After ending their longest losing streak in over three months, the Milwaukee Brewers bring their major-league-best 80 wins into the series opener with the visiting San Francisco Giants on Friday night.
The Brewers snapped a three-game skid on Thursday in the finale of a five-game series with the Chicago Cubs, posting a 4-1 victory to extend their lead in the National League Central to seven games. Milwaukee’s success has been partly driven by second baseman Brice Turang’s career year. Enjoying the best of his three major league seasons, Turang is batting .368 with eight home runs and 20 RBIs over the Brewers’ 19 games in August.
“I’ve always known I could hit balls hard, but it was just doing it consistently,” said Turang, 25, whose two-run homer helped propel Milwaukee on Thursday. “I’m not trying to hit homers — I’m just catching balls out in front and, what we say, clipping them. Catching the bottom of the ball.”
Helping to lead a pitching staff that boasts MLB’s third-best ERA (3.56), Jose Quintana (10-4, 3.32 ERA) will start for Milwaukee on Friday to begin the three-game series, looking to extend his dazzling month of August.
The veteran left-hander is 3-0 with a 2.70 ERA in his past four starts, including a no-decision on Sunday against the Cincinnati Reds, in which he allowed just one run on five hits in 6 1/3 innings. The Brewers lost 3-2 in 10 innings.
Quintana, who made five appearances as a reliever for San Francisco in 2021, is 2-4 with a 4.46 ERA in eight career outings (seven starts) against his former team. He faced the Giants on April 22, allowing one run across six innings in the Brewers’ 11-3 win.
The Giants enter play in a tailspin, having fallen to a season-worst six games under .500. San Francisco began its two-city road trip in San Diego, where it dropped three of four games. The Giants have lost 10 of 12 since Aug, 8 and are 9-22 since the All-Star break.
The Giants will face a Milwaukee team that is 24-8 since the break, with San Francisco’s playoff hopes having dwindled to almost nill. The Giants are 6 1/2 games out of the third and final wild-card spot in the National League with 34 to play.
But infielder Casey Schmitt said San Francisco shouldn’t be counted out.
“It’s not crazy. Crazy things have happened, and we’re still definitely in it,” he said. “We just gotta pull ourselves together and get back out there.”
Hoping to serve as a stopper, Carson Whisenhunt (1-1, 5.02 ERA) will begin the series on the mound for the Giants, making just the fourth start of his rookie season. The 24-year-old lefty, a second-round draft pick by San Francisco in 2022, allowed three runs in four innings last time out in a 4-2 loss against the Washington Nationals on Aug. 9 in his only appearance against them.
He was optioned to Triple-A Sacramento after that start but will be recalled following Landen Roupp’s move to the injured list on Thursday. Whisenhunt has gone 9-5 with a 4.37 ERA in 19 minor league starts this season.
–Field Level Media
