The Brewers successfully earned burgers for the people on Wednesday when they capped a sweep of the Pittsburgh Pirates for their 12th straight victory. After a day off on Thursday, the hottest team in baseball turns its eye toward their next milestone: with a win tonight, the Brewers would match the longest longest single-season winning streak in team history, the 13 straight games that the 1987 club won to start the season.
This game also begins a crucial week for the NL Central, in which the Brewers
face the third-place Reds three times and the second-place Cubs five times. Milwaukee could either slam the door on the division… or they could have a rough week, and set the stage for a tense race as we head toward September.
The Brewers didn’t announce a starting pitcher until this afternoon for the slot in the rotation that has lately gone to Jacob Misiorowski, Logan Henderson, or Tobias Myers (who threw two innings in relief on Wednesday). It turns out it will, indeed, be Miz’s return. Misiorowski last pitched on July 28th in Chicago, where he was hit in the leg by a comebacker. He finished that start but was subsequently placed on the injured list, more for precautionary reasons (and, surely, to manually limit his innings) than anything, and he’s back after the minimum amount of time. Adam McCalvy says that Misiorowski’s start tonight will be a short one, as it’s effectively a rehab start but in the majors. DL Hall last pitched on Sunday, so he’s fresh, and I’d expect him to piggyback on Misiorowski’s start.
Pitching for the Reds tonight the veteran right-hander Nick Martinez, who turned 35 last week. Martinez was excellent in 2024 when he had a 3.10 ERA (142 ERA+) and 3.21 FIP in 142 1/3 innings (42 games, 16 of which were starts) for Cincinnati, which earned him a one-year, $21.5 million free agent deal to come back for another year. But while Martinez has been fine, he hasn’t had the same type of success he’s had the past two seasons when he was pitching more out of the bullpen than in the starting rotation. He’s been essentially exclusively a starter this season (he’s started in all but three of his 26 appearances) but has been about average overall, with a 4.49 ERA (102 ERA+) and 4.12 FIP. Martinez has been unable to replicate last season’s fabulous walk rate (at 3.2%, Martinez was behind only Bryan Woo and George Kirby among pitchers with 100+ innings), which looks more and more like an outlier, as his career walk rate sits at 7.3%. This season Martinez has walked 5.9% of the batters he’s faced, which is a pretty good number but can’t match up with last year’s mark.
The Brewer lineup will be without a couple of prominent players for at least a couple of days, as Isaac Collins has been placed on the paternity list and Blake Perkins on the bereavement list. Collins and Perkins have been replaced on the roster by the only real outfielders at Triple-A Nashville who are already on the 40-man roster, Tyler Black and newcomer Steward Berroa. More on today’s moves here. Berroa is in tonight’s lineup in center field, with Sal Frelick in right and Lockridge in left (yes, the post below lists two right fielders; on Gameady, Lockridge is listed in left). The other surprise is Joey Ortiz in the two-hole, as Pat Murphy tries to ride the hot hand. And good luck with the Reds’ lineup below, as they’ve used their “Player’s Weekend” nicknames for the lineup card.
Tonight’s first pitch is early, at 5:40 p.m., and is available for viewing only on Apple TV+. If you’re unable to view tonight’s game, you’ll of course have the airwaves.
