Brewers fans made themselves heard at Wrigley Field on Tuesday, and ESPN’s Jeff Passan noticed.
Passan took to social media Sept. 2 and quoted a Milwaukee Brewers post showing Christian Yelich’s go-ahead home run in Milwaukee’s 9-4 win over the Cubs the night before.
"Can I ask, by the way, how people in Chicago felt about their home game turning into a road game?" Passan wrote. "That can't happen."
Yelich’s shot came in the top of the sixth, and the noise around his trip around the bases made the point for him. Passan’s line also carried a little extra bite because it echoed something he said earlier this summer - only then, the roles were reversed.
At the end of June, Passan drew some local criticism after using the same wording on ESPN Milwaukee’s "Wilde & Tausch" while talking about a brutal June 28 extra-inning loss by the Brewers to the Cubs at American Family Field.
"Can I ask, by the way, how people in Milwaukee felt about their home game turning into a road game?" he asked. "That can't happen."
The crowd dynamics between these two teams are nothing new. Cubs fans have long shown up in Milwaukee in force, helped by geography and market size: Milwaukee is the 31st-largest market in the country and sits within 90 miles of No.
- Wisconsin’s population is just a little more than half of the Chicago metro area by itself.
Even with that reality, the Brewers keep drawing well. They rank 12th in Major League Baseball in average attendance, with 33,632 fans per game. And if you take out the three American Family Field games against the Cubs this season, that number would fall to 13th - just 20 fans per game behind the Los Angeles Angels.
Brewers fans have also shown they can bring that same energy on the road, especially in Wrigley. The clearest example came in the one-game tiebreaker after the 2018 season, when Milwaukee beat Chicago to win the National League Central title.
They were there again this week for a key four-game series against the team Milwaukee is trying to chase down in the division race. The Brewers now hold an eight-game lead.
In Other News...
Former Brewers Reliever Gets Another Shot To Test Milwaukees Decision
Easton McGees path since leaving Milwaukee has been a quick reminder of how little room there is for relievers on the margins. The Brewers moved him to the Kansas City Royals in July after designating him for assignment, and McGee got a brief look in Kansas City before spending most of August at Triple-A, where the results did not go his way.
Now he is back on the Royals major league roster as a September call-up, giving him another chance to show he can stick in a big-league bullpen. For the Brewers, it is the sort of low-key roster wrinkle that still carries a little intrigue, because every return opportunity offers one more test of whether moving on was the right call. [Read more 🡒]
Brewers May Have Found The Tweak Antonio Senzatela Needed
Antonio Senzatela has already gone through one major reshape to extend his big-league career, moving from a starter to a reliever with the Rockies and finding better results with a cutter and four-seam fastball. Since coming over to Milwaukee, though, the Brewers have been looking at a different version of him, one built around a sinker-cutter mix that did not take off right away.
The latest wrinkle may be more about where he stands than what he throws. After shifting his pitching position on the mound, Senzatela started getting more out of the sinker, a small but meaningful adjustment for a pitcher trying to carve out a role in a new organization. For Milwaukee, it is the sort of detail worth tracking, because even modest gains can matter when a staff is searching for useful innings. [Read more 🡒]
Brewers Deadline Gamble Is Turning Into An October Rotation Problem
The Brewers brought in Dustin May at the trade deadline hoping he would deepen a rotation that needed stability down the stretch, but the move has not played out the way they envisioned. Since arriving from the Cardinals, May has had trouble finding consistent footing, and the early returns have left Milwaukee still searching for dependable innings as the season heads toward its most important stretch.
Mays results in Milwaukee have been rough enough to raise bigger questions about what comes next, too. His overall season line sits at 6-9 with a 4.69 ERA, and with his fit in the organization looking increasingly uncertain, the Brewers do not appear likely to pick up their option to keep him for 2027. For a club that made the trade to solve a rotation issue, it is turning into another roster decision with no easy answer. [Read more 🡒]