Milwaukee Brewers Are Biggest NL Surprise of Season

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In the senior circuit, shocking success and inexplicable ineptitude face off for the biggest NL surprise of the MLB season. The Milwaukee Brewers earned our praise.

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The two standout surprises of the American League thus far are Kansas City (positively) and Chicago (negatively). What about in the senior circuit? The National League hasn’t been quite as surprising overall, but there are a few teams worth highlighting. Here are the contenders (records as of June 10), and we’ll pick our biggest surprise.

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Biggest NL Surprise:
Philadelphia Phillies with the best record in the NL, 9 games ahead of Atlanta
Miami Marlins 21 games under .500
Milwaukee Brewers 11 games over .500, third-best run differential in the NL
Arizona Diamondbacks four games under .500, fourth place in the West

 

Milwaukee Brewers Biggest NL Surprise So Far

 

Todd Salem: How is Milwaukee Doing This?

To me, this is kind of easy. I’ll quickly run through why the other teams are stories but not incredibly surprising. 

Philly is great and better than expected. It’s not like Atlanta has been bad; the Phillies have just been that good. But we all expected them to be pretty good, so overplaying expectations over the course of a couple months isn’t that crazy. As some of the non-Harper hitters come back to earth, this team’s offense is going to settle down.

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Conversely, Miami has been really horrible, but we all expected them to be kind of bad. They made the playoffs last year, but they weren’t a “playoff team.” They had a -57 run differential; it was a fluke of close-game finishes. This year, they aren’t getting any breaks, lost a number of arms to the IL, and don’t have tons of talent.

The same goes for Arizona, though on a smaller scale. The Diamondbacks overachieved last year and have settled more into where they belong. The terrible season by Corbin Carroll and injury absence for Zac Gallen highlight the sizable step back this club has taken.

Maybe you feel differently about one of these clubs, or have the spotlight for someone else I overlooked, but Milwaukee is my answer for most surprising NL club. The Brewers were supposed to be rebuilding this season!

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Prior to Opening Day, Milwaukee lost arguably the best manager in baseball to their division rivals and then traded away their best player and best pitcher in Corbin Burnes. All they’ve done since is win. 

Pretty much all of their hitters are having career years, including veterans like William Contreras and Willy Adames. One wouldn’t expect that to continue all season. On the pitching side, this club hasn’t even been all that great. The bullpen has vacillated between erratic and horrendous. The rotation is held together with chicken wire after Freddy Peralta. Let’s just say, without being too rude, I’m indeed surprised by this team’s level of success.

 

 

Dan Salem: Brewers Can’t Be Stopped

Your level of politeness towards the Milwaukee Brewers in particular is admirable, but unnecessary. Despite winning over 90 games last year and the NL Central division, no one believed in Milwaukee entering this season. Frankly, I’m not sure anyone outside of their own local fanbase has ever believed in them. To say their current success is once again a surprise is understating the simple fact that the Brewers are actually repeating their success yet again! How does this team keep doing this!?

One would think that us baseball fans would eventually stop being surprised by the Brewers and actually expect them to be good. Hell, they have played over .500 baseball in every season but one (the shortened pandemic season of 2020) dating back to 2017. That is 7 of 8 seasons in either first or second place in the NL Central and well over .500 (including this year). That stretch of success lines up quite nicely with manager Craig Counsell’s tenure with the team, but he’s gone this season!

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I knew the Phillies would be good, but not this good. I also knew Miami and Arizona would be bad, but not this bad. Yet the Brewers, who have been good for almost a decade now, still surprise me. They don’t feel like a great team, but they keep winning. Perhaps this is simply a case of the new manager finding success with the old guy’s team, but no matter. Milwaukee is very good and on their way to a playoff appearance once again.

Despite this team being held together by chicken wire, the Brewers hold a commanding 6.5 game lead in their division, firmly ahead of every other team who are coincidentally all tied with nearly identical records. Only the Reds hold a positive run differential and none of the other teams in the NL Central have a winning record. For Milwaukee to truly stumble, someone else is going to have to start playing a whole lot better. No one in the NL Central is close and no other team in the wildcard discussion is close either. A monumental collapse, along with another team’s monumental success, is required for the Brewer’s postseason trajectory to change. I don’t see it and that is surprising.

 

Meet our Writers:

Dan Salem is Lead Editor and Co-owner of BuzzChomp. He’s an award winning Actor, Director and Producer. Visit M Square Productions for his film work, or get lost in his old-school comedy on Pillow Talk TV. You can follow him on X, TikTok and Instagram. His latest film ‘Alone’ is now on Amazon.

Todd Salem is a Staff Writer and Contributing Editor at BuzzChomp. He’s also a champion of fantasy football and fantasy baseball, dominating leagues for over two decades. Comment below on his unfiltered opinions.

Milwaukee Brewers Photo Credits: brewerfanatic.com and MilwaukeeBrewerSentinel.com via Getty Images

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