The Brewers have spent the last week looking every bit like a team on a roll, and Wednesday night gives them another chance to keep that momentum going when they face the Reds in Milwaukee.
The series resumes at 8:10 p.m. ET at American Family Field, with the matchup set to feature a pair of left-handers. Milwaukee has already taken the first two games of the four-game set, riding Joey Ortiz’s go-ahead homer in Monday’s 5-3 win and a four-run fourth inning in Tuesday’s 7-2 victory.
That stretch has pushed the Brewers to seven wins in their last nine games, and it’s been especially rough for Cincinnati. Milwaukee has now beaten the Reds five straight times, including a three-game sweep in Cincinnati from June 22-24. The Brewers enter Wednesday at 52-31, sitting 5 1/2 games ahead of the Cubs in the NL Central and owning the second-best record in baseball behind the Dodgers, who were 55-30 entering Tuesday.
The Reds come in at 39-45 and in fifth place in the division, trying to slow down a Milwaukee club that has been piling up wins in bunches.
Cincinnati will hand the ball to Andrew Abbott, who is 5-4 with a 3.90 ERA this season. Abbott was an All-Star in 2025 and finished eighth in NL Cy Young voting with a 2.87 ERA.
Against the Brewers, he has posted a 3.74 ERA in eight career starts. Milwaukee has had some success against him, too: four Brewers hitters have homered off Abbott, including Jackson Chourio, who is 3-for-7 with two home runs against the lefty.
The Brewers will counter with Shane Drohan, who made his Major League debut in relief in April before moving into the rotation on June 1. In five starts, Drohan has a 3.65 ERA with 24 strikeouts in 24 2/3 innings. His last outing came against the Reds on June 24, when he worked 4 1/3 scoreless innings and struck out five at Great American Ball Park.
June told the story of both teams in opposite directions. Milwaukee went 17-10 (.630) over the month, while Cincinnati finished 9-17 (.346). Now the calendar has flipped to July, and with two division rivals meeting again, the Brewers will try to keep it rolling while the Reds look for a reset.
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That tension is what makes the second half so tricky. Misiorowskis workload has already climbed into territory that demands attention, and the Brewers know a cautious approach could leave him short of the volume that tends to sway award voters, especially when other top starters are piling up innings. For Milwaukee, it is a familiar front-office and dugout balancing act, but this one carries a little more weight because the upside is so obvious and the margin for error is so thin. [Read more 🡒]