, the Mets, and the Pirates, and won the first two of a weekend set with the Reds. Including a 14-inning Saturday night thriller.
They almost kept the streak alive with a ninth-inning comeback on Sunday. They were down 1-0 when catcher William Contreras launched a two-run homer off Cincinnati closer Emilio Pagán. Unfortunately, the Reds aren't exactly complete pushovers this year. (Third in the NL Central, five games over .500.) After tying it at two in the bottom of the ninth, veteran DH Austin Hays walked it off with a bases-loaded single in the bottom of the 10th.
Still, at 78-45, the Brewers have baseball's best record. But they head into a set with the Cubs during which they'll receive a very serious test — managing their too much taxed bullpen. It begins with a Monday doubleheader. It's a five-game set in Wrigley Field, and the Brewers are slightly less good on the road than they are at home this year thus far. Plus, the stand in Wrigley is the beginning of a stretch in which the next day off for the Brewers is . . . September 2.
Brewers fans are having nothing but fun right now. How long that holds may depend upon a lot of factors down a stretch that allows only three days off through the end of the regular season. There may yet be a debate over who is exhausted more, the team or their fans.
Rude Return Dept. — Aaron Nola's first start after returning to the Phillies, following an ankle sprain and a rib fracture that cost him three months, was anything but welcome for him. The Nationals battered him for six runs in two and a third innings Sunday, mostly in the third inning even after the Phillies staked him to an early 6-0 lead.
The good news was the Phillies wrestling their way to an 11-9 win. The shaky news is that they're going to need Nola to get close to his normal self now that Zack Wheeler is on the injured list with a blood clot in what Phillies president Dave Dombrowski called his "right upper extemity." The Phillies are watching Wheeler and hoping he doesn't turn up with thoracic outlet syndrome, the injury that can be overcome by some pitchers but can also curtail other pitchers' careers — as happened to the Nats' 2019 World Series MVP Stephen Strasburg.
Makeup Dept. — Marlins outfielder Dane Myers almost had the home run theft of the day in Fenway Park Sunday. He ran down and grabbed Wilyer Abreu's drive over and behind the fence . . . but lost the ball as his arm his the wall. How to atone? Myers found the right way in the top of the ninth, hitting a leadoff, game-tying (at three) bomb not far from where he lost Abreu's launch.
An out and a base hit later, Jakob Marsee hit a 2-run bomb and it held up when the Fish kept the Red Sox to two on but no dice in the bottom of the ninth for the 5-3 win.
Survival Dept. — When it isn't Twins, Athletics, Angels, and other frustrated fan bases chanting "Sell the team!" loud enough to make it tough for even their broadcasters to be heard on the air, it's Yankee fans' annual frustration that manager Aaron Boone hasn't yet been fitted for a guillotine.
Yes, the Yankees have the third-worst record in baseball since the trade deadline. Yes, their fan base remains spoiled enough that any season not ending in a trip to the World Series is considered a failure worthy of punishment by mass execution. And, yes, the Yankees' fan base has a large enough contingency that thinks anything short of Boone lining his miscreants up against the clubhouse walls and making the St. Valentine's Day Massacre resemble an archery contest is insufficient.
Not so fast, general manager Brian Cashman urges — again. The latest doing that's got Yankee fan frothing: Boone's apparent unwillingness to read his players a riot act a day over the team's current struggles. Cashman thinks the last thing the Yankee players need is their usually communicative manager going rogue on them.
"[Our] market already provides instant accountability," Cashman told The Athletic. "In many cases, today's world is so much different than maybe generations before. I think leaders, managers, coaches are more inclined to try to support and help players that are going through a lot as they try to navigate their struggles. Struggles are part of the game. It's just louder in a bigger market."
Just wait until the annual "What would George do?" cries ring out.
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