It Only Gets Tougher from Here for the Brewers

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Photo via Milwaukee Brewers - Facebook

Milwaukee Brewers

Joey Ortiz and Brice Turang high five during the game against the Boston Redsox on May 26, 2025

As we near the end of the month of May the Pirates, Orioles, White Sox and Rockies have a few things in common this MLB season. One is that they’re the four worst teams in baseball, with a combined record of 63-149. Another is that they’ve all already played the Brewers.

Sunday’s 6-5 win over the Pirates in Pittsburgh improved the Brewers’ record to 8-5 in those games, which is to some extent covering for the fact that they’re 18-23 against everyone else. Games against struggling teams haven’t been enough to keep the Brewers in the playoff picture, as they enter play on Monday 4 ½ games back of the National League’s final Wild Card spot, but if they’re going to get back into that conversation they’re going to have to do it on the backs of better opponents.

There is also historic precedent for the Brewers to get better as a season goes along. Their last three NL Central-winning teams (2021, 2023 and 2024) combined to post a .554 winning percentage before June 1 (a 90-win pace) and a .589 mark after (a 95-win pace). This season that kind of finishing kick will be a bit more challenging, however, because the schedule is not in their favor.

After Sunday’s game the Brewers have played 54 games this season and their average opponent has had a winning percentage of .486, the equivalent of a team with a 78-84 record for a full season. Their remaining 108 games, however, are against teams with a winning percentage of .511 (83-79).

Here are some of the teams the Brewers either haven’t seen or haven’t seen much this season:

• The Brewers still have all six games left against the likely best team in baseball, the Dodgers. It’s possible the Dodgers will be stronger when the Brewers face them in July than they are now, as Shohei Ohtani may be back to pitching by then. The Brewers also haven’t seen the Padres, the Dodgers’ most likely competition for the top spot in the NL West.
• They also have their full slate of six games each remaining against the top two teams in the NL East, the Phillies (owners of the game’s best record at 34-19) and the Mets (tied for second at 32-21).
• The Brewers have all six games left against the Braves, who have gotten off to a poorer-than-expected start but recently got back both former Cy Young contender Spencer Strider and 2023 National League MVP Ronald Acuna, Jr.
• In a good news/bad news situation, the Brewers still have 20 of 26 scheduled games remaining against the top two teams in the NL Central, the Cubs and Cardinals. The good news is that wins in those games would accelerate the Brewers’ climb in the standings, but the bad news is that both of those teams have played very well to this point.

The Brewers have, however, already played 30 of their 45 interleague games and they’ve treaded water to this point, going 15-15 in those contests. In most years through recent history that would have been good news: American League teams had a winning record against the NL every year from 2004-17 and entered the year more than 200 games above .500 all-time against the other league. This year the Rockies (3-15 in these games) are dragging down the NL’s overall record a bit, but the league’s 14 other teams are a combined 118-107 against the AL and have gained ground against the Brewers in these games.

Some of the best teams in Brewers history have reached their highest point largely because they were really good at making hay against weak opponents: The 2008 team that snapped the organization’s decades-long postseason drought, for example, was 20-1 against the Pirates and Giants and 70-71 against everyone else and the 2011 NL Central winning team was 24-6 against the Pirates and Astros and 72-60 against all other opponents. For the 2025 Brewers to follow in their footsteps, however, they’re going to need to rack up some wins against quality opponents.