MILWAUKEE -- The Kentucky Derby isn’t for another couple of weeks, but once the Brewers got runners on base Sunday afternoon at American Family Field, they were the ones off to the races.
Second baseman Brice Turang led off the first inning with a single. After a strikeout by right fielder Jackson Chourio, Turang stole second ahead of a walk to left fielder Christian Yelich. Then, Turang and Yelich had a successful double steal (a throwing error on the play allowed both runners to move up another base, scoring Turang).
Here’s how the rest of the exciting inning went down (as Milwaukee began to run away with an eventual 14-1 victory):
? Designated hitter William Contreras walked
? First baseman Rhys Hoskins drove in Yelich with an RBI single
? Contreras and Hoskins were successful on another double steal, followed by a balk
? Center fielder Sal Frelick walked and stole second base, while Hoskins scored on a throwing error
By the end of the first frame, Milwaukee had scored four times against A’s starter Jeffrey Springs. But more impressively, the Brewers recorded a franchise-record six stolen bases in one inning -- becoming the first team in at least the Divisional Era (1969) to accomplish the feat (per MLB.com’s Sarah Langs).
Turang, Frelick and third baseman Caleb Durbin later stole a base in the second, third and fourth, respectively, giving Milwaukee nine total steals through the first four innings. That mark set the franchise record for stolen bags in a single game (the previous record was eight steals on Aug. 29, 1992 at Toronto), and it also made them just the fifth team this century to accomplish this feat.
Frelick eventually got caught trying to steal second in the fifth inning, costing Milwaukee a chance to become just the fourth team in the Live-Ball Era (since 1920) to steal 10 or more bases in one game.
“That's one of the ways we win,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “We win by collecting hits, taking walks, stealing bases, having the threat to steal, which gives you a better pitch to hit sometimes. That's one of the ways we can beat you.”
“This club, they run,” A’s manager Mark Kotsay said. “They take advantage of some slow times to the plate. With Springs today, they read his leg kick really well and they ran on every high leg kick. For Lang [catcher Shea Langeliers], he just gets rushed and tries to overcompensate for that and let a couple throws get away from him.
“Again, this team has got the speed to steal bases, and you’ve got to be able to contain them.”
It’s worth noting that the steals got spread around the lineup a bit.
Two of Milwaukee’s speedier players in Turang (three steals) and Frelick (two steals, one caught stealing) led the way and still sit atop the Brewers’ leaderboard with eight and seven, respectively. But consider that Contreras and Hoskins got in on the action.
Contreras debuted in 2020, Hoskins in 2017. Including their steals Sunday, that duo has combined for 39 stolen bases in the big leagues.
“That's just part of the game,” Turang said. “It puts pressure on people. It is what it is. It adds pressure. It makes them at least think about it. So it's good when your whole lineup can run around and steal bases and stuff like that.”
The Brewers now lead the Majors with 33 steals on the season, one more than Seattle. According to FanGraphs’ Base Running Runs Above Average metric, they entered Sunday as the fourth-ranked (2.8) baserunning team in the Majors.
But that’s not a new phenomenon in Milwaukee. Over the last few years, the Brewers have consistently been one of baseball’s better teams at causing havoc on the bases. In fact, between the start of the ‘18 season -- the first year of this run of success -- through Saturday, they had stolen the fourth-most bases (788) and ranked fifth in Base Running Runs Above Average (35.0).
It’s no surprise, then, that when they found the opportunity to swipe a bunch of bags, they took it -- over and over again.
“That's the game we play, so we got to just keep playing it,” Turang said.