Chew on these interesting Brewers stats and facts as September starts

The Milwaukee Brewers didn't close August on a great note, but they're in amazing shape for a playoff spot and division title with one month of baseball still to play.

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Here are some statistical curiosities that may have caught your attention, or not, as we hit the home stretch:

We just saw the second-worst month of Brice Turang's career, but that doesn't preclude a rebound

Brice Turang batted .175 with a .266 on-base percentage and a .247 slugging mark in August 2026, with one home run and three stolen bases (but two caught stealing). It was the worst month of his past two seasons and second-worst monthly stat line in his career, except for a bleak July 2024, when he batted .169 with a .221 on-base mark and a .191 slugging percentage.

But Turang's streakiness has been pretty noticeable over the past two years. Last August, he was a monster, with a .343 average, .398 on-base mark, .594 slugging and 10 (!) home runs. In July, though, he batted .209, slugged .302 and had one homer.

Monthly splits are obviously crude measures, but it's kind of remarkable how Turang has more or less alternated good and bad months over the past two years. His slash marks since the start of 2025:

• March/April 2025: .317/.368/.408
• May 2025: .207/.324/.283
• June 2025: .333/.390/.441
• July 2025: .209/.258/.302
• August 2025: .343/.398/.694
• September 2025: .294/.400/.435
• March/April 2026: .291/.422/.505
• May 2026: .231/.355/.363
• June 2026: .252/.297/.468
• July 2026: .309/.385/.526
• August 2026: .175/.266/.247

Obviously, this can't be extrapolated to pronounce that he'll bounce back in a big way in September, but it wouldn't be uncommon for Turang to struggle mightily and then change course.

Sadly, the dream of Aaron Ashby leading the league in wins is dying

For a while this season, one of the more entertaining story lines was relief pitcher Aaron Ashby's uncanny ability to rack up wins. But the pipe dream of him leading the league has faded.

Though it remains possible, Ashby has just two wins in the past two months, entering September at 13-2. Boston's Sonny Gray and Philadelphia's Cristopher Sánchez are up to 16 wins. Cincinnati's Chase Burns and Cleveland's Foster Griffin have 15, and four others have 14, including Ashby's teammate, Jacob Misiorowski.

The win stat remains a relic from a time gone by, but it still would have been fun to see Ashby push for the top of the heap. Perhaps the vulturing will continue in September.

Has any team ever lost a seven-game lead in a division in September?

The Brewers start the month with a seven-game lead over the Chicago Cubs in the National League Central, though six head-to-head opportunities remain for the Cubs to get back into the race.

How concerned should Brewers fans be?

As you might imagine, the answer is "not very." Unfortunately, we have some recent history to provide a jump scare, though.

Detroit headed into September 2025 with a 9½-game lead over Kansas City in the American League Central Division and 10½ over Cleveland. The Guardians went on a tear to win the Central by one game over Detroit.

The Tigers still made the playoffs but went from the AL's No. 1 seed to a wild-card series, which they won before losing a heartbreaker to Seattle in the AL Championship Series.

The three-division system was implemented in 1994. Not counting that strike-shortened season or the 2020 season shortened by COVID-19, any division leader with at least a five-game lead has gone on to win the division 96% of the time. Here's a breakdown:

• Had a lead of eight or more games through Aug. 31: 52 instances, 51 teams won the division (alas, Detroit of 2025).
• Had a lead between 6½ and 7½ games (where the Brewers are): 20 instances, 19 won the division
• Had a lead between five and six games: 26 instances, 24 won the division

In the middle category, California lost the lead to Seattle in 1995. It bears some mention that the season was limited to 144 games coming off the 1994 strike, though that doesn't really change the circumstances of how things unfolded in September.

California started with a 6½-game lead and lost a one-game playoff with Seattle on Oct. 2. California actually lost its lead by Sept. 20 and had to battle back from three games down on Sept. 26 to force the playoff.

And one last example to make you nervous. In 2011, Atlanta was in second place in the East but had an 8½-game lead over St. Louis for the NL wild card after Aug. 31's games. The Cards surged back to shock the Braves and keep them out of the playoffs in one of the most stunning September comebacks/collapses in MLB memory. The Cardinals went 18-8 in September and the Braves went 9-18.

The Brewers are now tied for last in home runs

After owning the spot for the fewest home runs this season by themselves, their 127 homers are tied with Cleveland for last place. Cleveland also happens to be a playoff team. In fact, if the season ended today, the team ranked No. 20 in MLB home runs (San Diego at 150), No. 22 (Tampa Bay at 142), No. 24 (Boston at 140), No. 29 and No. 30 would all be in, with No. 26 (Arizona at 136) a half-game out of a playoff spot.

For what it's worth, six of the top 10 teams would also be playoff teams, the Cubs (No. 1 at 196), New York Yankees (No. 3 at 190), Astros (No. 4 at 183), Chicago White Sox (No. 6 at 181), Atlanta (No. 7 at 174) and Los Angeles Dodgers (No. 8 at 169). Baltimore (No. 9 at 168) is a half-game out.

If you missed it last week, MLB.com writer Mike Petriello wrote a fascinating look at how the Brewers are top-five in all of baseball with home runs in scoring position despite their low standing on the overall chart, highlighting their ability to maximize their power output.

The Brewers also emphasize opposite-field hitting more than any other team in baseball, by far.

The Brewers have five players with double-digit homers, which would be their fewest to reach that threshold in a full season since the 2015 team had four. Garrett Mitchell and Christian Yelich, however, are both sitting at nine homers.

We do not talk about Trevor Megill enough

In April, Megill had back-to-back rough outings, yielding seven runs in a combined one inning against Washington and Toronto. Behold what he's done since.

In 47⅓ innings since those hiccups, Megill has a 0.95 ERA, allowing seven runs (five earned) and 10 walks with 22 hits, 52 strikeouts and zero home runs.

He just went through August working 12 innings and allowing just two hits, one unearned run and seven strikeouts. If you throw in July with August, he has a 0.44 ERA in 20⅓ innings, with 14 strikeouts, one earned run and eight hits.

The Brewers bullpen has the third-best ERA in baseball entering Sept. 1 (3.36), behind the Yankees and Red Sox. If we subtracted position player Andrew Vaughn's two innings (and, to be fair, Gary Sánchez's two scoreless innings), it falls to 3.22.

Next among NL teams is Atlanta (3.40), which doesn't change if we subtract the 2⅓ innings of position players.

Megill has been the linchpin at the back of the bullpen, and he's gotten through 20 outings of one inning or more without allowing any runs and throwing 12 pitches or fewer, including five of eight pitches or fewer.

The Brewers are wildly good in interleague play over the past five years

Milwaukee's 29-16 record in interleague play has been a huge boon, with three games left against American League teams this year – a series in Baltimore.

The Brewers are tied with the Dodgers with a .639 win percentage in interleague games since 2022 for the best mark in baseball, well ahead of the next team on the list (Philadelphia, which is at .584).

Joey Ortiz and Christian Yelich have nearly identical numbers for the season

That's a sentence you probably didn't expect to read.

Ortiz comes into the month with a .252 batting average, .317 on-base mark and .380 slugging (.697 OPS). Yelich, meanwhile, has a .238 average, .318 on-base mark and .381 slugging for a .699 OPS.

Yelich has looked better in recent weeks, but it sheds light on how Ortiz has improved since a slow start and how Yelich has scuffled, with an OPS-plus below 100 for the first time in his career and down to 93. He has nine homers this year, while Ortiz has seven.

Ortiz had an .830 OPS in August after breaking through in July with a .930 OPS.

Offensively, the players who have struggled the most are Sal Frelick (78 OPS-plus) and David Hamilton (80 OPS-plus), with Jake Bauers (145) at the other end of the spectrum.

The Brewers almost reached a franchise record for games over .500 ... and they still can

The Brewers fell just short of matching their high-water mark for games over .500, getting as high as 34 over after the second win over the Texas Rangers last weekend. With back-to-back losses that followed, it kept them from reaching 35 over, which would match the 2025 team (94-59 on Sept. 18) for the best mark in franchise history.

Obviously, it's still a goal they can reach. They're on pace to win 99 games, which would be the most wins in franchise history. The 2025 team won 97.

Other records that could fall in 2026

• Misiorowski's ERA (1.73) is trending to become the new single-season best for a qualified pitcher in club history. The current mark is 2.36 by Mike Caldwell in 1978.
• If the season ended today, Misiorowski would also set records in WHIP (.755, with the record held by 2021 Corbin Burnes at .940), hits per nine innings (4.709, with the record by 2025 Freddy Peralta at 6.317) and strikeouts per nine (13.232, with the record by 2021 Burnes at 12.611).
• Misiorowski needs 42 strikeouts to catch 2004 Ben Sheets (264) for the franchise mark. That might be tough, but 2022 Corbin Burnes (243) occupies the No. 2 spot, and that's reachable.

What's the most impactful play of the year?

According to Win Probability Added, which tracks the likelihood of a team winning a game after each play, the biggest play of the year to swing an outcome was William Contreras' walk-off home run July 19 against Miami, a two-run homer with one out in the ninth.

Next on the list? Christian Yelich's home run in the bottom of the eighth against Chicago White Sox reliever Seranthony Dominguez on March 29, turning a 6-5 deficit into a 9-7 lead.

The biggest defensive play? Joel Kuhnel escaping a bases-loaded jam in the ninth inning of a 6-5 game against the Reds on June 24, retiring Dane Myers with a double-play grounder.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Chew on these interesting Brewers stats and facts as September starts

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