Milwaukee’s Christian Yelich already has put together one of his best series of the season, and the Brewers and Minnesota Twins have played only one game.
Yelich will look to stay red hot when the teams play the second installment of a three-game set on Saturday afternoon in Minneapolis.
The Brewers are coming off a 17-6 win in the series opener Friday night, when Yelich set a career high and tied the franchise record with eight RBIs. He became the first player since RBIs became an official stat in 1920 to drive in eight runs in a game without hitting a homer.
Yelich is 10-for-19 in his past four games, but he is hitting just .252 despite having 14 homers and 52 RBIs in 71 games.
“There’s not a lot of nights like this during the season, so you’ve got to appreciate it when they do happen,” he said. “Enjoy the success in baseball because there’s a lot of nights where it doesn’t go your way. Happy for the guys.”
The mood is not nearly as light for the Twins, who have given up 10-plus runs four times in their past 10 games. In addition to allowing 17 runs against Milwaukee on Friday, the Twins were tagged for 16 runs twice against the Texas Rangers earlier this month.
Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said the losses — like the wins — were a team effort.
“We’ve got to just, overall, play better baseball,” Baldelli said.
The skipper turned to infielder Jonah Bride to pitch the ninth inning on Friday with the score well out of reach. Bride made his fourth relief appearance of the season, and he was bashed for five runs, raising his ERA to 15.00.
“That’s obviously not the sign you’re looking for when your position players are being entered into the game,” Baldelli said. “You want to avoid that at all costs. We can’t allow ourselves to be put in that type of spot where we have to do it.
“All that said, there’s nothing here that I’m saying that’s going to be directed at any one player. We’ve got to come together as a team right now and collectively step up, myself included.”
Brewers veteran left-hander Jose Quintana (4-2, 3.35 ERA) will look to build upon the strong outing turned in Friday by teammate Jacob Misiorowski. The rookie took a perfect game into the seventh inning and wound up allowing two runs on one hit in six-plus frames.
Quintana will aim to break a five-game winless streak in which he has a 5.47 ERA. Most recently, he permitted seven runs (five earned) on eight hits in 4 1/3 innings against the St. Louis Cardinals on June 14.
In 22 career starts against the Twins, Quintana is 8-8 with a 3.93 ERA. He made one start against Minnesota in 2024, and he allowed one run on five hits in six innings.
The Twins will counter with right-hander Simeon Woods Richardson (2-3, 5.13 ERA). He is riding a five-game winless streak, too, despite throwing five scoreless innings of one-hit ball against the host Houston Astros on Sunday.
Woods Richardson never has faced the Brewers in his career.
Twins infielder Brooks Lee will look to stay hot at the plate. He singled on Friday, extending his hitting streak to a career-high 19 games. He is batting .333 (25-for-75) during the surge.
–Field Level Media
