Brandon Woodruff, Bob Uecker, and This Marvelous Streak

Brandon Woodruff has been part of the Brewers organization since 2014. Two winters ago, there was almost a tragic divorce, as Woodruff's severe shoulder injury (which, it was immediately clear, would prompt him to miss all of 2024) prompted the Brewers to non-tender him in November 2023. Woodruff had offers from other teams, including at least one for more money than he got when he eventually returned to the Crew. In the end, though, he couldn't stay away—and although the team had made the cold, calculated decision to cut him (as they always must, and always do, in such situations), they never stopped wanting to bring him back.

Woodruff was one of Brewers legend Bob Uecker's favorite players. It was lucky that he and the team made the choice to stick together for 2024, even if he couldn't participate on the field, because doing so meant Woodruff was around for the final summer of Uecker around the park. It also allowed both men to share in the moment after the Brewers won the division title last September, when Pat Murphy ensured that the team who had taken the field paid special respect to Uecker. A few of the most poignant pictures from that delirious celebration show Uecker and Woodruff celebrating together; one of those photos heads this article.

Now, the Brewers are on a tear—one of the best stretches in baseball history, and clearly the best in team history. You can pick any of several endpoints to demonstrate how hot they are, including:

• 53-19 since hitting their low-water mark of 4 games below .500, in mid-May
• 39-11 since Jacob Misiorowski's debut on June 12
• 36-9 since the rainout in Chicago that wasn't rescheduled as a doubleheader the next day, which the Brewers used as bulletin-board material

My favorite selective endpoint, though, is also the one that makes it all most clear. Since Woodruff's season debut on July 6, the Brewers are 26-4. They've won all six of his starts, and in those 30 games, they've outscored opponents 191-94. This team has been good, young, improving, versatile, and relentless all year. Only since Woodruff made it back—after 21 months away and a litany of setbacks even during the first half of this year—have they been truly complete, though. In fact, since then, they've been as close to perfect as you can get.

The only team to win more games in a 30-game span this century was the Cleveland team that won 22 straight in 2017. They were the defending American League champions, with two surefire future Hall of Famers (José Ramírez and Francisco Lindor) at their absolute peak and two pitchers almost on that level (Corey Kluber, who won the Cy Young Award that year, and Andrew Miller) at theirs. But that team also benefited from a division full of losers, and reeled off lots of wins against two teams (the White Sox and Tigers) who combined to lose 193 games that year. Going all the way back to 1947, the only other teams to win more than 26 in a stretch of 30 are the 1977 Royals and the 1947 and 1953 Yankees. That's one team playing in an expansion year, and two more in a league that was only semi-integrated and that included just seven other clubs, one of which was the genuinely dreadful postwar St. Louis Browns. 

It's just that Cleveland club, George Brett's best Royals team, and two iterations of the greatest dynasty in the history of the sport. That's the company the Brewers are keeping, and it all started (or, rather, it accelerated to its current runaway train speed) when Woodruff came back to the club spending its first summer in over half a century without Uecker. You could do pretty well with that pitch in Hollywood; real life is rarely this kind.

I don't believe in ghosts or guardian angels, though you're welcome to. I don't think Uecker's spirit is standing next to opposing defenders and shoving their gloves sideways as they go to field routine grounders, or even sending out some beam of positive energy that vaguely improves the team. I do believe, though, that a Uecker Effect is everywhere this summer, and that some of the inspired, impossibly perfect baseball the team has played for long stretches this year has something to do with the heightened sense of history, responsibility and purpose that has hung around Uecker Field all season. Uecker's physical presence and his voice are real and painful losses, but there's still a statue of him outside the park, and one inside it. There's still his catchphrase out in left field. He's still profoundly important to what happens, even if all that impact comes from the power of memory and legacy.

Those who watch the games find the Brewers' success remarkable, but not mystical. They're winning because they're playing extraordinarily well—because they're an extraordinarily good team. With the good vibes of Woodruff's return from so much adversity and the bittersweet feeling that the best season in team history might be the one right after the person who most embodied the team passed away, though, it's impossible to talk about all that talent and all that playmaking without also talking about the feelings and the magic of it all.