No one, not manager Tom Treblehorn or broadcaster Bob Uecker, knew what to make of the 1987 Brewers.
As the Brewers shuffle into May with one of the worst records in baseball, many fans have fairly low expectations for the month. However, it is a virtual lock that May 2016 will offer only a modicum of the heartbreak that May 1987 brought fans. On May 2, 1987, the Milwaukee Brewers were the envy of the baseball world. They had, the night before, stunned the Mariners in Seattle with five runs in the top of the ninth inning to steal a 6-4 win and run their league-best record to 20-3. Just four weeks into a season in which no one expected the club to contend, rumors bubbled that the team was looking at pitchers on the trading block to solidify their starting rotation for the pennant drive. As the club celebrated yet another come-back win in the visiting clubhouse at the Kingdome, no one could imagine that it would be their last win for two-and-a-half weeks and, before the month’s end, they would drop to just a single game above .500.
When the Mariners beat the Brewers the next day, it hardly seemed to matter – they were on pace to win 140 games after all – but problems were creeping in on baseball’s hottest team. Paul Molitor was ailing with a hamstring injury that would soon send him to the disabled list. Slugger Rob Deer was nursing a sore groin. Rookie catcher B.J. Surhoff was away from the team due to the death of his father. And no one knew what to make of Cecil Cooper – long one of the team’s most constant hitters – who was batting just .164 on the young season.
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The loss of Paul Molitor to a hamstring injury pulled the plug on Milwaukee’s offense.
On May 5, the Brewers dropped their first home game of the season as the Angels shut them out. It was also the first time all season the team had lost consecutive games. The Angels shut them out again the next day for their third loss in a row. Two days later against the Mariners, closer Dan Plesac spoiled a solid Teddy Higuera start by allowing a three-run homer in the eighth inning that tied the game. The Brewers were primed to break the mini-streak in the bottom of the tenth when they loaded the bases with one out. But catcher Bill Schroeder popped up and Juan Castillo – starting for the injured Molitor – was thrown out trying to score the winning run. The Mariners won the game in 12 innings. The Mariners pounded the Brewers the following two days to run the streak to six games. By the seventh loss – at home against the Oakland A’s – the Brewers were in a dreadful 1-50 slump with runners in score position. “Can this be the same team that opened the season with a 13-game winning streak?” The Milwaukee Journal wondered.
Ace Teddy Higuera nearly ended the streak with the Brewers second no-hitter in a month, but it was not to be.
On May 13, it finally seemed as though the Brewers had figured it out. To keep the team loose, manager Tom Trebelhorn tacked the lineup card to the ceiling in the clubhouse before the game. “Everything’s up,” Trebelhorn said, “It’s upbeat.” It worked, for a while. Higuera looked unstoppable that night. When he froze Mark McGwire with a called third strike heater to open the seventh inning, he was just eight outs from a no-hitter – which would have been the second by Brewers’ pitching in less than a month. But after McGwire’s whiff, Ron Cey singled. Then Terry Steinbach did the same. Then Mike Davis homered. Another single. Another homer. Ten minutes removed from trying to make history, Higuera slunk from the mound with his team trailing 5-1. “How do you explain something you haven’t seen before?” manager Tom Trebelhorn said of the sudden Oakland rally. The loss was their eighth in a row and capped an 0-7 homestand for the Brewers – the worst in franchise history.
Trebelhorn, in his first full season as Brewers skipper, was now getting hate mail. One letter said that the worst thing to happen to the team was him being named manager. The second worst, the anonymous writer insisted, was the 13-0 start – it had given them big heads.
Manager Tom Treblehorn, in his first full season as Brewers skipper, got hate mail during the losing streak.
On May 14, on their way to Kansas City, the Brewers stopped in Denver for an exhibition game against the Denver Zephyrs, their AAA affiliate. Even though Robin Yount had been injured playing in an in-season exhibition game just the year before, Trebelhorn used his regular lineup in Denver, hoping a win – even an unofficial one – might break his club out of their slump. The Zephyrs won on a walk-off two-run homer.
The next evening, the Brewers fought the Royals to an eighth-inning tie. In the top of the ninth, they loaded the bases with one out, but could not score. In the bottom of the ninth, with men on first and second, speedy Royals outfielder Willie Wilson hit a sharp grounder to second baseman Jim Gantner, who flipped it to shortstop Dave Sveum covering second for a force out. With no real chance to get Wilson at first, Sveum forced a throw anyway and airmailed it into the Royals dugout, allowing Bo Jackson to trot home with the winning run. “We’ve got to stop this shit,” pitcher Mark Clear told a reporter after the game. “It’s not that we’re not trying, we’re just finding new ways to lose.”
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Catcher Bill Schroeder broke up a perfect game in the tenth loss of the streak – and would later regret it.
The next day, the Brewers sunk even further into the abyss, as the Royals pounded them 13-0 to run the streak to 10 games. KC pitcher Charlie Leibrandt allowed only one baserunner all afternoon – a bunt single by Schroeder. Realizing that his bunt hit – he had laid it down in the sixth inning with infield playing way back – had cost Leibrandt a shot at a perfect game, Schroeder was almost apologetic after the game. “It was a horse manure way to lose a no-hitter,” he said. “That was the only hit. I can imagine how he feels.” His was just one morose mood among many in the locker room that night, which grew quieter with each loss.
The next day, Danny Tartabull smacked an eighth inning homer to break a 2-2 tie and hand the Brewers their 11th straight loss. As the battered Brewers returned to Milwaukee to open a series against the White Sox, the newspapers joked that George Webb restaurants were preparing to recall the thousands of free hamburgers they had given out to celebrate the Brewers 12 game winning streak the month before. CNN and Sports Illustrated – who had each covered the team’s hot start to the year – returned to Milwaukee to report on the losing streak. After he was not threatened or gravely insulted by callers during his weekly radio show, Trebelhorn joked that he was bulletproof enough to take on 27-year incumbent mayor Henry Maier.
On May 19, Higuera was once again sharp as he struck out 13 batters. But he also allowed 3 home runs and the anemic Brewers offense managed only a single tally. It was the Brewers’ 12 loss in a row. They were now the only Major League team to have winning and losing steaks of 12 games in a single season.
Slugger Cecil Cooper slumped badly at the start of the 1987 season and was benched for most of the streak. But he came up big in the game that finally ended it.
The next night, something truly remarkable happened. Juan Nieves started for Milwaukee and was on-point, the sharpest he had been since his April 15 no-hitter. In the fourth inning, after a Yount walk, Cecil Cooper busted his slump with a long homer to right. Greg Brock add a two-run homer later in the inning and Yount hit a solo blast in the fifth. In the bottom of the ninth, Plesac took the mound and – around a walk and a single – got Fred Manrique to the plate with two outs. With runners on second and third, Manrique struck out and an exasperated cheer went up from the sparse crowd. The Brewers, for the first time in 16 days, had won a game. Jim Gantner summer up the feelings of the team – who were still six games over .500 – after the game. “Hopefully we can be a little more consistent instead of being a streaky team.”
The Brewers won the next day as well, but lost their next six. Then they won six in a row. With the help of four more 5-game winning streaks the rest of the way – as well as a 39-game hitting streak by Paul Molitor – the Brewers finished with 91-71 mark. And became forever known in Brewers lore as “Team Streak.”
