OOTP 21 Season Sim: Brewers near halfway point just below .500

We may be without baseball on TV right now, but that doesn’t mean we can’t play the Brewers’ 50th anniversary season anyway. Thanks to Out of the Park Baseball 21 — the latest installment of the best baseball sim out there — we’ll be bringing you the “results” of the last week of Brewers games every week.

Friday, June 19th - Diamondbacks 4, Brewers 3 (10 innings)

The Brewers took a 2-0 lead in the first inning of this game, but needed a 9th inning rally to tie it late before eventual heartbreak. Omar Narvaez continued his All-Star push with the game-tying home run to lead off the 9th, and Justin Smoak followed with a double off Arizona closer Archie Bradley. Smoak would get to third with nobody out, but the Brewers were unable to get him home.

Arizona would end up tightroping out of that situation and wound up winning the next inning, when Eduardo Escobar delivered the game-winning double off of Devin Williams.

Saturday, June 20th - Brewers 2, Diamondbacks 1 (11 innings)

Freddy Peralta and Madison Bumgarner both pitched well, allowing just 1 run each, and both teams went 7 straight innings without scoring before Jedd Gyorko crushed a go-ahead solo home run in the top of the 11th inning to steal the win.

Sunday, June 21st - Brewers 9, Diamondbacks 5

Brandon Woodruff struggled once again, allowing 5 runs over 5+ innings — 4 of which came in the game’s first 2 innings — but Milwaukee’s bats were able to keep up and bust the game open in the 8th inning by scoring 4 runs off Andrew Chafin.

Luis Urias continued the strong start to his first season with the Brewers, delivering the go-ahead RBI single to score Narvaez. Brock Holt followed with a 2-run triple, and Smoak capped the big inning by driving Holt in with a single.

Angel Perdomo finished out the game with 2 scoreless innings, throwing 15 of his 24 pitches for strikes and striking out 2 to help the Brewers seal a rare road series win.

Monday, June 22nd - Blue Jays 10, Brewers 7

Getting another chance in the rotation, Josh Lindblom instead imploded against the young and talented Toronto lineup. Lindblom gave up 5 runs in the top of the first inning, the big blow coming on a 3-run home run by Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. as fans were still filing into Miller Park.

Old friend Travis Shaw also got a bit of revenge in this game, taking Adrian Houser deep in the 5th inning to pad the Toronto lead.

The Brewers were able to claw their way back into the game despite the early deficit, scoring 6 runs between the 4th and 7th innings, but the Jays put the game out of reach with 3 runs in the top of the 9th. Brewers pitching clearly wasn’t good in this game, but also didn’t get much help behind them, with the defense committing 4 errors.

Tuesday, June 23rd - Brewers 5, Blue Jays 3

Corbin Burnes turned in an impressive start, striking out 9 batters while only allowing 2 runs over 5.2 innings, and the Brewers blasted 4 home runs in support of him to even the interleague series at a game apiece.

Lorenzo Cain led the charge, homering to lead off the bottom of the first inning for the Brewers, and hitting another solo home run in the 5th inning. Christian Yelich also homered off of Wei-Yin Chen in the 1st inning, and Eric Sogard homered against his former team — already his 8th of the year — in the 2nd.

Wednesday, June 24th - Brewers 9, Blue Jays 3

The Brewers are now a game within getting back to .500, and Narvaez continues to make a statement, hitting 2 home runs to power the team to another series win.

Keston Hiura was the other big factor, driving in 4 runs on the afternoon, including a 2-run home run — his 15th of the year — in the 7th inning.

Brent Suter allowed 2 home runs but was able to limit the Jays to 3 runs over 6.1 innings, before J.P. Feyereisen and Eric Lauer threw a scoreless 2.2 innings to finish out the game.

Record over the last week: 4-2
Overall record: 39-40
Standings: 2nd place, 4.5 GB in NL Central, 3.5 GB in NL Wildcard

Hitting Storyline of the Week: While Omar Narvaez has his defensive deficiencies, he’s arguably been the best offensive catcher in the National League through the first half of the season. Trailing J.T. Realmuto by just 30,000 votes at the last All-Star count, Narvaez is now hitting .326/.434/.516 with 8 home runs and 44 RBI, racking up 2.7 WAR. He’s on pace for 5.5 WAR, which would top Yasmani Grandal’s 2019 WAR total.

Pitching Storyline of the Week: If the Brewers could get any consistency from their starting rotation beyond Brent Suter and Freddy Peralta, they’d be in much better shape in the division race. There’s still about a month to go before the trade deadline, but the Brewers’ much-maligned farm system may not be able to help much — especially with Brice Turang missing much of the first half due to injury and playing poorly when he’s been healthy.

Next Week: vs. PIT (6/26, 6/27, 6/28), @ CHC (6/29, 6/30, 7/1, 7/2)

Since we’re virtually at the season’s halfway point, now seems like a good time to look at where everyone is at statistically through roughly the first half, sorted by WAR.