Andrew Vaughn, Milwaukee Brewers Stay Red-Hot

Updated

Andrew Vaughn’s career resurgence coincides with the ascension of the hottest team in baseball.

The 27-year-old former Cal star had two more hit on Sunday after driving in two runs Saturday as the Milwaukee Brewers ran their win streak to a season-best 10 games with Sunday's 6-5 road victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Milwaukee has beaten L.A. in each of their six meetings this summer and .finished a season sweep Sunday afternoon at Dodger Stadium against future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw.

Kershaw entered Sunday's game 4-1 on the season with his only previous defeat coming at the hands of the Brewers. Vaughn drove in a run in Milwaukee’s 3-1 victory in that July 8 game.

Vaughn had success against Kershaw on Sunday as well, drawing a walk in his first at bat, then getting a single in the fifth inning that knocked Kershaw out of the game.

Vaughn finished the game 2-for-3 with two walks as he reached base on four of his five plate appearances. He failed to get on base in his fifth and final plate appearance of the game in the ninth inning when he flied out

In his eight games with the Brewers, Vaughn is hitting .391 with a .513 on-base percentage. And on Sunday he was batting third in the order, thanks to his recent run production. He collected two RBIs on Saturday, giving him 12 runs batted in in his first seven games with the Brewers.

The first baseman got his first RBI on Saturday with a sacrifice fly in the third inning, then plated a key insurance run with an RBI single in the seventh inning.

Vaughn’s 12 RBIs are the most by any Brewers player through his first seven games.

Andrew Vaughn | Patrick Gorski-Imagn Images

Brewers manager Pat Murphy, referring to Vaughn but also several other players who have contributed to the team’s surge, said, "They’re hungry. Like I've said, hungry players can do some special things.”

His new teammates also are impressed but seemingly not surprised by Vaughn’s production.

"He’s had really good at-bats," Joey Ortiz said. "He’s come through, knocked in some runs for us. He’s a really good hitter. I saw him in college, so I always knew he was a really good hitter.”

Vaughn won the Golden Spikes Award as the best amateur player in the country when he batted .402 with 23 home runs as a Cal sophomore in 2018. A year later, after earning first-team All-America honors for the second year in a row, he entered the MLB draft.

The Brewers (59-40) have pulled even with the Chicago Cubs atop the NL Central division and own, by far, the best record in baseball at 34-12 since May 25.

Vaughn spent the first 4 1/2 seasons of his big league career with the Chicago White Sox, the team that drafted him No. 3 overall out of Cal in 2019.

Batting just .189 through 48 games, Vaughn was sent to Triple-A Charlotte on May 22. The White Sox then traded him to the Brewers on June 13 and Vaughn spent three weeks with the Triple-A Nashville Sounds.

He was promoted to the Brewers’ big-league club on July 6 and his career has experienced a 180-degree turn for the good.

It’s still a small sample size, but consider Vaughn's final seven games with the White Sox vs. his first eight with the Brewers:

White Sox (May 15-21): Batted .160 with no home runs in 1 RBI as Chicago went 1-6.

Brewers (July 20): Batted .391 with 2 doubles, 2 home runs and 12 RBIs as Milwaukee went 8-0.

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