Photo Via Milwaukee Brewers - Facebook
Jacob Misiorowski
The way the Brewers scored in a pair of wins over the Blue Jays last week got all the attention, but the headlines obscured a more traditional path to victory.
Wednesday night’s game swung on an unlikely bounce in front of home plate that assisted the Brewers in scoring the decisive run in a 2-1 victory. On Thursday the small ball was more intentional as the Brewers bunted in three consecutive plate appearances on their way to scoring the winning run in another 2-1 game.
The first questions in manager Pat Murphy’s press conferences following those games gave a clear indication of what the narrative would be around the pair of wins. Murphy started Wednesday’s media session with a self-deprecating anecdote about his struggles to learn physics that might have explained the unlikely bounce, and Thursday’s by telling the assembled reporters that “I think it [bunting] is coming back.”
Bunting Debate
For what it’s worth, the numbers suggest that bunting isn’t “back” yet on a league-wide level. On Wednesday Adam McCalvy of MLB.com noted that 0.8% of all April plate appearances had ended in a bunt, exactly the same small percentage as last season. Back in 2022 we considered the possibility that teams should bunt more, given the change in offensive environment since the early 2000s, but to date it hasn’t happened.
Debates about bunting, however, are much older than that. One of the famous critics of sacrifice bunting was legendary Orioles manager Earl Weaver, and one of his most famous quotes was “When you play for one run, that's usually all you get.”
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And therein lies the key for this Brewers team. Their ability to drive home a run with small ball is an asset, but it’s only valuable when a small number of runs is all they need. Lost in the hype over a pair of softly struck game-winning hits was this important detail: In a season where the average MLB team is scoring 4.4 runs per game the Brewers only scored four across a span of two games and won them both. The bunts may have been key moments, but the Brewers were only in position to use them because their pitching and defense held the Blue Jays to a run each across those two games.
Strong Pitching, No Decisions
Lost in the offensive highlights from those two games were a pair of extremely strong starting pitching outings that, unfortunately, both resulted in no-decisions: On Wednesday Chad Patrick became the first Brewers starter of the season to record an out in the seventh inning, and on Thursday Brandon Sproat improved upon it by getting two of them. Given their strong starts the Brewers only needed five innings from their bullpen across the two days and were able to get scoreless performances.
While small ball tactics may be relatively uncommon in today’s game, winning by preventing runs is not. From the start of the 2025 MLB season through Thursday’s games teams were 931-60 in games where they allowed one run or less. They were also 450-87 in games where their starting pitcher worked 6 ⅓ or more innings and allowed one run or less.
For the Brewers this season the magic number has been three: After this weekend’s Marlins series they were 8-0 this season in games where they allowed two runs or less, but in games where they allowed three-or-more they were 4-9.
Much like last season, the shape and speed of the Brewers’ offense might look different from many of their rivals atop the run-scoring list. Their ability to use speed and strategy to win games, however, depends heavily on their pitching staff’s ability to put up low numbers. To this point they’ve been up to the challenge, even if they don’t always get the attention they deserve for doing so.
