The Milwaukee Brewers in the outfield of Petco Park in San Diego.
The Brewers are almost certainly glad to be home at Miller Park this week, but the road has been pretty good to them as well.
Milwaukee’s loss to the Phillies on Sunday completed a somewhat disappointing 3-5 road trip but still left them 21-15 on the road this season. That was good enough to tie them for the National League lead in road wins and it’s tied for the second-best mark in all of baseball: Only the Astros, 23-11 away from Minute Maid Park, have been better in their away jerseys.
To say this goes against a franchise trend for the Brewers would be a significant understatement. They won 86 games a year ago but were a better team at home, going 46-38 at Miller Park (including three games moved from Miami) and 40-38 on the road. Before that the picture gets even bleaker: Until 2017 the Brewers had just two winning seasons on the road since joining the National League in 1998.
Even great teams weren’t immune to road woes: The 2011 Brewers set a franchise record with 96 regular season wins but went just 39-42 away from Miller Park. They reached the high water mark in franchise history by winning a club record 57 home games. The 2008 Brewers also reached the postseason on the backs of a solid home performance, going just 41-40 outside the state of Wisconsin.
Across baseball, having a significant home/road split isn’t as unusual as you might think. Since the start of the 2010 season the Brewers have a 364-316 record at home (entering play Monday) for a .535 winning percentage. On the road they’ve gone 314-367 for a .461 mark. That 74-point difference between home and road records is only the 17th largest in Major League Baseball over that span. Following Saturday’s games, the Rockies had the biggest split at 119 points and the Mets had the smallest, with a mere seven winning percentage points of difference between games played at Citi Field (332-349) and those played elsewhere (325-351).
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The average MLB team has won about 37.5 road games per season (and lost 43.5) since 2010. The Brewers have been worse than that benchmark away from home in 32 of their 49 MLB seasons to date. The most notable exceptions are as follows:
1982: 47 wins
The legendary 1982 Brewers demonstrated tremendous balance, winning 48 games at home and 47 on the road. They actually hit a little better on the road, with an .800 team on-base plus slugging as compared to a .778 mark at County Stadium. Robin Yount batted .347 with a .396 on-base percentage and .634 slugging away from home that season on the way to his first Most Valuable Player Award, and Cecil Cooper wasn’t far behind him at .323/.347/.573.
1980: 46 wins
The 1982 Brewers broke a record set two years earlier by another Brewers team that travelled well: The 1980 Brewers were actually a much better team on the road (46-34) than they were at home (40-42). Their batting split between home/road was even more severe than the 1982 team’s: They averaged more than 5.5 runs per game away from County Stadium but just 4.5 at home.
1981: 34 wins (out of 60)
In 1981 an extended in-season strike wiped out about two months of the regular season schedule. The Brewers took advantage of a modified playoff format to make their first postseason appearance in franchise history and did so on the back of a solid road performance: They played 60 road games and just 49 home contests that season but it didn’t matter as they went 34-26 away from Milwaukee.
The Brewers have had just five winning seasons away from home since the run from 1980-82: 1987 (43-38), 1996 (42-39), 1999 (42-39), 2008 (41-40) and the aforementioned 2017 campaign (40-38), and none of them have even come all that close to the 1982 team’s .588 winning percentage.
The 2018 team, however, has a real shot at that mark. They’ve already played 36 games from their 81-game road schedule and at 21-15, they’re winning games at a .583 pace. Furthermore, their next 14 road games are all against the Pirates, Reds and Marlins, teams that range from slightly to well below .500. A historic level of road success is definitely within the realm of possibility for this team.
