A Little Exposed: Where Things Stand for Brewers, Padres Pitching Staffs After Game 1

In a best-of-5 series that either extends or ends your season, every little thing matters. It's important to spot small mechanical issues and correct them before a hurler's whole day derails. It's important to have a thorough plan that sets up each hitter to make the right swing decision as often as possible. And if you can help it, you want to avoid giving good hitters a third look at the same reliever.

One game into their NLDS showdown, neither the Brewers nor the Padres are in a great position to do that. Robbie Ray got San Diego just eight outs in Game 1, which wasn't a huge surprise; the team will lean harder on Michael King and Nick Pivetta. It forced the Padres bullpen to give several Brewers hitters first looks at high-leverage arms, though. Here's a chart of how many times each Milwaukee batter saw each Padres hurler who appeared in Saturday's 3-2 Brewers win.

On the other side, though, things look (if anything) even more dire. Part of that is because the Padres got to bat nine times, whereas (by winning in standard fashion) the Brewers didn't get to hit in the bottom of the ninth, but another part is because Jacob Misiorowski only covered four innings and two trips through the batting order. Unlike Ray's early departure, that one was not expected, and it does not suit the Brewers' broader plan for the series well. Here's the same chart for Milwaukee pitchers and Padres hitters.

Because Misiorowski had to be lifted after 18 batters faced and the bullpen had to cover 15 outs, the top half of the Padres lineup has already gotten one look each at three Brewers righties: Antonio Senzatela, Abner Uribe and Trevor Megill. The bottom half saw Aaron Ashby and DL Hall once apiece.

There was some consternation among Brewers fans (especially in our game thread, which you should join for Game 2 and beyond!) about Pat Murphy removing Ashby when he did, in favor of Uribe. This is one reason why he did so. Chad Patrick is a tough matchup for some of the top Padres batters; his utility will be a bit diminished for this series. As Murphy and his staff looked at the rest of the series, they already knew they would be racing to find ways not to have Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado or Ty France face a high-leverage arm for a third time, since they were each likely to see at least one of Uribe and Megill in Game 1, even by that stage. Now, the next time Murphy needs to sneak through that pocket of the batting order, he has the option of using Ashby to do so. 

Of course, there are good reasons why the three righties got the top half of the order and the two lefties got the bottom half. Matchups govern these decisions, even more than familiarity does. Uribe is a good matchup for Tatis, Machado and France. He's not as good a fit for Jackson Merrill or Xander Bogaerts. The reverse is true of Hall. Working against the niceness of those matchups, though, is that they swing in the batter's favor if they see the same guy three or four times in a week.

Arguably, Craig Stammen made a crucial error by leaving Adrian Morejon in for the eighth inning, after he'd given up the game-winning home run to William Contreras in the seventh. Morejon faced all nine Milwaukee hitters, including pinch-hitter Andrew Vaughn. The Brewers will like their chances if Vaughn, Contreras and/or Chourio can get a third look at Morejon in the series; they all got closer to doing so by making him work Saturday night.

Neither side grabbed a clear advantage in this important game-within-the-game in Game 1, which makes the Brewers' win in the actual game even more vital. Each team is a bit more exposed than they'd like to be, heading into Game 2, but Milwaukee does so with a game in hand.

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