CINCINNATI — The Milwaukee Brewers just keep streaking, and now they’ve matched the franchise record for consecutive wins at 13.
The Brewers rallied from seven runs down through two innings Friday night by scoring nine unanswered runs in thumping the Cincinnati Reds 10-8.
Milwaukee opened the 1987 season winning the first 13.
“It’s just a special win,” said Christian Yelich, who had two homers among four hits driving in five runs.
This latest streak in a season in which the Brewers just don’t lose very often or bash their way back to one big win after another has them atop all of Major League Baseball with a 77-44 record. That’s six better than Toronto, and Milwaukee has opened up a nine-game lead inside the NL Central over Chicago.
That success has fed their confidence. Yelich told manager Pat Murphy they were going to win even when trailing 8-1 after two innings. He played with a bat honoring Bob Uecker, the Brewers’ former announcer who died in January at the age of 90, down to his signature home run call.
Yelich said the Brewers have been in this situation before and always find a way to make it close.
“Just with the way that our team is I knew we weren’t going to get our doors blown off,” Yelich said. “You know we’re going to find a way to get our way back into that thing. We just got a roomful of fighters and guys who just don’t care what the scoreboard says or anything like that.”
Uecker, nicknamed Mr. Baseball, broadcast Milwaukee games for over half a century. Murphy said they just have to convince themselves that Uecker is still with them after what he meant to the organization.
“Somehow it seems like he’s watching over us,” Murphy said. “I said he’s not going to miss a game. Well, he was definitely here tonight. Yelly proved it. Special.”
Yelich nearly put his bat away after an opening home run only to keep swinging it the rest of the game. He was supposed to use the bat honoring Uecker last year, and Uecker loved the bat when he saw it. Yelich called this kind of a full-circle moment.
“If you know Ueck, you know like crazy things like that are going to happen when he’s involved,” Yelich said. “It just adds to like how special tonight was.”