Eight is Enough: How Brewers Should Plan to Carve Through Dodgers Lineup One Last Time

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In his postgame press conference after Game 3 of the 2026 National League Championship Series, Pat Murphy didn't even bother to announce a starting pitcher for Game 4.

"There will be pitching, yes," he quipped, when asked about it by reporters. That's as glib a retort as A.J. Hinch offered two years ago, when asked what his plans were for a pitching staff that was very much a patchwork behind Cy Young-caliber ace Tarik Skubal. Hinch then called his plan "pitching chaos," which is roughly what Murphy will have in mind when Game 4 begins Thursday night.

Starters Jacob Misiorowski and Robert Gasser are entirely off-limits for this game. Logan Henderson, who started Game 2 on Monday and would pitch again in Game 6 if the series goes that far, will appear only if the contest stretches deep into extra innings. Abner Uribe should be down, and DL Hall threw 28 pitches in a heroic effort in Game 3, so he should be used only in one specific, extremely limited situation, which we'll discuss later. The other eight pitchers on the team's roster all need to be wearing their spikes, though, and none should bother settlinjg too deep into a chair in the visitors' bullpen. Here's a sketch of the plan that makes the most sense for Milwaukee during this potential clincher.

The Tone-Setter: Dustin May

Over half the pitchers who will be truly available to Murphy Thursday night are comfortable starting games. Shane Drohan, Kyle Harrison and Dustin May were starters for much of the season. Chad Patrick has started 29 games in the majors, though only six of them came this year. Antonio Senzatela turned a corner when he transitioned to relief, but that was just this season; the lion's share of his career has been spent in the rotation. Thus, comfort with toeing the rubber to start the game is only a minor concern here. Murphy has the luxury of choosing his starter on the basis of matchups, because whoever starts, they'll be around for no more than (and perhaps much less than) three innings.

May is the clear choice. He cleaned up the mess Henderson had made for himself in the fifth inning of Game 2 almost perfectly, and it was because the pocket of the lineup against which he pitched was perfect for him. Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Teoscar Hernández are the most likely top three in the Dodgers order in Game 4. They're the same trio May faced and beat in Game 2, and that's not a coincidence. He has the arsenal to handle those three—especially Freeman, against whom you would rather have a good four-seamer even from a righty than a sinker, even from a lefty. May is a bad matchup, from the Brewers' perspective, for only one important Dodgers batter: Max Muncy. If possible, Murphy should get 3-5 outs from May and get him out of the game before he faces Muncy. If that's not possible, the hope, at least, should be to face him with no one on base. At some point in the game, via usage of his bench or otherwise, Dave Roberts will get a good matchup out of that lineup spot. It's ok if it's right away. May just needs to throw unreservedly, touching 100 miles per hour again, and let his teammates take over quite early.

It's Time: Shane Drohan

Here's the distribution of outs recorded by the 13 pitchers who have been on the roster in each of the first two rounds of the postseason for the Brewers, through NLCS Game 3:

Aaron Ashby - 28
Logan Henderson - 27
Robert Gasser - 27
Jacob Misiorowski - 25
Abner Uribe - 19
Trevor Megill - 17
DL Hall - 16
Dustin May - 12
JoJo Romero - 10
Antonio Senzatela - 5

That list is only 10 names long because, so far, Shane Drohan, Kyle Harrison and Chad Patrick have been completely left out of the action. That's understandable. Nearly every game the team has played has been close; nearly every at-bat has been potentially pivotal. Murphy has diminished trust in Harrison (who only began to look like his first-half self in small ways at the tail end of the season, after a long period of struggle) and Patrick (who got very erratic down the stretch). Drohan, though, has been left out almost by accidents of circumstance.

It's not terribly hard to find a fit for Drohan against the Dodgers lineup, especially if Roberts writes out a card predicated on getting to May. Shohei Ohtani and Max Muncy are vulnerable to the sinker that fronted Drohan's arsenal late in the season. If and when he goes back to the four-seamer to attack some of the right-handed bats he sees, a walk or two might result, but that's fine. This won't be a long appearance. The goal should be 3-6 outs, depending on how things go. Drohan is the no-brainer complement to May and the counterpunch to any attempt by Roberts to stack the lineup against the righty.

A Mid-Game Neutralizer: Antonio Senzatela

Yet to appear in this round, Senzatela enters this game as almost a secret weapon for Murphy. The Dodgers know him, because he pitched a long time in their division and was there even this season, as a reliever, and Muncy and Andy Pages each took him deep this season. However, he struck Pages out the other two times he saw him. Senzatela is a good matchup, from the Brewers' perspective, for both Teoscar and Enrique Hernández, and a tolerable one for Ohtani and Will Smith. Murphy should avoid having him face either Betts or Freeman, but there's room for him to cut out a chunk of Los Angeles's lineup and give the team a bridge inning without suffering any damage. His tenure with Milwaukee hasn't been especially satisfying so far, but he could be part of sewing up the pennant, thanks to his recent adjustments.

The Pure Situationals: Kyle Harrison, Chad Patrick, and JoJo Romero

It's always wise to start with a clear plan. There are few versions of this game in which May, Drohan and Senzatela should not pitch, so they should be the first three arms to whom Murphy turns. With any luck, he'll gain valuable information about the game before it's time to lift the third of those guys. Maybe one of them will have quickly blown up; that would be ok. The Brewers have tons of breathing room in the series. Maybe they'll sail unexpectedly through 16 outs, while the Brewers put five runs on the board. That, obviously, would be ideal. Either way, Murphy should know more about the game (and, therefore, what the rest of the night should look like) by the middle of the contest.

Depending on what he learns, he's likely to turn to one of Harrison, Patrick and Romero next. Patrick has the clearest set of use cases, though they diverge in a fascinating way. They are:

The game is getting away from the Brewers, and Murphy needs someone to cover innings. Patrick is the safest bet to get him from Out No. 13 to Out No. 24, if it's one of those nights where the team is down four runs early and there's no sign of life from the offense. This feels unlikely, but it's an option. More broadly, Patrick is the right guy to use if the Brewers are down and need multiple innings of work.
The team needs to get out Pages or either Hernández, in a jam. Those players struggle against pitch mixes like Patrick's, and he should be able to rescue the Crew if needed—but it needs to be a situation where getting that one batter can swing the game and end the inning.

Romero is a natural fit against this lineup, but he has to be a targeted weapon deployed against the right lefty batter. Freeman's bat path makes him dangerous against even fellow lefties, if their heater is a sinker like Romero's. In Game 2, he pitched against Ohtani, Smith and Muncy. That's the pocket where he fits better.

Harrison, by contrast, is the right guy to go after Freeman—if Murphy and the Brewers believe he can throw strikes and achieve the ride on the heater that made him great for the first half of this year. The working version of Gravitron is perfect to neutralizing Freeman, but the Brewers have to have confidence (based on feedback and data from his side sessions since he last pitched in a competitive environment) that he can throw the same fastball he threw early this year before they give him the ball to get an important out.

This is where Hall comes back into the conversation. He worked hard in Game 3, and saving him for a potential Game 5 makes some sense; the rest of the bullpen will be coming off some significant work. If Freeman should come up in a key spot with two outs, though, Hall should be ready. He can do what Harrison can do, but he also has a wider array of ways to get outs, and the team has (or should have) much more faith in him to be the guy they expect and need when he steps on the rubber. He can't be asked for another three or four outs, after what he did Wednesday night, but in the right very limited spot, he could still be useful, pushing Harrison deeper into the cabinet.

How Many Outs Can You Get: Aaron Ashby and Trevor Megill

Murphy gave the ball to Megill for a four-out save in Game 3. If at all possible, he should restrict his closer to three outs (and one "up") in Game 4, so the name of the game is to get to the end of the eighth inning with the lead and without calling on the big fella. That responsibility will fall to Ashby, who pitched a lot in Games 1 and 2 but got the night off Wednesday and is now on two days' rest. It's reasonable to guess that Milwaukee will ask him for six outs. Murphy might even go for nine, if much of the above goes poorly or he wants to hold Drohan back in case of extra frames. Expect to see Ashby early, and if there's any way to do so, Murphy will simply go straight from his most trusted lefty to his closer.

This is just one roadmap to a pennant. At this point, the Brewers have a bunch of them. Game 4 might be the ugliest of the series to date. It will be the toughest slog for Milwaukee. But it might also be a showcase of their depth and their teamwork. It's hard to imagine a more fitting way for this particular club to finally make it to the World Series.