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Christian Yelich - Milwaukee Brewers
Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Christian Yelich high-fives teammates in the dugout (April 4, 2026)
An old baseball adage says, “You can’t win the division in April,” but recent data suggests the Brewers’ hot start might matter more than most would expect.
When the Brewers closed out their homestand with a win over the Rays on Wednesday they had played just 3.7% of their scheduled regular season games, but they had won five of the six and were a game ahead of the field in the NL Central. It’s far too early to start talking about “magic numbers” or penciling the Brewers in for a postseason appearance, but that hot week also might be too much to ignore.
From 2000-‘25 there were 85 teams that started a season with at least five wins in their first six games. Of those teams, 44 (52%) made the postseason. Over that same span there were a total of 780 single seasons, with 250 of those (32%) making the playoffs.
Playoff Odds
All else being equal, a randomly selected season for any team this century has about a one in three chance of having reached the playoffs. If that sample is limited only to teams who won five of their first six games, however, their odds of making the playoffs go up by about two thirds. FanGraphs’ playoff odds for the ‘26 Brewers roughly mirror that trend: They had a 41.7% chance to reach the postseason on Opening Day and improved to 53.5% on April 1 (they’ve since gained a few more points after taking two of three from the Royals over the weekend).
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If wins and losses were randomly distributed and every MLB game was a coin flip, then teams that win at least five of their first six games would be expected to finish with an average of either 83 or 84 wins (the five or six they won in their first six plus half of the remaining 156). The actual results are better than that, although not by a lot: Among the 83 teams in the above sample that played a full season (excluding two from ‘20) the median team won 86 games, and the average team won 86.7. Roughly 87 wins is, however, enough to put teams in the postseason conversation most seasons under the current format.
A 5-1 start or better didn’t guarantee a postseason berth for any of the teams in this sample and doesn’t for the ‘26 Brewers, of course. Here are some teams that have seen the biggest variations after hot starts in the sample:
- The ‘03 Royals started the season with six straight wins and went just 77-79 the rest of the way, finishing third in the AL Central and missing the postseason.
- The ‘15 Tigers also started the season 6-0 and got as high as nine games above .500 in late May but had a disastrous second half and finished 74-87, in last place.
- Six teams this century started 5-1 and finished with at least 90 losses, most recently the 68-94 ‘19 Mariners.
- On the far end of the spectrum, the ‘11 Rays didn’t win any of their first six games. They went 91-65 the rest of the way, however, and won the AL Wild Card.
- Every World Series winning team this century has won at least two of their first six games but the ‘01 Diamondbacks, ‘03 Marlins, ‘08 Phillies, ‘11 Cardinals, ‘12 Giants and ‘21 Braves all overcame a 2-4 start on their way to a title.
The Brewers, for what it’s worth, have gone 5-1 in their first six games five other times this century. The list includes the ‘24 team that went 93-69 and won the NL Central but also the ‘06 team that went 75-87 and finished well out of contention.
There’s still a lot of baseball to be played and a wide array of possible outcomes for the 2026 Brewers. Fans looking for a reason to be optimistic, however, can hold onto the notion that these March and April games do count and even after just a week we sometimes know enough to adjust expectations.
