Fresh off one of the most heartening wins of the season, the suddenly streaking Brewers look to make it six in a row with their game this afternoon against the Philadelphia Phillies. And with the streak to end the month, the Brewers—who have endured some dark times the past few weeks—have ensured that they’ll finish the month with no worse than a .500 record, as they come into this one at 14-13 in May.
The obvious thing to point to since Milwaukee started this streak is the recent play of Christian Yelich. After two more homers last night, Yelich is now riding a seven-game hit streak in which he has gone 13-for-30 (.433) with five homers, 12 RBI, and a double. Of those seven games, he has multiple hits in five of them and multiple home runs in two of them. His batting average is up 36 points and his OPS is up 121 points since starting the streak.
It will be tougher for Yelich in this game, as Milwaukee’s lineup has to deal with the tough lefty Jesús Luzardo on the mound for the Phillies. Luzardo, who the Phillies acquired in a trade with the Marlins in December, is off to a scintillating start. As of the start of play on Saturday, he’s the NL’s leader in bWAR for pitchers; on the season he is 5-0 with a 2.15 ERA (192 ERA+) and 2.25 FIP in 11 starts and 67 innings. A big part of Luzardo’s success has been his ability to limit the long ball—he is the NL’s leader in HR/9 at 0.4 per nine innings. But he’s also got an excellent, career-best strikeout to walk ratio (4.05), and things have just been clicking for him in a way that never quite happened in Miami despite a couple of solid seasons.
Despite the expectation that the Brewers would start with opener Rob Zastryzny, Milwaukee will counter with Chad Patrick (according to Pat Murphy because Bryce Harper is again out of the lineup). Patrick is coming off 4 2⁄3 good innings against Boston on Monday; he allowed three hits and two walks while striking out six and didn’t allow a run.
With Luzardo pitching, the Brewers are shaking up their lineup a bit: William Contreras, who busted an 0-for-15 slump yesterday with three hits and an RBI groundout, moves up to second in the order (behind Jackson Chourio) and Rhys Hoskins will bat cleanup in his old home ballpark. Daz Cameron also gets a start today in place of Isaac Collins in left field, though Sal Frelick stays in the lineup as one of only three lefties in Milwaukee’s batting order (along with Yelich and Brice Turang).
First pitch today is at 3:05 p.m. central time (not 4:05 like the tweet below says) and can be seen on FanDuel Sports Network Wisconsin and heard on the Brewers Radio Network.