MILWAUKEE — Now that's how a division leader is supposed to protect its lead.
The Brewers took advantage of 10 walks Wednesday, mixed in a trio of long and well-timed home runs, and finished off a two-game sweep of the Twins, 10-4 at American Family Field.
While the NL Central leaders maintained their lead over the Cardinals, the Twins loosened their hold on the far weaker AL Central yet again — and managed to add more evidence that perhaps this current version isn't up to championship-level October matchups that winning the division would bring. By losing the season series to the Brewers for the first time since 2018, the Twins fell to 2-10 against the other current division leaders, and have been outscored 80-41.
"We definitely know they're a good club — very similar to us, actually," said Twins starter Chris Archer. "We came in expecting to win two, but baseball doesn't always go your way."
Not against a team that has come out of the All-Star break with five wins in six games, anyway. Rowdy Tellez crushed a pair of three-run home runs, becoming the fourth player in the past six seasons to rack up six RBI in a game against the Twins, and though Minnesota rallied to tie the score after his first blast, Corbin Burnes made sure it didn't happen a second time.
The Brewers righthander, the reigning NL Cy Young Award winner, struck out 11 Twins and — after a long 31-pitch second inning that included a single, two doubles and Jose Miranda's ninth home run of the season — retired 14 of the last 15 hitters he faced, 10 of them without the ball being put in play.
"I don't know what changed. To put up some runs against him and give yourself a chance to get back into the game, I was happy to see that," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. "It doesn't happen very often against Burnes. But he settled in and made adjustments."
Archer, on the other hand, was in trouble from the start, allowing the first four hitters he faced to reach base, and three of them to score on Tellez's sky-high (well, dome-high under the ballpark's roof) home run into the Brewers' bullpen.
"It was a terrible pitch, so from my viewpoint, he did what he was supposed to do," Archer said of the first-pitch, middle-of-the-plate changeup. "It was kind of [like that] the whole game. I didn't have the greatest feel for anything, really."
Which is why things didn't get much better for the Twins' righthander. He couldn't find the plate. Archer walked one batter in each of the first three innings, then walked all three hitters he faced in the fourth inning before Baldelli pulled him.
It was the second straight day that the Brewers knocked out Minnesota's starter early — Dylan Bundy lasted four innings in Tuesday's loss — and just as alarming, it was the second time in his last three starts that Archer issued a half-dozen walks, something no other Twins starter has done even once in three seasons.
"The one thing I can say is it's unacceptable and I've got to be better," Archer said. "In five days, I'm going to be significantly better, I can tell you that."
But starting pitching isn't the Twins' lone, or even biggest, weakness at the moment, and as proof, that bases-loaded inning got even worse when Archer left.
Jharel Cotton, who had allowed only one run in his previous 10 2/3 innings, struck out Tyrone Taylor to give the Twins hope. But then he walked Christian Yelich to force in a run, allowed a sacrifice fly by Willy Adames, and then surrendered Tellez's second three-run homer, a 410-foot rocket that ricocheted off the upper deck facing in right field.
Luis Urias added a two-run homer off Yennier Cano in the fifth inning, and the Twins could safely begin packing for their evening flight to San Diego, where they will face only a second-place team in the Padres.
Once Burnes left after throwing 102 pitches to earn his eighth win of the season, Kyle Garlick greeted lefty reliever Jake McGee with a first-pitch home run, his eighth of the season and sixth off lefthanders. But the Brewers' bullpen, perhaps the team's biggest strength, shut down the Twins in the eighth and ninth innings to complete the two-game sweep.
