Every year, the story repeats: the Milwaukee Brewers are projected to be around .500 at the end of the year. Their tendency to trade away top talent is going to catch up to them. They will maybe win 80 games, but there is no way that they will be one of the best teams in Major League Baseball again.
And every year, they prove the narrative wrong. Currently, the Brewers are 37-21 and lead the National League Central Division by 5.5 games. They have the third-best record in the National League, which also happens to be the third-best record in baseball.
For a team that does not hit many home runs and relies on pitching and small ball to win games, they sure are far more successful than many outside of the organization thought they would be.
The Milwaukee Brewers find ways to win games without conventional stats
Bleacher Report recently gave the Brewers an A grade through the first 60 games of the 2026 MLB season, writing:
“The Brewers are dead last in the majors in home runs. But who needs dingers when you have nearly the best ERA (3.15) of them all, a small-ball approach that is churning out just a shade under 5.0 runs per game and a 27-2 record when putting at least five runs on the board? Kind of wild that Kyle Harrison has a 1.57 ERA in 10 starts, yet he’s merely Milwaukee’s other Cy Young candidate behind Jacob Misiorowski averaging 2.9 strikeouts per hit allowed.”
It is absolutely wild that Milwaukee ranks dead last in home runs, but still is able to score more than five runs a game. In fact, the 292 runs they have scored so far this year rank sixth in Major League Baseball. And what is so astounding about that is that each of the five teams ahead of them have all hit at least 71 home runs this year. The Brewers have hit 40, and 25% of those have been hit by Jake Bauers.
And speaking of Bauers, he is another example of Milwaukee players defying conventional logic. Heading into 2026, he was a career .211/.307/.365 hitter. So far this season, he is hitting .275/.356/.495 with 10 home runs and 36 RBI. At 30 years old, he is well past the age where many expect a player to breakout, but here he is.
Misiorowski, of course, garners a great deal of national attention. No one is supposed to be able to throw the ball as fast as he does. No one is supposed to be able to throw that fast that often. But yet he does.
And Harrison? Two different organizations gave up on him, and now he is 7-1 with a 1.57 ERA in Milwaukee.
It doesn’t make sense, but that is the endearing nature of the Brewers. They always have the deck stacked against them, but all they have done is find ways to win.
More Milwaukee Brewers news from Wisconsin Sports Heroics
- Aaron Ashby owns MLB analyst’s “most astounding stat” of May
- Shane Drohan named one of the top-25 rookies in Major League Baseball
- Jeff Passan explains why Jacob Misiorowski and Kyle Harrison make the Brewers different
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