Better Be Perfect: Brewers Offense Continues to Punish Any Pitcher Who Doesn't Finish With Two Strikes

It's been a theme since the earliest days of spring training. Brewers batters came out of the gates hot in the Cactus League, driving the ball over the fence regularly, and something interesting jumped out: they did it even when pitchers appeared to have the advantage in the count against them. They had generated more power in two-strike counts in 2024 than almost any other offense in the league, and in talking to players and coaches in early March, it was clear that that was a product of intention, not chance.

"Put it in football terms," Pat Murphy said at the time. "You still want to be able to score a touchdown on 3rd-and-1."

Throughout 2025, they've shown that same explosiveness. They can still take the top off a defense, just when a pitcher thinks they have the edge and are about to (metaphorically) finish the at-bat with baseball's answer to a sack: the strikeout. This regular season, with two strikes, the Brewers batted .187/.266/.288. That sounds atrocious, but all players hit badly when we isolate at-bats that get to two strikes. In fact, by weighted on-base average, the Crew were third-best in baseball in two-strike counts, and their run value per 100 pitches seen in those counts was the second-best in the league.

This is, in brief, how they beat the Chicago Cubs in the NLDS. It was with two strikes (and two outs) that Blake Perkins hit the single that really cracked Game 1 open, and with two strikes (and two outs) that Jackson Chourio smashed the two-run single that fully ignited the party that day. It was with two strikes (and two outs!) that Andrew Vaughn hit the huge, three-run answering homer in the bottom of the first inning in Game 2, and with two strikes (and two outs!) that Chourio hit the three-run gamebreaker later in that contest. There were two strikes (and two outs) when William Contreras homered to put the Brewers ahead in the first in Game 5, and two strikes (and two outs) when Vaughn launched a second go-ahead dinger in the fourth.

If we lock all the way in on two-strike, two-out situations, the Brewers were first in both wOBA and run value per 100 pitches this regular season. They didn't do something wild and out of character in the Division Series. On the contrary, that was their suite of strengths shining through in predictable fashion.

Now, of course, they have to try to do the same thing against the Los Angeles Dodgers, which is a much tougher task. The Cubs were 21st in strikeout rate and 27th in opponents' contact rate on swings this year, whereas the Dodgers were second in both categories. If the high-priced hurlers on the defending champions can miss bats, they'll be able to shut down the Brewers, because so much of Milwaukee's offense depends on putting the ball in play and creating pressure on the defense—and, more often than most teams, hitting two-strike pitches a long way. However, if the Brewers can keep spoiling pitches and working deep counts, then pouncing on mistakes, they can create headaches even for the mighty Dodgers.

There's something electrifying about an offense constructed this way—about an offense that operates this way. They seem to have a stronger knack for maintaining confidence and having a plan even with two strikes and two outs than most teams. To, as Murphy said, 'put it in football terms', they play through the whistle. It's a rare trait, and a hard thing to quantify—even the numbers above don't do the value of it full justice. They break opponents' hearts and spirits by coming up with such big, frustrating hits when their backs seem to be against the wall. Doing that against the likes of Blake Snell and Shohei Ohtani will be harder than doing it against Matthew Boyd and Drew Pomeranze, but there's a very real chance that they'll do it—and if they do, the reward will be the franchise's first pennant in over four decades.