Photo via Twitter / Brewers
A 6-1 week on the road means the Brewers woke up on Monday morning in relatively rare territory.
Their 10-0 win over the Cubs on Wednesday coincided with a Reds loss to the Braves and allowed them to open up an eight-game lead in the National League Central. Both teams went 3-1 in their remaining four games for the week, meaning the Brewers still hold that same advantage with 53 games to play.
In 53 years of franchise history the Brewers have rarely seen this kind of division lead.
In fact, they’ve endured eighteen seasons where they never led their division at all. Sometimes that’s simply a result of bad luck: In 1992, for example, they won 92 games but never held a lead over the eventual World Series Champion Blue Jays in the AL East. Similarly, the 1978, 1979 and 2008 teams won 93, 95 and 90 games, respectively, but never led their division by more than a single game.
The Brewers’ current eight-game lead stands as the third largest in franchise history. Here are the other teams that round out the top five:
2011: 10 ½ games on September 5
A hot month of August all but sealed up the NL Central for the Brewers’ first division-winning team in nearly 30 years, but also became something of a cautionary tale. The Brewers led the division by just 1 ½ games on July 30 but won 21 of their next 26 games to open up the largest division lead in franchise history and held that margin through a Sept. 5 win over the Cardinals in St. Louis.
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The Cardinals’ season looked like it was almost certainly over: They were 74-67 and 8 ½ games back of the NL Wild Card. The aftermath of the game that night featured some Nyjer Morgan tweets that haven’t aged well and, among other things, encouraged the Cardinals to watch the Brewers from home in the postseason. The Cardinals went 16-5 the rest of the way, won the Wild Card and ousted the Brewers in the NLCS before going on to win the World Series.
2007: 8 ½ games on June 23
The 2007 Brewers finished the season 83-79, posting the franchise’s first winning record in 15 years. For a long stretch of the season, however, it looked like they’d do much more than that. A 10-2 stretch in June allowed them to open up and hold an 8 ½ game lead over the Cubs and Cardinals, which at the time was easily the largest in franchise history. They also had the National League’s best record at that point, leading the Padres by half a game. Neither team went on to make the postseason.
The Cubs dug out from underneath a slow start and went 17-9 in July to close the gap, then overtook Milwaukee as the Brewers posted a 9-18 record in August. 86 wins would have been enough to get the Brewers past the Cubs and into the postseason for just the third time in franchise history, but they finished with just 83 and history to would have to wait another year.
1982: 6 ½ games on Aug. 27
The story of the highs and lows of the Brewers’ pennant-winning 1982 team has been retold countless times, from the 23-24 start that cost manager Buck Rodgers his job to the 20-7 month of June that vaulted them into contention. They climbed into a tie for first place for the first time on the day before the All Star break on July 11 and had sole possession of the top spot nearly every day after August 3. When they beat the A’s on August 27 they were 16-7 in their last 23 contests and 6 ½ games clear of the Red Sox.
Of course, the stretch run told a different story. The Brewers went 19-13 over their next 32 games but the Orioles went 24-10 over the same span of time to emerge from third place and enter the season’s final weekend with a chance to overtake the Brewers if they could sweep a four-game series at home. Baltimore won the first three games before the Brewers clinched the AL East with a 10-2 victory on the season’s final day.
2014: 6 ½ games on July 1
For the large majority of the 2014 season the Brewers looked like a team poised to defy expectations. They hadn’t spent a single day in first place since 2011 before they went 20-8 in March and April and opened up a lead in the NL Central that would last for 159 days. They were 6 ½ games clear of their rivals already on April 29 and were still there on July 1.
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A possible season for the ages, however, came crashing back to Earth in the season’s final months. The Brewers went just 11-25 in their final 36 games, and a team that spent much of the year poised to grab a playoff spot ended up needing a win in their final series to clinch a winning record. After a rough start the following spring they turned the corner into a rebuild and wouldn’t see sole possession of first place again for a single day until the 2017 season.
For those curious, here is the rest of the top ten:
6. 2017, 5 ½ games on July 15
7. 1987, 5 games on May 2
8. 2018, 4 ½ games on May 30
9. 1975, 4 games on May 17
10t. 2009 and 2019, 3 games on May 19 and April 5, respectively
