The Brewers have been making this a surprisingly fun September. After destroying the Pittsburgh Pirates’ hopes with a three-game sweep last weekend, the Brewers made things unexpectedly rough for the St. Louis Cardinals this weekend. Milwaukee mustered a four-game split in the four-game series at Busch Stadium, where the Cardinals have been a downright shockingly poor 32-39 this season. Sunday’s loss pushed the Cardinals one-half game behind the New York Mets for the second Wild Card spot (the Pirates, meanwhile, sit six games back and are now three games under .500).
Ryan Braun delivered what turned out to be the death blow Sunday afternoon, in the form of a no-doubt home run deposited 423 feet to nearly dead center field. The boos that rained down from the Cardinals faithful were utterly delicious, creating one of the best moments of what will not go down as a memorable baseball season in Milwaukee.
Braun’s resurgent season continues, as he’s now up to 27 home runs and will likely reach 30 for the first time since he mashed 41 home runs in 2012. That, of course, was Braun’s last season before his Biogenesis suspension in 2013. While Braun has had hot hitting streaks in the years since the suspension, he has yet to show his old form for a full season until now. After his hot start, it was easy to wonder if Braun would cool down as the season wore on. But no — Braun hit 10 home runs and slugged an absurd .636 in 27 games in August, and he now has three dingers in just nine games in September after Sunday’sgame-winner.
Just last week, Braun was a part of rumored trade discussions with the Dodgers for Yasiel Puig, whom the Brewers claimed off waivers. The very idea would have been absurd at the beginning of the season, but the Dodgers now have the prospect of acquiring Braun and his .916 OPS (.316 TAv), which now ranks 16th in the majors after Sunday’sperformance (and better than anyone on the Dodgers, including shortstop Corey Seager’s .915 OPS). While the fact that such a trade was even entertained speaks to how far Puig’s value has fallen, it also speaks to how far Braun has come since he hit just .266/.324/.453 (.278 TAv) in 135 games in 2014 and looked like a shell of his former self.
The Brewers are 7-3 to open September and have scored 52 runs (5.2 per game) in those 10 games. This strong start comes on the heels of a surprisingly solid August, in which the Brewers hit .234/.325/.412, good for an even 100 OPS+ per Baseball Reference despite the losses of Jonathan Lucroy and Aaron Hill on the trade market.
This season was supposed to be about the Brewers finding young talent who could potentially stick around to contribute to the next competitive Brewers team, whether that comes next year or (most likely) a few years down the line. But an underrated important aspect of this season was how Ryan Braun would show up. Considering how much focus is put on young players in the rebuilding process, Braun was almost treated as dead weight by many heading into this year. But given the game’s constant salary inflation, a player of Braun’s caliber for $20 million or less over the next four seasons might turn out to be a better deal than any they could reasonably hope to find on the free agent market. As much fun as it is to watch him hit home runs as a spoiler, hopefully by the time Braun’s contract expires in 2021, he’ll be hitting home runs for a contender, something that looks like much more of a possibility than it did a year or two ago.