The Third 54 Report: Brewers Pass Their First Real Test of Season

Baseball people say that every team will win 54 games each year, and every team will lose 54. It’s what a club does with its other 54 games that matters. That’s not just fortune-cookie wisdom; it’s actionable. We can, with a bit of time and perspective, try to put a finger on the games that fall into that third bucket of 54 contests. If a game doesn’t go in that bucket–if its outcome was almost predetermined, based on something like relative travel schedules or pitching matchups or the untameable breaks of the game–then it’s not worth losing any sleep over it, in either direction.

If a game does belong to that third bucket, though, then it’s a truly important result, even if each one still only shifts the team’s fortunes over the course of the season by about two percent. In those cases, it makes sense to take more careful stock of what happened, and to allow the game to linger with us a bit longer. 

The Brewers’ loss on Opening Day was a second-bucket game. That one was ticketed to become a loss from the get-go. It was a festive Wrigley Field. The Cubs made three early, tough defensive plays to scupper Milwaukee’s offensive plans, and took advantage of two Brewers mistakes in the bottom of the third. Ron Kulpa’s strike zone was consistent, but its bulge low and away to right-handed batters favored Marcus Stroman’s style more than Corbin Burnes’s. That game goes in Bucket Two.

Saturday, though, was different. By the sixth inning, it was clear that that game belonged to the third bucket, and not only because of the scoreless tie. The game ebbed and flowed. Milwaukee put two runners on base in the first inning, but Justin Steele utterly thwarted them thereafter. Dansby Swanson cracked a leadoff double in the bottom of the fourth inning, but Brandon Woodruff stopped that rally in its tracks. When Ian Happ finally put a crack in the eggshell holding the game in stasis, it was a major blow, but it didn’t have the air of finality.

The endgame plan Craig Counsell and the staff executed after that was brilliant. Whereas Woodruff was very fastball-forward, the bullpen–Peter Strzelecki, Matt Bush, and Devin Williams–favored their offspeed stuff. At the plate, Counsell waited to see how David Ross would deploy his bullpen, and he seized the advantage the Cubs allowed him by way of not having a lefty in their bullpen, pinch-hitting both Garrett Mitchell and Jesse Winker at opportune moments. 

Sure, the rest is a bit about luck. Winker’s single could as easily have found the glove of Nico Hoerner at second base as it made its way to the outfield grass. William Contreras’s game-winning hit probably should have been a harmless flyout. When Devin Williams took a line drive off his biceps, it could have hit his elbow instead. Even once that calamity was averted, the ninth inning could have gotten away from the Crew. Cody Bellinger was due to bat with two runners on base and nobody out, and he hit the ball hard, but it found a glove and turned into a double play.

That, though, is how these Bucket Three games work. A team earns its good luck by keeping close games close, and by making aggressive strategic choices like pinch-hitting or starting a runner. Those types of games are also the ones where superior talent or depth can just win out through a kind of miniature attrition. 

Sometimes, a game is a third-bucket game for one team, but not for the other. On Saturday, though, the Brewers and Cubs both ended up in a third-bucket battle, not least because the game was between them–two divisional rivals, now limited to 13 encounters over the long season. The Brewers survived it. In some sense, now, the Brewers are 1-0, not 1-1, because their loss was one of those that just happens, but their win was the kind of game that can easily become a loss. It was a good, needed win, and now the Brewers can try to take the series Sunday.