Relentless Means Never Too Tired: Young, Vibrant Brewers Keep Beating Tired Opponents

[Matthew Trueblood]

In the stretch run of a season that has seen a huge number of injuries pile up throughout the league, most teams are limping to the finish, bravely or otherwise. Pat Murphy has his young club just hitting its stride.

Image courtesy of © Michael McLoone-Imagn Images

In the bottom of the fourth inning Monday night, Sal Frelick got ahead of Ranger Suárez 2-0. Rhys Hoskins had walked to lead off the inning, and Frelick knew Suárez--who has good control--wouldn't want to put another runner on base. He was going to get something fat. Indeed, Suárez threw Frelick a sinker with plenty of the plate, and Frelick throttled it. The ball was off his bat and down into the right-field corner almost before the broadcast could cut away from the center-field camera to track the progress of the line drive. It was a clean double, unable to score Hoskins only because it was hit too hard.

That particular problem--a ball hit too hard--is one Frelick had never run into before, in his career. In fact, more than a year into his tenure in the majors, the 106.6 MPH exit velocity of that double is the highest he's ever achieved. To do that on a Monday night in mid-September, wearing the bruises and bangs of his first full season in the majors, is profoundly impressive. It's part of a trend for Frelick, who has found more hard contact over the last few weeks, and who also made a breathtaking play in the third inning, charging a ground-ball single to throw out Philadelphia's Cal Stevenson trying to go from first to third. It's also par for the course, for these Brewers.

While every team can offer some righteous laments about the schedule and their injuries and the vicissitudes of baseball by this time of year, the Brewers have as much license for that as anyone--in theory. They've lost two starters on whom they had hoped to depend fairly heavily to Tommy John surgery. They've lost their best hitter to season-ending back surgery, and he was also their lone true, highly-paid superstar. Their total payroll for this season is just over $116 million. About a third of that is being paid to players who are currently on the injured list, in Christian Yelich, Wade Miley, Brandon Woodruff, and others, and that's to say nothing of the $7 million they're paying Devin Williams, who spent the entire first half there.

As a result, the team has leaned hard on a lot of young players and a lot of slightly stretched, underqualified veterans. They would have every right, as many of the other teams even in the playoff mix in each league are, to look weary and incomplete right now. In fact, built around so many players who have never pushed this deep into a professional season or faced stakes nearly this high before, they should be as hard-hit by the accumulation of injuries and fatigue as anyone.

Instead, Frelick is playing like it's late May, and the weather is just warming up. Jackson Chourio, 20, is in full bloom. William Contreras, one of the hardest-working players in baseball this year, hit a ball 115.6 miles per hour Monday night, himself. And between starts, even understanding (as any mid-30s journeyman understands) that it might really be about eliminating the idea of "between starts" for him and converting him into a multi-inning playoff bullpen weapon, Colin Rea took the ball for an eight-out save Monday night. Lest you think it's because his teammates weren't ready and willing to take the ball, though, you could glance beyond the outfield wall, where Williams warmed up without coming in for the second day in a row.

There are valid quibbles with the way Murphy has managed the grind, in his first season as a full-time big-league manager. They have to fall away, though, when one reckons with the reality of the situation. They've gone through a relative rough patch recently, but it really wasn't all that rough. They're still the only team in baseball not to lose four straight games at any point this year. Mostly, though, they just don't look worn down.

Tired teams get swing-happy, and expand their zone. The Brewers have a 25.6% chase rate for the season, outside the zone, and in the last 30 days, that number is 25.9%. Tired teams stop running, stop creating chances to conserve their legs. The Brewers' 12.1% Go Rate in steal opportunities over the last 30 days is 1.5 percentage points higher than their overall season rate, and second-highest in baseball. Tired teams play sloppy defense or throw more meatballs, leading to big hits and rallies by opponents. The Brewers' .294 opponent RBBIP (reached base on balls in play, accounting for both hits and errors) and 2.6% opponent home-run rate over the last month are right in line with their season totals, and both are better than average.

Murphy's mantras about being relentless and undaunted have worked. So has his emphasis on winning each game, when the opportunity is there. While keeping players fresh is important, it's easy to forget how much winning reenergizes everyone. Focusing on wins, and then getting them, and getting them in team-oriented, exciting fashion, Murphy has kept his team not just engaged, but enthusiastic and energized. The rest of baseball is tired. It's that time of year. The days are getting shorter, and old legs and arms are getting heavy. This is a young team, though, and though their manager is old, he understands how to keep young people ready--not just to take the field, but to take it with conviction and joy, even 150 games in. It's yet another reason to believe this team can hang even with the behemoths, once the playoffs begin in two weeks.

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[Team Canada]

For all the times we've thought Counsell should have been MOY, I will be even more peeved this year if Murphy doesn't win.