Game Thread #119: Milwaukee Brewers (74-44) vs. Pittsburgh Pirates (51-69)

The Brewers have won ten straight games. It’s the second time this season that they’ve reached double digits on a winning streak, the first team to do so twice in a season since the 2019 Astros and just the 10th to do so in the divisional era, per Sarah Langs.

Tonight, Milwaukee will face a tough test as they go for win number 11: the National League’s Cy Young favorite, Paul Skenes. Despite a 7-8 record that can’t be blamed on anyone other than the Pirates’ subpar offense, Skenes leads the majors with a 1.94 ERA and 219 ERA+ and he leads the NL with a 2.32 FIP. He’s gone six shutout innings in three of his last four starts, and over those four starts he’s struck out 31 while walking only four.

The Brewers, though, got to Skenes a bit the last time they faced him, a game on June 25th in Milwaukee. In that game, Milwaukee chased him after four innings and scored four runs on four hits and two walks in a game that they won 4-2. Earlier in the season, Skenes did mostly shut the Brewers down in Pittsburgh; on May 23rd, he threw six innings and allowed one run on four hits and two walks. (Pittsburgh won that game, but Skenes didn’t get credit—the Brewers scored two in the seventh and one in the ninth but lost in extra innings.)

Milwaukee shuffled its rotation this week so that Skenes would match up not with Jose Quintana, who pitched well yesterday, but with Freddy Peralta. In truth, Peralta has been a little shaky over the last month and has struggled with the inefficiency that has plagued him for much of his career. In his last start, he limited the damage to just one run, but he walked three and needed 108 pitches to get through five stressful innings in a game that the Brewers won 7-2. Before that, Peralta was on the mound for the last game the Brewers lost, on July 30th, when he gave up five runs in four innings to the Cubs.

A couple of quick injury updates, via Adam McCalvy and Curt Hogg:

McCalvy followed up that Misiorowski’s “rehab assignment” could come in the form of a short outing in the majors against the Reds, but we’ll know more later this week.

Pat Murphy continues to tinker with the lineup; Sal Frelick is back in the leadoff spot today as he swaps places in the order with Brice Turang after yesterday’s win. Blake Perkins is also back in place of Brandon Lockridge.

First pitch at 6:40 p.m. on FanDuel Sports Network Wisconsin and the Brewers Radio Network.