Tale of two teams: Brewers hit Wrigley on historic hot streak
Before the Cubs and Brewers opened a five-game series Monday at Wrigley Field, Milwaukee manager Pat Murphy talked about how he doesn't care for large, hostile crowds.
“I'm sensitive,” Murphy said, perhaps half-jokingly. “I'm freaking sensitive when they boo me or they say I'm crazy or whatever.”
OK then, would Murphy tell Brewers fans to stop booing Craig Counsell if he had the chance?
“Yeah. That's ridiculous,” Murphy answered. “Why would you boo the guy? The guy's done so much. He loves Milwaukee. He loves Wisconsin.”
Then Murphy got into a discussion with a staff member about whether Counsell pays more in property taxes in Whitefish Bay, Wis. than he would if he made his permanent home in Illinois.
Murphy's media sessions are all over the place and rarely cease to be entertaining. For anyone not familiar with the background, Murphy was Counsell's college coach at Notre Dame, eventually joined Counsell's staff with the Brewers, and was promoted to manager when Counsell left for Chicago.
Now Murphy leads a team on one of the all-time hot streaks. Since May 25, the Brewers were 45-15 — a 121-win pace over a full season — heading into Monday's action. Since May 25, they lead MLB in runs scored, lead in starter ERA and are second in reliever ERA.
“The Brewers have played brilliantly,” Counsell said. “We don't get a lot to say about that, and credit to them. It makes our position in the division kind of unfortunate as you compare it to the other divisions.”
Murphy reminded everyone the Brewers are mostly a team of rookies and rejects. None have been more valuable than former White Sox first baseman Andrew Vaughn, who has posted a 1.014 OPS since making his Milwaukee debut on July 7.
Murphy drew a laugh by admitting the obvious, at least to Chicago reporters who tried talking to the tight-lipped Vaughn on the South Side.
“Bad interview,” Murphy said. “He ain't giving you a whole lot.”
But Vaughn is an example of how sometimes guys can benefit from a change of scenery. Or maybe it's the Murphy pep talks that turned things around.
“We've got a bunch of guys in there, Topps hasn't even made their baseball cards yet,” Murphy said. “So it's kind of fun to be hungry. It's just better to have hungry guys that are cliff-hangers. They're wondering if they're going to be back in Triple-A next week They're an inch from the top and an inch from the bottom.”
That said, Murphy pointedly compared his roster to that of the Cubs, and the Dodgers and most every other contender in the National League.
“Are they (Cubs) the underdogs? Seriously?” Murphy said. “They're the underdogs in this series? Look at the lineups. No way. They've got all-stars, they've got MVP candidates.
“You've got veterans, you've got gold glove winners, you've got world champions. I mean, what don't they have? They're not the underdogs. Trust me.”
OK, he's got a point. Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer also checked in before Game 1 on Monday to try to explain why the Cubs have cooled off. They had a 6.5 game lead in the NL Central on June 18 when the rainout happened to create a doubleheader rescheduled for Tuesday, and trailed the Brewers by 8 games heading into Monday.
“The answers to our struggles are not lineup construction,” Hoyer said. “You can simplify it down to our best players haven't been producing at the level they were in the first half. That's the reason we're not scoring as many runs.”
Obviously, things can change, hot teams generally cool off. A Cubs-Milwaukee series for the NL championship could happen. The bottom line is, the Cubs are having a good season, while the Brewers have been off-the-charts surprising.
“If it was totally predictable, it wouldn't be fun, right?” Hoyer said. “There's like a joy in that. If we just took the projections we had at the beginning of the season and that was all that happened, that would not be worth watching.”