There have been 24 games played at Miller Park this season, and we’ve learned one thing for sure: baseballs like to fly out of the Milwaukee Brewers’ stadium.
Bernie Brewer has had to up his pregame stretching routine for his trip down the slide in left field.
That’s because Milwaukee, which owns a 16-8 record at home and 12-13 on the road, has clobbered 45 dingers in home games this season, the highest number of dingers for a home team in Major League Baseball. There have been 85 overall home runs hit at Miller Park this season, good for the second most among all stadiums in baseball.
It all adds up to a 7.1% home run contact rate -- meaning 7.1% of baseballs put in play at Miller Park result in homers.
Milwaukee’s band of sluggers have been tough to face at home from the very beginning. The Brewers own a league-high .522 slugging percentage against opposing starting pitchers at Miller Park, hitting for a .280 average against them in the process.
The Brewers have a chance to add to those numbers at home during their quick two-game set with Cincinnati, starting Tuesday at 6:40 p.m.
NOTABLE
-- Don’t be fooled by the Reds’ record of 21-26. Sure, it isn’t glamorous, but their plus-24 run differential is the highest (by a long shot) among teams with losing records. In second place is the 22-25 Oakland Athletics (+15).
-- Also contributing to Cincinnati’s losing record has been 13 one-run losses, the most in the major leagues. The Reds have a 7-13 record in one-run games while the Brewers are 9-4, good for the second-best winning percentage in baseball (.692).
-- The Reds’ offense hasn’t been supporting two of their starting pitchers. Sonny Gray owns a 3.68 ERA and 1.05 WHIP on the road, but Cincinnati scores just 2.0 runs when he’s on the mound away from home. Fellow Reds starter Tyler Mahle has it even worse, backed by an average of just 1.71 runs per game. Only three other National League pitchers -- Miami’s Pablo Lopez (1.20), Washington’s Anibal Sanchez (2.20) and Chicago’s Kyle Hendricks (2.80) also see fewer than three runs of support on the road.
-- Signed by Milwaukee in late April, Gio Gonzalez has been stellar on the mound. In three May starts, Gonzalez has compiled a 1.10 ERA, allowing just two runs in 16 1/3 innings. Milwaukee has won three of his four starts this season, the only loss being a 5-2 defeat in New York on April 28.
-- In the month of May, Brewers slugger Ryan Braun boasts the fifth-best OPS mark in all of baseball at 1.163. Cincinnati’s Derek Dietrich, who has six homers and 12 RBI in May, ranks third in the National League with a .738 slugging percentage this month.
Statistics courtesy Sportradar, baseball-reference.com
