The Brewers strike out in the tenth inning and sweep the Twins

Milwaukee — Corbin Burns has started a sweltering afternoon befitting of his title. Rookie Abner Uribe brought the heat like never before from a Milwaukee pitcher. The Brewers pulled off the hottest day at American Family Field in over a decade with an 8-7 victory over the Twins in 10 innings Wednesday afternoon.

After the Twins gained one lead in the top of the tenth inning, the Brewers stormed back thanks to a Willie Adams single to lead off the inning and Bryce Turang’s game-winning single to end it—a two-handed chopper to third base for a rookie’s first out in the major leagues.

By enduring a 100-degree heat and outrunning the Twins, the Brewers (70-57) won their fifth straight game and pushed 13 games above .500 for the first time since last July. They maintain a three-and-a-half-game lead over the second-place Cubs (66-60) in National League Central. The blast of air conditioning after the match has never been so good.

“It’s like anything else, you just have to stay in the fight,” said Brewers manager Craig Counsell. “We’ve been rewarded for staying in the fight. The contact wasn’t always so difficult, but we stayed in the fight and got positive results.

It was 97 degrees when Burns made his first pitch, the third hottest game day at the stadium since it opened as Miller Park in 2001. The stadium is equipped with a retractable roof to keep out rain, and can be specially heated. The coldest days are in April and October. But it doesn’t have air conditioning, so Burns and every pitcher who followed him to the mound fought conditions as much as opposing hitters.

Burns said he kept the same sweat-soaked uniforms throughout his 99-pitch effort, but teammate Victor Karatini went through two sets of catches and changed uniforms at least four times—some washed and dried in-game so he could. Put it on again. Home plate umpire Chris Segal was so overwhelmed in the late innings that he couldn’t keep replacement baseballs dry. Ben May, the second baseman, took over that duty instead.

“I told him, ‘This is the first time I’ve seen that,'” Adams said. “Every day you see something new in baseball.”

Burns refused to blame poor grip for a sub-par outing that lasted six innings but struck out six runs on eight hits (including three home runs, all with two outs) and one walk. As of the day, he had surrendered four double runs in his first 25 games.

But the Brewers hitters saved Burns by erasing a 6-3 deficit after he was knocked out after the top of the sixth. Adames hit a two-run home run in the bottom of that inning, giving him at least one RBI in five straight games, and a home run in three of the last four. Tyrone Taylor continued his final surge with a solo home run in the seventh that tied the game at 6-6.

Along the way, Uribe blasted a 103.3-mph fastball into a scoreless top of the seventh — a ball just outside the plate to leading Twins hitter Edward Julian — that represents the hardest pitch by a Brewers pitcher as tracked by Statcast, which has data back to 2008. Uribe broke his own record with a run of 1.1 miles per hour.

There is still room for improvement – Uribe said he hit 104mph in 2021 in the minors.

“Before that, I felt like I couldn’t control it very much,” Uribe said. “Now I’m more stable and can put things where I want them to be.”

Joel Byamps, Devin Williams, and Elvis Peguero also managed to maintain a grip on baseball as they followed Uribe, with only Peguero allowed to run. It came across a two-out dribbler in the tenth off Twins catcher Ryan Jeffers, who fumbled the line and crawled the last few feet to first base.

Once again, the Brewers are back at them. Adames kicked off with a game-tying single that snuck into Minnesota quarterback Michael A. Taylor. Three hits later, Adams was on third base when Milwaukee won the same way it beat the Twins the night before: by putting the ball into play.

“I was like, ‘I have to start running,'” said Turang, who clipped a 102.5 mph fastball over the third base line at 85 mph off the bat. “We were just fighting.”

The massive offensive turnaround has continued for the Brewers, who were limited to three runs during their sweep of Dodger Stadium last week, but have scored at least six runs in each game of their five-game winning streaks over division leaders Texas and Minnesota.

After Thursday — well timed, as the temperature is expected to hit triple digits again — the Brewers host the Padres this weekend before a pivotal three-game series against the Cubs at Wrigley Stadium.

“We’re playing good baseball,” Burns said. “That’s what it takes to beat good teams. That’s another first-place team that we played with today, and for us to make a deep run into the postseason and ultimately win this World Series, we’re going to have to get our good AB players together against really good pitchers.” We’ve done that for the last five days.”