Brewers Out Six in a Row—But Wait for the Bounce Back!

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Photo via Twitter / Brewers

There are a lot of paths to a successful MLB season, including some with some major highs and lows.

The 2021 Milwaukee Brewers hit what they hope was rock bottom last week when they lost six consecutive games, getting blown out in the finale of a home series against the Dodgers before dropping the first five games of a road trip to Philadelphia and Miami. At the end of the day on May 1 they had the National League’s best record but after a loss on May 7 they were just 17-16, the second best team in their own division and the NL’s seventh best.

It’s not surprising, of course, to learn that good teams don’t typically endure stretches like this. During the Brewers’ first run of widespread success from 1978-82, for example, the team went through just one six-game losing streak in a span of five seasons (seven games from August 23-29, 1980). It’s also not unprecedented, however, for a Brewers team to bounce back from a disastrous week or more. Here are the best Brewers teams to experience six consecutive losses:

2018: Seven games

In July of 2018 Christian Yelich and the Brewers were riding high, starting the month with a 6-1 homestand against the Twins and Braves and opening up a 2 ½ game lead in the NL Central. Their luck quickly turned on the road, however, where they were walkoff losers three times in an eight-game trip. They lost the last six games of that road trip in succession, dropping a series finale in Miami before heading to Pittsburgh and losing five games in four days. The All Star break provided a brief respite from their skid but the Brewers picked up where they left off once play resumed, losing the first game of a home series against the Dodgers for their seventh consecutive defeat.

Over the course of those seven games the Brewers went from 1 ½ games up in the NL Central to three games back of first place. They continued to flounder through a 13-13 month of August before getting red hot in September, as they went 23-7 down the stretch to catch the Cubs and win the division for just the fourth time in franchise history.

2011: Seven games

The 2011 Brewers were a clear example of a season where the team was “going for it:” They held onto free agent-to-be Prince Fielder and traded for pitchers Zack Greinke and Shaun Marcum to take one last run at a championship. It all went sideways early, however, when Greinke missed the first month of the season and the Brewers floundered without him. They won on April 29 to peek above .500 at 13-12, but then lost the last two games of a series in Houston, all four of a weekday set in Atlanta and the first game of a weekend series in St. Louis. That final loss dropped the Brewers back to 5 ½ games out of first place and fifth place in the six-team NL Central.

The tide turned quickly, however: When the Brewers finally won on May 7 it started a stretch where they went 17-6 to close out the month. By June 12 they were back in first place and at the end of August they had opened up a 10 ½ game lead. They endured another cold stretch in September but still finished with 96 wins and their first division title in 29 years.

1992: Seven games

Under MLB’s current playoff structure the 1992 Brewers would have been a likely playoff contender, but during the years where only four teams reached the postseason the ’92 Crew was left to wonder what might have been if not for some early floundering. They wrapped up a homestand on May 3 of that season with a loss to the Blue Jays, then dropped both games in brief road series in Chicago and Kansas City before heading to Texas and losing two more there. That final loss to the Rangers dropped them to 12-16, fifth place in the AL East and seven games back of first place.

The Brewers went 80-54 the rest of the way and won 17 of their final 22 games, but the hole they dug with their slow start was too big. They were two games back of the eventual World Champion Blue Jays in the season’s final week but their 92-70 finish was not enough to qualify for the postseason.

2008: Six games

The Brewers’ first postseason team in 26 years didn’t look like one for a large stretch of the early going in 2008: From May 2-8 that season they lost all six games on a road trip to Houston and Florida, then a week later they lost five consecutive games again to the Dodgers and Red Sox. The 4-11 stretch dropped them to seven games back in the NL Central and caused them to briefly dip into sixth place in the six-team division.

The Brewers didn’t poke back up above .500 until June 1 of that season, but still found themselves close when it counted. They went 16-11 in July and 20-7 in August and still won the NL Wild Card despite a 10-16 September (and another five-game losing streak) that cost manager Ned Yost his job.

1987: 12 games

The Brewers’ fabled “Team Streak” is most commonly remembered for a pair of positive streaks: Their 13-0 start to the season that included Juan Nieves’ no-hitter and Dale Sveum’s Easter Sunday home run, and Paul Molitor’s 39-game hitting streak. In the middle, however, a different streak sunk their season.

The Brewers were 20-3 and leading the AL East by five games when they woke up on the morning of May 3 to play a series finale in Seattle. They lost that game, then went home and lost all seven games in a homestand against the Angels, Mariners and A’s. A road trip didn’t stop the bleeding, as they also lost all three in Kansas City. Then they returned home and opened a series with a 5-1 defeat against the White Sox, their 12^th in a row. They beat Chicago and Cleveland once each, but then dropped six more games to fall to 22-21, and a team that was the hottest club in baseball three weeks ago had dropped all the way to fifth place.

Molitor’s hitting streak wasn’t enough to save the campaign. The Brewers went 69-50 after their long cold stretch but they never even reached second place in the East despite a 91-71 record.