Series Preview: Brewers Come To Town

The Brewers will make their final trip to PNC Park for a three game series starting Monday.

Milwaukee is licking their wounds at the moment, suffering through a four game losing streak, including being swept by the Chicago Cubs. They now find themselves four games out in the division and two games removed from a wild card spot.

The Brewers are probably happy to see the Pirates, though. While the Pirates took two out of three against them in the final series before the All-Star break, the Brewers are 9-4 in head to head matchups this year.

The Pirates have been bad since the All-Star break. Really, really bad. They have dropped all seven series they’ve played, posting a 4-18 record along the way.

Schedule

Monday, 7:05 p.m. — Dario Agrazal (2-2, 3.65) vs. Jordan Lyles (6-7, 5.15). TV: AT&T SportsNet-PIT

Tuesday, 7:05 p.m. — Steven Brault (3-1, 4.15) vs. Chase Anderson (5-2, 3.73). TV: AT&T SportsNet-PIT

Wednesday, 7:05 p.m. — Trevor Williams (4-4, 4.75) vs. Zach Davies (8-5, 3.74). TV: AT&T SportsNet-PIT

All games EST

Brewers Notes

Offense

- Christian Yelich is having another MVP caliber season, leading the senior circuit in OPS (1.112) and ranking second in WAR (6.0). He is flirting with a triple crown again, leading the league in homers (37) while trailing Jeff McNeil by six points for the batting average crown and Josh Bell by seven RBI for the RBI title. The last National League hitter to capture a triple crown was Joe Medwick in 1937.

- Rookie second baseman Keston Hiura has been on fire lately, slashing .372/.449/.705 with four home runs and 15 RBI in 89 PAs since the All-Star break. His 1.3 WAR is the second best among NL position players since the break, trailing only Ketel Marte.

- The Brewers are leading all of baseball in WAR out of the catcher position (4.6), ranking fourth in OPS from backstops .821 and second in framing runs (17.1). Yasmani Grandal leads the way for them (.845 OPS, 11.6 framing runs).

Pitching

- Old friend Jordan Lyles is going to kick off the series Monday. When he was a Pirate, few pitchers were as negatively impacted by poor pitch framing than him. He’s now going from Elias Diaz- who is last in framing runs among catchers- to Grandal. That will help, and it was a factor for his first start as a Brewer: five innings of one run ball on July 31.

- The Brewers’ bullpen is allowing runs at a higher clip than last year (4.59 ERA), but they are still third in the National League in Win Probability Added (1.07). Simply put, it hasn’t always been pretty, but they have been getting the job done.

- The Pirates just can’t avoid Davies this year. He’s pitched in all four Pirates-Brewers series so far, going 2-0 with a 2.31 ERA in 23.1 innings pitched.