Jack Stern

For the third season in a row, the Baseball Writers Association of America named Pat Murphy the National League Manager of the Year. Murphy became the first manager to win the award in three consecutive seasons and the 10th manager to win at least three times. It wasn't surprising. Murphy led a Brewers team that once again outperformed external expectations, this time with the greatest season in franchise history. Milwaukee won a franchise-best 103 games in the regular season, then breezed to its first World Series title with an 11-2 postseason. "With his 'win tonight' approach, Pat Murphy led our club to another historic season and the first World Series championship in franchise history," president of baseball operations and general manager Matt Arnold said in a statement. "His leadership has played a tremendous role in our success, and this third consecutive Manager of the Year Award is a well-deserved recognition of everything he means to our organization." Of the honors bestowed during baseball's award season, Manager of the Year may be the least precise. It's effectively the Outperforming External Expectations Award, and the manager is merely a fraction of that equation. A mediocre manager with a great roster and coaching staff will win games, and a great manager with poor personnel around him will lose games. Murphy knows that. Each time he's won the award, he has quickly redirected the spotlight to those around him. "The last three clubs that we've had, they've all been different, but there's a common theme between them and what they stand for," Murphy said. "Some of those players and some of those coaches deserve a lot of credit, so I'm not going to take too much time to reflect on myself." In Murphy's case, though, the threepeat reflects his success in unifying a large, diverse group of people around a common goal. Whether he'll admit it or not, he has imparted his character onto those three Brewers teams, and it's been integral to their success. Fittingly, Murphy accepted the award from a hospital bed the day after undergoing right hip replacement surgery. Between hip and back issues, he managed through debilitating pain without missing a game. Under Murphy's aggressive management style, the Brewers, too, powered through adversity, scratching and clawing until the final out of the World Series. Murphy establishes and enforces strict standards. His players bought in, meeting those standards while regularly repeating his mantras and analogies in the clubhouse. "One of the things that stuck out for me this year is that you do have to have a belief system," Murphy said. "We can all worry about bad outcomes, but can you train your brain? That's the thing. Can you train your brain to stay in that 'win tonight' attitude and not waste time worrying about things that you might not be able to control and have that belief?" That belief was the missing component during the Brewers' previous playoff runs. Jake Bauers acknowledged last month that they felt overmatched in last year's NLCS, when the Dodgers swept them in four games. This time, the Brewers expected to win the World Series, and they refused to relent until they hoisted the Commissioner's Trophy at Tropicana Field. Murphy was part of that turnaround. Before this year's rematch with the Dodgers, he reflected on his ill-fated attempt the previous October to motivate his players by painting them as underdogs. He dropped that messaging after it inadvertently laid the groundwork for the sweep. "I'm sorry I played that underdog card," Murphy said. "I probably shouldn't have played that and used that as an excuse for why we didn't play well. No, I don't care who the underdog is. I don't care who the favorite is. It's about getting in the ring and fighting it out. That's what it's about. We've proven during the season once again that we can win baseball games." The Brewers kept winning until there were no more games. Along the way, Murphy learned to place greater trust in their young core. "One of the big things is you have to trust your players, no matter how young," he said. "You have to trust Cooper Pratt. You have to trust him. When he senses you trust him, he's going to play better." Murphy has also adapted to an evolving coaching staff, learning to trust his colleagues and consolidate information from several baseball minds with different perspectives and approaches. "I'm not easy to work for, and it's probably designed that way," Murphy said. "It's really a continual exercise in taking their information, letting them know what you want, having them add their creativity in the way they coach, trying to find both strengths and weaknesses in what they do, and then trying to dissect what's the best way, what are the best job descriptions to help them help our team and help our players." Murphy is not the sole engine of the Brewers' success. It's a group effort that spans all levels of the organization. But he's become the face of the best team in baseball and sets the tone for them every day. A third straight Manager of the Year Award is well-deserved recognition. "The couple weeks have been, again, something to be really thankful for," he said. Image courtesy of Jonathan Dyer-Imagn Images View full article

As part of some 40-man roster housekeeping after the World Series, the Brewers outrighted relievers Bryse Wilson and Jared Koenig, both of whom elected free agency. Milwaukee needed spots to protect one or two eligible prospects from the Rule 5 Draft (even if the pending lockout will probably cancel it), and neither Wilson nor Koenig would have fit on the 2027 roster. Wilson is out of minor-league options, and while Koenig has one option year left, he's reached the point in his career where it no longer makes sense for the player or the team to keep him in limbo. To get through a 162-game season while starter workloads keep shrinking, the Brewers need a fresh reliever whenever possible. That means rotating pitchers through the last bullpen spot or two by shuttling them between Triple-A and the big leagues. If the new collective bargaining agreement places further restrictions on how often teams can option and recall a player throughout the season, they’ll need even more of those optionable relievers. Coleman Crow and Brandon Sproat have fallen down the rotation depth chart and have options remaining, so they could serve as shuttle relievers. The Brewers may prefer to keep them stretched out on starters’ schedules, though, which leaves the relief corps thin on readily available reinforcements. By cutting Wilson and Koenig, the Brewers made space to replace them with better shuttle arms, either by adding minor-leaguers to the 40-man roster or by acquiring optionable guys through trades or signings. For now, here are a few Triple-A relievers who could get more looks in Milwaukee throughout next season: Garrett Stallings Stallings already filled a shuttle role in the second half this year, tossing 14 scoreless innings across five different stints with the Brewers after they selected his contract at the end of June. A longtime minor-league swingman, the 29-year-old sits in the low 90s with underwhelming fastball shapes, but he mixes six different pitches. His slow changeup did most of the heavy lifting. It was Stallings’ most-used pitch to both lefties and righties, and it induced a 37.7% chase rate and a 75% whiff rate on those chases. It might not play as effectively once hitters grow more familiar with him, though. Stallings drops his arm angle by 14 degrees from his fastball to create more depth with his changeup, which means he can’t sell it as the sinkers or four-seamers he throws from an over-the-top slot. When a changeup looks different out of a pitcher’s hand, hitters learn to recognize it and stop chasing. He could be a roster casualty later in the winter, but Stallings has two optionable seasons left and impressed Pat Murphy and other members of the Brewers’ coaching staff this year. If he sticks through the winter, he could get plenty of low-leverage work early next season. Colton Gordon The other current 40-man member, Gordon joined the Brewers with Lance McCullers Jr. in a minor summer trade but didn’t debut until a bulk relief appearance on September 22, the night Milwaukee clinched a first-round playoff bye. As a funky low-slot lefty, he’s best served by pitching east-west, which the Brewers leaned into with a couple of changes. First, they slid him toward the first-base side of the rubber to add a bit more deception to his ride-run fastballs. Second, they shifted Gordon from a four-seamer to a two-seamer as his primary fastball. When he debuted for the Brewers, William Contreras called almost exclusively two-seamers and sweepers. It’s the right call for Gordon’s pitch mix. He throws both fastballs with pure backspin but low spin rates. That makes them similarly bad heaters; his four-seamer doesn’t have much carry, and his two-seamer doesn’t sink. Without enough carry, Gordon’s four-seamer runs directly into barrels for hard fly balls. For his career, it’s already yielded 16 home runs and a .583 xSLG. While his two-seamer is similarly flat, it averages about four more inches of arm-side run. That’s made it a ground-ball pitch, holding opponents to one home run and a .319 xSLG. The two-seamer doesn’t sink to get swings over the ball, but the extra run jams lefties and tails off the end of right-handed bats for grounders. Gordon’s ceiling is still limited, but as a strike-thrower who can miss enough barrels, he’ll help them in long relief throughout the year. Cameron Wagoner Wagoner is not on the 40-man roster but is a dark horse to be protected from the Rule 5 Draft in a few days. After missing two-plus seasons with a litany of elbow injuries, he returned as a full-time reliever and carved through the two highest levels of the minors. Between Double-A Biloxi and Triple-A Nashville, the 25-year-old authored a 28.6% strikeout-minus-walk rate. He finished the year allowing just one earned run and posting a 1.93 FIP in 16 Triple-A innings. Pitching in shorter stints boosted Wagoner’s velocity and let him simplify his arsenal. From a low arm slot, his upshoot four-seamer and sinker averaged north of 96 mph, and his tight slider induced whiffs on 50% of swings in Triple-A. Brett Wichrowski Unlike Wagoner, Wichrowski hasn’t put himself on the verge of a call-up. He’s also Rule 5-eligible, but the Brewers might feel comfortable leaving him unprotected after he limped to an ERA north of 6.00 at two levels this year. However, Wichrowski suffered from an unsustainably high 42.9% home-run-to-fly-ball ratio in Biloxi as the Southern League homer rate exploded, and the Brewers liked enough of what they saw under the hood to promote him to Nashville. After the promotion, the Brewers shifted Wichrowski to the bullpen, where his high-octane stuff can play up without great command. As a reliever, he leaned more heavily on his sinker and high-spin curveball, which generated a 50% whiff rate from Triple-A hitters. A lot has to go right for Wichrowski to see him in 2027, but a hot start could earn him a midseason promotion as a shuttle arm. Image courtesy of Eric Hartline-Imagn Images View full article

The dust is finally settling on the Brewers’ World Series win in Tampa Bay last week. Since Jake Bauers secured the final out of Milwaukee’s first championship and stuffed the ball in his back pocket last Wednesday night, it’s been a nonstop celebration. The Brewers partied in Tropicana Field’s visiting clubhouse. They returned home and partied at various Wisconsin sporting events. They partied during a championship parade estimated as the largest single-day public gathering in state history. Some kept partying around Milwaukee, while others continued traveling media tours. The Brewers should be celebrating. They earned every second of this. For most of them, it’s their first World Series championship. For fans, the end of a 57-year title drought might seem like a once-in-a-lifetime event. On the contrary: It will happen again, and much sooner than 57 years from now. The Brewers will return to the World Series much sooner than the 44 years since their last pennant in 1982, too. The word “dynasty” gets thrown around too often in sports, but here, it fits. The Brewers have a talented and controllable core. Jackson Chourio, Cooper Pratt, and Luis Lara are all under 23 years old and signed to long-term contracts. Jacob Misiorowski and Logan Henderson could lead their pitching staff through 2031. Milwaukee also has one of baseball’s deepest farm systems, with talented prospects like Jesús Made, Luis Peña, Tyson Hardin, Blake Burke, and Josh Adamczewski progressing toward the big leagues. More importantly, they have a process that makes them a perennial World Series contender. David Stearns’s “bites of the apple” metaphor ignited a short-term PR disaster in 2022, but that strategy worked. The Brewers have made the postseason eight times in the last nine seasons. By getting into the dance nearly every year (and perfecting their roster construction along the way), they gave themselves so many chances that the dice eventually had to fall their way. Everything finally came together for a World Series title. While the Brewers acquire and utilize the right players to win every regular season, they also stay competitive every year because of the players they don’t retain or acquire. Under Stearns and now Matt Arnold, they’ve operated ruthlessly and efficiently, often eschewing sentimentality. The Brewers acquire talented players before they become established major leaguers and maximize their best seasons. Instead of paying to keep those players past their primes, they restart the cycle by trading them before free agency for younger, more controllable players or accepting a compensatory draft pick when they sign elsewhere. Under this strategy, the Brewers declined to keep former stars Josh Hader, Corbin Burnes, Devin Williams, and Willy Adames beyond their original years of club control. “Bites of the apple” was Stearns’s explanation when they traded Hader for Robert Gasser and Esteury Ruiz, whom they later flipped for William Contreras. The following offseason, they traded Burnes for Joey Ortiz and DL Hall. Next, they traded Williams for Caleb Durbin, then traded Durbin in a six-player deal to acquire Kyle Harrison, Shane Drohan, and David Hamilton. They also let Adames walk in free agency after the 2024 season. Most of those deals were panned outside of Milwaukee, but they paid off this year. Gasser made three postseason starts to stabilize a shallow rotation, allowing one run in 15 innings. Hall owns a 2.52 ERA as a full-time reliever over the last two seasons and tossed eight scoreless frames as part of a dominant playoff bullpen. Drohan and Harrison threw the second- and third-most regular-season innings, respectively, and Hamilton was one of the Brewers’ best hitters in October. Meanwhile, Hader, Burnes, Williams, and Adames signed lucrative contracts. Hader has been the most successful but missed time in two straight seasons with shoulder and biceps injuries. Burnes underwent Tommy John surgery last spring. Despite strong peripherals, Williams has limped to a 4.65 ERA over two seasons after the trade. Adames was worth only 1.7 rWAR in the second season of his seven-year deal with the Giants. Instead of retaining those players, the Brewers invested in scouting and player development. They have an excellent presence in Latin America, where they scouted and signed Chourio, Lara, and Made. In 2019, they renovated their spring training complex into a state-of-the-art player development hub. They employ large coaching staffs at all levels of the organization. Instead of spending on good players, it’s smarter to invest in resources that consistently turn most players into good ones. Extra revenue from playing in and winning a World Series opens more short-term doors for the Brewers to be opportunistic this winter. They can afford to re-sign Jake Bauers to a two- or three-year deal. They could make more expensive one-year signings this year, as they did for Mike Moustakas and Yasmani Grandal before the 2019 season. Arnold made a serious bid for Tarik Skubal at this year’s trade deadline, a sign the Brewers feel confident enough in their infrastructure to make a splashy exception. That doesn’t mean they should abandon the approach that got them here. The Brewers should not pony up to extend Contreras, sign a marquee free agent to a nine-figure deal, or trade their best prospects for a star (unless that star comes with several years of control). They spent years building an efficient, cohesive, well-oiled machine. It works. Tearing it down to satisfy the baseball world’s expectations of how a championship winner should operate would be foolish. The Brewers can’t rest on their laurels. They should keep trying to improve their existing process. Potential changes to years of club control and revenue sharing in the next collective bargaining agreement could force them to alter how they operate. But even after winning it all, the Brewers will still act like the Brewers. They should. If they stay the course, they’ll be the champions again in the relatively near future. Image courtesy of IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect View full article

One of Pat Murphy's pet analogies is that winning a World Series is like climbing a mountain. It's a dangerous and tedious endeavor. One wrong step can be deadly, so the safest approach is to stay in the moment and take one deliberate step at a time. Murphy last made the comparison midway through the NLCS, when the Brewers were two games away from the Fall Classic. "You're climbing a mountain, and you're getting really close to the top, and when you are, usually that path narrows a little bit. It's not as wide," Murphy said. "I think, as you get closer, you've just got to keep your footing, keep your head down, make sure you keep your footing, and you can't look too far ahead. When you look up for the prize—'Oh, where's the top?'—you might step in a crack or a pothole. You've got to keep your head down and go forward." When Trevor Megill jammed Richie Palacios with a 99-MPH fastball and Brice Turang tossed it to first base, for once, a season of Milwaukee baseball didn't end in disappointment or despair. Nearly a decade of postseason demons were vanquished. Their eighth bite at the apple in the David Stearns-to-Matt Arnold era was filling. A fanbase so hungry for a title that a massive contingent traveled to St. Petersburg during the work week erupted—at Tropicana Field, at American Family Field, and throughout Wisconsin. For the first time in franchise history, the Brewers are World Series champions. They're on top of the mountain. How's the view? "The view is fantastic," Megill said. "Sensational," Logan Henderson said. "It's just the greatest feeling ever," Christian Yelich said. "I don't even know how to describe it. I wish everybody could experience what that feels like, to run on the field after the third out right there and finally see it." The longest-tenured Brewer except Brandon Woodruff, Yelich has been a constant through the golden age of Milwaukee baseball. That also means he's taken every October gut punch along the way. Chris Taylor snaring his sharp fly ball in Game 7 of the 2018 NLCS. Trent Grisham, filling in for an injured Yelich, misplaying Juan Soto's base hit in right field in the 2019 Wild Card Game meltdown. Freddie Freeman's go-ahead home run off Josh Hader in the 2021 NLDS. Pete Alonso's go-ahead blast in the 2024 Wild Card Series. Last year's sweep at the hands of the Dodgers, when Shohei Ohtani slammed the door with the greatest individual game of all time. It was all necessary. Each heartbreak molded the Brewers into what they are now: the best and most undaunted team in baseball, and one that refused to stop fighting no matter the circumstances. The team that posted baseball's best regular-season record for the second straight year. The team that went 11-2 in one of the best postseasons ever, coming from behind in seven of those wins. "The Alonso homer, I thank him when I see him," Murphy said. "Because it teaches you something. I told the group after that game, I said, 'Hey, I don't know why, but I promise you, this will help you.' And then after the Dodgers last year, I said the same thing." The veteran Brewers learned from those failures. The younger players learned from last year's NLCS dressing-down. They all came back with a sharper edge and a stronger drive to finish the job. After the sweep, Yelich told the room that someday they would be baseball's reigning champion. Murphy claims that he started telling the group this season that 2026 would be that year. "It's all worth it," Megill said. "It's only a failure if you don't learn from it. And this team be damned if we didn't come back this year after what we did last year and finish business." The Brewers kept climbing and never looked back. They led the division for 148 days and won it by 14 games. The wins kept stacking in October, and their usual playoff pitfalls couldn't trip them up. Most of their postseason wins were close, but when the dust settled, the Brewers had throttled all three teams blocking their path to a championship. "My college coach Mitch Thompson always said, 'You can't fall to the top of the mountain,'" Henderson said. "It's true. You start at the bottom, and you climb your way to the top. It's a lot of adversity, but it's very worth it." After a long and strenuous climb, the Brewers reached the top of the mountain. They're the reigning World Series champions. Now, the organization and fanbase can enjoy the scenery. "We fought like hell, and we handled business," Megill said. Image courtesy of Kim Klement Neitzel-Imagn Images View full article

Some nights just aren't your night. That had only been the case once for the Brewers this October, but some good old-fashioned baseball cruelty finally caught them on Tuesday night at Tropicana Field, in Game 4 of the World Series. For a team and fanbase starving for its first championship, it was particularly cruel. It started with the Brewers' at-bats against Griffin Jax. Starting an elimination game for the Rays, the veteran got eight whiffs and four strikeouts with his changeup, but Milwaukee hitters crushed most balls in play against him. Nine of the Brewers' 10 batted balls against Jax had an exit velocity of at least 95 miles per hour, but due to poor placement and great Tampa Bay defense, they scratched across just two runs on four hits. That poor luck continued for much of the night. The Brewers hit nine batted balls with an exit velocity of at least 102 MPH for outs, and they had four outs with expected batting averages of at least .700. That included Jake Bauers's sharp third-inning flyout, which Statcast said would have been a two-run home run in 13 ballparks—including American Family Field. The Rays, meanwhile, scored two runs against Dustin May without hitting a ball harder than 87.2 MPH. Exit velocity alone doesn't tell the whole story—Chandler Simpson's RBI double in the second wasn't hit hard, but he pulled a mistake sweeper from May down the right-field line—but the Brewers were hitting better than the Rays. It just wasn't creating more runs. Milwaukee did enough to keep pace with Tampa Bay, tying the game in the fourth on a Cooper Pratt double and again in the fifth on a David Hamilton home run. But without the breakthrough hit, a 2-2 stalemate continued into the late innings. By then, Nick Martinez and the Rays' best relievers were throwing strikes around the edges of the zone and silencing Brewers hitters more convincingly. "I don't think we had poor at-bats at the end," Pat Murphy said. "I think we didn't punch out too much, but we had a couple checked-swing strikeouts. Sometimes that's a result of hitting a ball really, really hard and it gets caught. We're human, too. We've played really good baseball." The Brewers had a chance against Tampa Bay closer Bryan Baker, when Pratt singled for his third hit of the night. After Chandler Simpson made a leaping catch at the left-field wall to snag Garrett Mitchell's hard fly ball, Murphy fired his best bullet off the bench, hitting Andrew Vaughn for David Hamilton. As a four-seam and changeup pitcher with a high arm slot, Baker is precisely the kind of right-hander Vaughn sees well. He only saw two pitches. On the second, Pratt tried to steal second. It made some sense: Baker is slow to the plate, and Pratt needed to be in scoring position for a potential base hit. However, he was ruled out upon review, as an on-the-money throw led second baseman Richie Palacios right into Pratt's trailing hand. The inning was over, and because Joey Ortiz now needed to replace Hamilton at third base, the Brewers had burned Vaughn without getting him an at-bat. The tie stretched into extra innings, as both teams emptied their bullpens. Despite all that went wrong, the Brewers still seemed to answer for good in the 12th. Pratt led off the inning against Ian Seymour, launching a hanging sweeper for a go-ahead home run. The Brewers were three outs away from their first World Series title, and their 22-year-old shortstop had etched a permanent entry in the franchise history book. Instead, things unraveled in the bottom half of the inning. Because Murphy used Trevor Megill for a one-batter matchup with Yandy Díaz in the eighth and Aaron Ashby's velocity dipped in the 11th, Antonio Senzatela and Shane Drohan had to close out a championship. Senzatela jammed Junior Caminero for a leadoff ground ball to third, but Ortiz (in the game because Vaughn pinch-hit) short-hopped a throw Jake Bauers couldn't pick. "I got to make that play," Ortiz said. "There's just no excuse about it." With that, Senzatela gave way to Drohan for the lefties in the middle of the order. But this was the second-half version of Drohan, who traded his once-dominant four-seamer for a new sinker as his primary fastball. The sinker's shape and performance improved down the stretch, but to record crucial October outs, he needed that elevated four-seamer in his back pocket for whiffs. Drohan threw 15 pitches. Thirteen were sinkers, including his first five pitches to Liam Hicks. Drohan induced a ground ball, but it was hit hard and snuck past a shifted Pratt for a single. "With no outs and a guy on, you're trying to get a ground ball," Drohan said. "Got it, it just sucks that we were shifted." With runners on first and third and nobody out on the road, Drohan needed a strikeout. After Johnny DeLuca swung through an elevated sinker, Drohan and William Contreras tried a slider instead of a high four-seamer. He missed his spot, and DeLuca punched it up the middle for a game-tying single. Chandler Simpson and Ben Williamson then saw six straight sinkers, adding two more hits to walk it off. Even though his sinker improved down the stretch, the fact is that Drohan threw his inferior fastball almost exclusively. Even in two-strike counts, he and William Contreras kept throwing a pitch with little swing-and-miss to it, leaving Drohan vulnerable to balls getting through the infield. The sinker induced two ground balls, but both were hard-hit. "Just went at them with good sinkers, and they slapped it around," Drohan said. "If the first guy hits a ground-ball double play, we're not even talking about it," Murphy said of the pitch usage. It was the final blow in a night where little went Milwaukee's way. Hitting the ball hard didn't work. Substitutions didn't work. Drohan's sinker didn't work. A blowout win in Game 3 put the Brewers on the verge of a surprisingly swift World Series sweep, but now, they'll have to work a bit harder. The bullpen is drained. Their approaches have been tested. Their defense cracked again. "I think the guys understand it's going to be hard," Murphy said. "You're playing the best team in the American League. They proved it all year long, and they came up big today. It's going to be hard." Make no mistake, the Brewers remain in the driver's seat. Since the League Championship Series became a best-of-seven in 1985, no team has swept both the LCS and World Series. Tuesday night's debacle only prevented Milwaukee from making history in one trivial way; they're still likely to make a more important kind. In their best season as a franchise, they've handled everything and everyone the year has thrown their way. It's fitting that they'll have to overcome one more gut punch to seal the deal. "I trust our guys. I trust them," Murphy said. "They put themselves in a position to win." Image courtesy of Kim Klement Neitzel-Imagn Images View full article

To some extent, the Brewers' approach to winning a World Series relies on luck. When two good teams meet in a short October series, the best or most talented roster doesn't always win. A hard-hit ball can bounce the wrong way, while a broken-bat bloop falls in no-man's land. A star player can go cold for a few games as a lesser-known one gets hot. Non-reviewable calls can swing games and even series. With that in mind, the Brewers optimize their teams for the regular season above all else. The idea is that if a team makes the playoffs every year, the stars will eventually align for a World Series championship. That means the Brewers don't load up on big names or build the flashiest roster. Instead, they focus on depth and sustainability, even if it means trading away key players on expiring contracts for controllable talent instead of re-signing them. They don't tie themselves to a competitive window that will eventually expire. Even if the Brewers are never the favorite on paper, they still have a chance to win it all every year. That's the correct strategy, but it's dangerous if taken too far. Attributing all postseason results to chance prevents clubs from identifying and addressing real shortcomings. While no formula guarantees October success, doing certain things well positions teams to win. Teams that hit more home runs rely less on balls in play finding holes for hits. Athletic teams that play great defense don't need balls hit right at fielders to record outs. Before the NLDS, Brewers president of baseball operations and general manager Matt Arnold acknowledged that the front office believes in playoff randomness, but also believes teams can mitigate it by building the right roster and doing the right things on the field. "I do think there's a good amount of randomness," Arnold said. "But also, there's an old quote, 'Luck is a residue of design.' So I feel like we're spending a lot of minutes trying to create our own luck and create our own processes to make sure that we're putting ourselves in a position to have success. So I certainly think you can control some of it, but also, it's baseball, and anything can happen." The Brewers caught a few breaks to reach the World Series; Ty France's redirected flyout off American Family Field's roof in the NLDS will forever be controversial in San Diego. But for the most part, they blazed their way here with excellent offense and excellent pitching. Over and over, they wore down great pitchers with long plate appearances, then punished the resulting mistakes over the heart of the plate. "I think if you try to swing a lot against aces, you're in trouble," assistant hitting coach Daniel Vogelbach said. "They got really good stuff, so you just really have to zone them in." It was a different story on Monday night, against Freddy Peralta in Game 3 of the World Series. The Brewers waited out their former ace—the most recent big name they traded away before free agency to maintain their open-ended window—drawing three walks and chasing just 26% of pitches outside the strike zone. But unlike other starters, Peralta didn't cave. Every time the Brewers backed him into a corner, he threw high-quality strikes. Peralta threw some pitches over the heart of the plate, but he never left any right down the middle. Without damage pitches, the Brewers hit only four hard-hit balls (exit velocity of at least 95 MPH) out of 15 batted balls against Peralta. Trying to barrel fastballs around the edges of the zone almost always hurts more than it helps. They needed to think small. "Barreling balls is great, but staying inside and staying through balls will get you hits," Vogelbach said. "If you start cheating to the fastball, trying to barrel it, you're going to be in trouble." They also needed some good sequencing. They got it in the third inning from Christian Yelich and William Contreras, who got jammed on inside fastballs but looped them to the opposite field for run-scoring singles. Yelich stayed inside the ball enough to hit it on a line, but it left his bat at just 71.3 mph. "He beat me with it a little bit," Yelich said. "I just kind of got lucky." Yelich again made his own luck half an hour later on the bases, setting up a fifth-inning breakthrough. With two outs and runners on first and second, William Contreras hit a hard ground ball that took third baseman Junior Caminero back and to his left. The awkward positioning forced him to spin and redirect his body to make a throw. Caminero had plenty of time to make a play at first. Contreras is a slow runner out of the right-handed batter's box, and he wasn't even halfway down the line when Caminero reached a throwing position. Instead, he took the shorter throw to second, where Yelich was initially called out but ruled safe upon review. "Once I kind of saw him go in the hole and spin, I had a feeling that maybe that was going to be coming that way, but I didn't really know where it was going to be," Yelich said. It was a mistake by Caminero, but Yelich made it costly by getting a head start off first base. Ryan Vilade wasn't holding him on with two runners on base and was playing farther off the base for the right-handed Contreras. Reading the positioning, Yelich took an extra step off first and got a great secondary lead. "You're kind of walking that thin line and trying to make sure that you can extend as far as you can without getting back-picked after the pitch," Yelich said. "You're kind of lengthening your primary [lead] there in case that happens, where there's a ball in the hole or some sort of play happens where you could potentially beat the throw to second base." "We work on those things in spring," Sal Frelick said. "[Yelich is] the guy that's running the meeting saying, 'This is important.' It's his 14th season. He's been an All-Star, Silver Slugger, MVP, and nobody cares about baserunning more than him." That extra step turned an inning-ending groundout into a bases-loading single. "The first baseman, with the right-handed hitter, played way off," Pat Murphy said. "Yeli took advantage of that, got as far out as he could, safe at second. That's a game changer right there. That gives you another pitch, and that's sometimes all you need." The floodgates opened from there. The overturn chased Peralta from the game, as Kevin Cash went to Cam Booser for a string of lefties in the second half of the order. Unlike Peralta, Booser made several mistakes. The Brewers no longer needed to create their own luck. Brice Turang and Garrett Mitchell smashed hard ground-ball singles. Cooper Pratt and Frelick smoked doubles down the left-field line. After another pitching change, David Hamilton and Jackson Chourio drove in two more runs against Cole Sulser. Just like that, the Brewers led 10-0. They became the first team in World Series history to score eight runs with two outs in a single inning. From there, they cruised to their most comfortable postseason victory. Now the Brewers are one win away from their first World Series championship. Their vision is about to come to fruition. Their approach will finally be rewarded. "We're going to treat it like a Game 7," Frelick said. "We obviously know that one more win can get us a nice trophy, but it's really just win every pitch, every inning, every at-bat, and that's what got us here." Image courtesy of Kim Klement Neitzel-Imagn Images View full article

Pat Murphy loves players who do the little things well. He respects the underdog. He admires the guy who isn’t the most physically gifted, but pours every ounce of blood, sweat, and tears into every pitch to maximize his success. Sal Frelick is the quintessential Pat Murphy Guy. He’s been a productive big-leaguer when everything clicks, but he has real physical limitations. At 5-foot-9, Frelick isn’t the biggest guy. He’s not the strongest guy, posting the eighth-lowest hard-hit rate among qualified hitters since his debut in 2023. This season, he wasn’t the healthiest guy, playing through and eventually spending a month on the injured list with a torn labrum in his right shoulder. The result was a career-worst campaign: Frelick hit just .230/.295/.319 (72 wRC+) and was worth -0.5 fWAR. But Frelick has produced before, and he has the intangibles Murphy prizes. He’s scrappy, gritty, and an emerging clubhouse leader—words that can be vapid cliches, but aren't, here. Before Game 2 of the World Series, the manager reiterated his belief that Frelick brings more to the table than his slash line or physical tools indicate. “He’s just the ultimate competitor, winner,” Murphy said. “He’s got the ‘it’ factor. You think of Joe Montana. You think of people that have—Larry Bird—that have the ‘it’ factor. I’m not saying he’s at that level of talent or has been in a position to do those things, but he has that ‘it’ factor. He can take a team down the field.” A few hours later, Frelick delivered perhaps the biggest swing of his life in another comeback postseason win, hitting a game-tying homer off Rays left-hander Ian Seymour in the bottom of the sixth inning. He torched the ball all night. For the first time this season and the third time in his career, he hit four batted balls over 95 mph in a game. “He hit four lasers tonight,” Murphy said. “He hit four balls right on the screws.” That sixth-inning laser erased an early 4-0 deficit after a shaky first inning that featured Cooper Pratt’s fourth postseason error and another wobbly start by Logan Henderson. It was just Frelick’s fourth career home run against a southpaw, including postseason games. He takes a slightly different approach against them, and has usually reserved his power-oriented swings for matchups where he has the platoon advantage. Seymour posted reverse splits this year, but the Rays have used him as a situational lefty in the postseason, including on Saturday night. He has weapons to retire left-handers, including a running two-seamer and a sweeper with plenty of horizontal movement in opposite directions. That’s what Frelick expected to see when he stepped into the box. On the first pitch, Seymour threw a sinker over the inner third for strike one. He never went to the sweeper, instead alternating sinkers and four-seamers for most of the at-bat. All nine pitches were fastballs (Rays manager Kevin Cash admitted he felt Seymour was “stubborn” in not mixing things up), and Frelick kept spoiling them. “He’s pretty much a sinker guy,” Frelick said. “Was fouling them off, missed a few good ones, and then late in the at-bat, he started throwing four-seams and kind of took me by surprise. Was able to spoil a few of those and was just really hoping, because I had seen the sinker earlier, that he would maybe leave one over the plate.” On pitches seven and eight, Frelick fouled off fastballs that nicked the inside corner. At that point, he was prepared to turn on velocity that leaked a little further over the plate. “Didn’t sell for it, but I just thought, ‘If he executes a good slider here, I’ll try to fight it off,’” Frelick said. “I’m an eight-hole hitter, I’m a lefty, and you assume a guy like that is coming at you.” He got his mistake. Seymour’s ninth pitch was another four-seamer closer to the middle of the zone. Frelick, whose average bat speed of 68.3 mph ranks near the bottom of hitters, unleashed a 75.7-mph swing. He was right on time with enough authority, launching that fastball to center field to bring the Brewers all the way back. The next inning, Pratt redeemed himself with a two-strike single to drive in the winning run. Aaron Ashby continued his yeoman’s work out of the bullpen with another multi-inning save, bringing Milwaukee within two wins of its first World Series championship. This is the formula that’s gotten the Brewers this far against great October pitching: wear them down with long, disciplined plate appearances, then pounce on the inevitable mistake pitch. This team keeps coming back because it’s developed the right blend of scrappiness and timely power. “Our offense is built to kind of chip away and wear on pitchers, which I think can be good when you’re trying to come back,” Frelick said. “At the same time, if we’re up, it’s the same exact approach. I think just having an offense built like that is really good for when you’re down.” Usually, Frelick does the scrapping to set up that big swing. This time, he supplied the power. After a rough regular season, he’s rewarded Murphy’s loyalty and belief, hitting .273/.370/.409 (118 wRC+). “We talked about it when you guys were all here earlier,” Murphy said postgame. “He’s got the ‘it’ factor.” Image courtesy of USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect View full article

The Brewers are one win closer to their first World Series championship, and once again, William Contreras was at the center of everything. It was Contreras who helped set the tone early. It was Contreras who kept things under control behind the plate when the Rays threatened in the middle innings. That was the story all October as the Brewers bulldozed their way to their first National League pennant. "I feel like he's taken his game to another level this postseason with just how locked in he is," Yelich said. "It seems like he's doing whatever it takes to get the job done." "Contreras was incredible," Pat Murphy said. "He was the player of the game." It started in the first inning, when Contreras's RBI single capped a two-run frame against Tampa Bay starter Nick Martinez. The efficient veteran posted the highest in-zone rate and lowest walk rate among qualified starters this season, so he (and Game 2 starter Drew Rasmussen) posed a challenge for a patient Brewers offense that grinds down pitchers with long plate appearances. They couldn't wait him out, so they had to attack pitches over the plate. WEQ4azNfV0ZRVkV3dEdEUT09X0FRVldWd2NDVTFFQVhWRUFWZ0FIQjFCZkFGZ0NWZ0lBQkZCV1VndFFCUXBSQmdNRQ==.mp4 "That's the cat and mouse of the whole game," Murphy said on Friday afternoon before Game 1. "That's Baseball 101. It's not early takes on noncompetitive pitches. It's being ready every single pitch and then really discerning between balls and strikes and discerning between strikes to hit and strikes to be okay with." The Brewers didn't plan to be mindlessly aggressive, but to react accordingly when Martinez gave them hittable strikes. After running the second-lowest in-zone swing rate in baseball this year, they swung at 80% of his in-zone pitches in Game 1. Four of six hitters in the first inning swung at the first pitch, including Jackson Chourio's leadoff single and Contreras's base hit to plate the second run. "We didn't want to jump him or anything like that," said Yelich, whose one-out triple drove in Chourio to open the scoring. "It was just make sure that you got a good plan, and you were going to stick to it." "After being off for some time, I'm pleased we came out in the first inning ready to go," Murphy said. This was the second time this postseason that Contreras slashed a high-leverage RBI single on the first pitch. ek15ZzdfV0ZRVkV3dEdEUT09X1ZRQUVYRkVCVmdFQVdsWUdBQUFIQ0FJQUFBQU1CUUFBQndBTkJGVUdBZ05XQWxBQw==.mp4 Setting the tone proved critical, as Martinez quickly settled in after that first inning. The Brewers continued to have tough plate appearances for most of the night, being aggressive on strikes and chasing less than most teams against Martinez, but he held them scoreless over his final four innings. "You know it's going to be a battle," Yelich said. "You have to stay disciplined, do a lot of things right. It was nice to get off to a good start there early. We weren't really able to add on off of him, but guys kept having good at-bats." Without those insurance runs, Contreras kept the Rays at bay with his defense. In both the fifth and sixth innings, he threw out the tying run on steal attempts. Victor Mesa Jr. made an ill-advised attempt at third base in the fifth, and Contreras fired a dime to David Hamilton's outstretched glove to throw him out and end the inning. That got Jacob Misiorowski through five innings of one-run ball, even as another playoff opponent continued spoiling his fastball. In the sixth, he threw out Jonathan Aranda at second for a strike-em-out, throw-em-out double play behind Abner Uribe. "I know the game, so I know that the two runners that I was able to throw out today meant a lot in the game and could have been a big difference in the game," Contreras said through interpreter Daniel de Mondesert. That at-bat also featured Contreras's second successful ABS challenge of the night, continuing his late-season turnaround after making too many poor challenges during the summer. Both at-bats ended in strikeouts after he flipped a ball to a strike. "Going through a good moment right now, and I think the ABS is kind of similar to hitting in a season," Contreras said. "You might go through a slump. Right now, I think I'm going through a good moment with it, and I've got to take advantage of that." Contreras has long possessed the talent and competitiveness to be one of baseball's best players, but has not always lived up to that ability during the regular season, often performing like a good catcher instead of a great one. This October, he's elevated his game when it's mattered the most. "This guy has been incredible, and he does both sides of the bal—and the side that you can't measure," Murphy said. "I don't know what his numbers are, but he does so much for the team. He's incredible. That's all I could tell you. He's incredible. We wouldn't be in the position we're in without Contreras." Image courtesy of Benny Sieu-Imagn Images View full article

Injuries and underperformance thinned the back of the Brewers' starting rotation down the stretch, but they still had enough depth to navigate playoff series. Nonetheless, with Kyle Harrison and Dustin May falling from stalwarts to question marks, winning Jacob Misiorowski's postseason starts became even more crucial for setting the tone in the Division Series and the Championship Series. The same is true now, as Misiorowski prepares to pitch in the opener of the World Series. The Brewers have won both of Misiorowski's October starts, but not because he carried them to victories. He's been fine in both outings, but each was a far cry from his dominant regular-season form, when he was the best pitcher in baseball. Misiorowski failed to complete five innings in both starts, and after leading qualified starters in strikeout-minus-walk rate in the regular season, he's been middle-of-the-pack among playoff starters. {C}%3C!%2D%2Dtd%20%7Bborder%3A%201px%20solid%20%23cccccc%3Boverflow%3A%20hidden%3Bpadding%3A%202px%203px%202px%203px%3Bvertical-align%3A%20bottom%3B%7Dbr%20%7Bmso-data-placement%3Asame-cell%3B%7D%2D%2D%3E--> Split ERA xERA CHEESE K-BB% Regular Season 1.80 2.12 2.35 31.3% Postseason 3.24 3.92 3.04 18.9% "Long story [short], he's taken on a lot of responsibility as a young [24]-year-old kid," Pat Murphy said. "I think it's been a lot for him." Misiorowski's fastball has been the culprit for the downturn. In the regular season, it induced whiffs on 40.2% of swings. This October, that number is down to 16.1%. It's gone from the game's best swing-and-miss four-seamer to below average at missing bats. The fastball wasn't going to overpower Misiorowski's first two opponents as it did most teams. Both the Padres and Dodgers were great fastball-hitting lineups this season. When Misiorowski faced the Dodgers in August, they only whiffed on 22.6% of swings against his heater. In the playoffs, both teams targeted the fastball and refused to let it beat them. They took shorter swings, which put them more on time and on plane with the ball. For the most part, they still didn't square it up, but they combined to foul off 40 Misiorowski fastballs, the second-most against any pitcher this October. {C}%3C!%2D%2Dtd%20%7Bborder%3A%201px%20solid%20%23cccccc%3Boverflow%3A%20hidden%3Bpadding%3A%202px%203px%202px%203px%3Bvertical-align%3A%20bottom%3B%7Dbr%20%7Bmso-data-placement%3Asame-cell%3B%7D%2D%2D%3E--> {C}%3C!%2D%2Dtd%20%7Bborder%3A%201px%20solid%20%23cccccc%3Boverflow%3A%20hidden%3Bpadding%3A%202px%203px%202px%203px%3Bvertical-align%3A%20bottom%3B%7Dbr%20%7Bmso-data-placement%3Asame-cell%3B%7D%2D%2D%3E--> Split Bat Speed Swing Length Late% On Time% Under% Regular Season 71.2 6.7 36% 64% 61% Postseason 70.4 6.5 24% 76% 56% "The Padres and Dodgers both had a good approach of just fouling stuff off," Misiorowski said. "I bet Tampa Bay is going to do pretty much the same thing." "They're obviously looking at an area," Murphy said. "They're trying to exploit everything. He's exposed, like all these guys get at some point." Misiorowski isn't at his best, either. No pitcher would admit to it ahead of the biggest start of his life, but he's probably feeling the effects of a career-high in innings. "It's all about Miz and his health and his mental state, and it's not easy," Murphy said. "It's not easy what he's going through. This kid is way over what people would call his innings limit." He's maintained triple-digit velocity into October, but Misiorowski's been physically out of sync in both starts, causing him to spray more fastballs and fall into non-competitive counts. That also alters how his ball moves. If Misiorowski's delivery is off, it's harder for him to get his hand behind the ball and work through it to create backspin. That backspin gives it extreme, deceptive carry from his low arm slot and leaves hitters swinging underneath the ball. The induced vertical break of Misiorowski's fastball dipped at the end of September. In his NLCS start, it fell to 13.7 inches, 1.6 inches below his regular-season average. Non-competitive locations, working behind in counts, and a tick less carry open the door for great hitters to hunt and spoil a great fastball, even if it's still not very hittable. That's how the Padres and Dodgers made Misiorowski grind for most outs in his first two playoff starts. "He hasn't been as crisp," Murphy said. Still, Misiorowski believes he found the feeling he wants during the middle innings of his second start. "I feel good," he said. "I feel like the first one might have been a little under what I expected, but the second one was pretty much right where I wanted to be. I think I finally figured it out in Game 2 of not getting off my end goal and doing what I need to do to succeed and not trying to play their game." His game remains to fire lots of fastballs. Even with diminished movement and control, Misiorowski's velocity and extension still make it a great pitch. It should play much better against the Rays than against the Padres and Dodgers, too. The latter two were among the best in baseball at handling velocity this year, but Tampa Bay was one of the worst offenses against pitches thrown 98 mph or above. {C}%3C!%2D%2Dtd%20%7Bborder%3A%201px%20solid%20%23cccccc%3Boverflow%3A%20hidden%3Bpadding%3A%202px%203px%202px%203px%3Bvertical-align%3A%20bottom%3B%7Dbr%20%7Bmso-data-placement%3Asame-cell%3B%7D%2D%2D%3E--> Team RV/100 WOBA xwOBA Parents -0.34 (4th) .300 (7th) .299 (5th) Dodgers -0.23 (2nd) .298 (8th) .305 (2nd) Rays -2.11 (29th) 234 (29th) .224 (30th) Even when he struggled, Misiorowski and the Brewers got through his first two outings by doubling down on his fastball, throwing it 67% of the time through his two starts. That won't change on Friday, nor should it. Hitters have chipped away at his heater, but they still haven't solved it. Misiorowski can still compete without his best fastball. If he rediscovers it for one more outing, it will boost the Brewers' chances at clinching the first championship in franchise history. "I think I've just got to stick to my strengths and pound the zone," Misiorowski said. Image courtesy of Benny Sieu-Imagn Images View full article

In the system's inaugural season, no catcher has used ABS challenges more than William Contreras. Contreras challenged 185 calls during the regular season, leading all catchers by 49. The difference between Contreras's challenge total and that of second-place Tyler Stephenson was greater than that between Stephenson and 23rd-place Cal Raleigh. According to Statcast, he challenged 43 more times than the average catcher would have against the same pitches. Only Victor Caratini challenged a greater number of pitches compared to the expected number. It helped that the Brewers typically deferred their challenges to Contreras. Milwaukee hitters challenged just 13% of possible overturns, the lowest rate of any offense. When a catcher has access to both of his team’s challenges, he can challenge more aggressively, and it helps more than it hurts. An incorrect challenge won’t stop him from using a second one at the right moment, so turning a ball into a strike on the next attempt is worth more than the small loss of burning that first challenge. Contreras gained more fractions of a run than expected from challenges in all but one month this year. Still, his approach bordered on mindless aggressiveness for much of the summer. The league success rate on catcher challenges was 58%, but between June and August, Contreras’s was just 49%. In late June, he lost eight consecutive challenges and 14 of 15, and his August success rate bottomed out at 46%. On the verge of costing his team runs with challenges, another catcher might become more conservative, but that’s not how Contreras is wired. He plays the game fiercely, with a relentless drive to be the best at everything. Instead of backing off, he started challenging even more. The difference is that he became opportunistic. That turned Contreras into one of the most valuable challengers in September and into the postseason. Month Challenges Won% % Overturn Runs Gained Net Runs Above Avg March/April 34 53% 35% 0.1 May 33 61% 46% 0.7 June 33 48% 39% -0.2 July 23 52% 40% 0.2 August 26 46% 50% 0.2 September 36 75% 57% 0.9 October 20 60% 61% 0.5 Among catchers with at least five postseason overturn opportunities, Contreras and Liam Hicks are tied for the most net runs above average. He’s second to J.T. Realmuto in percentage of possible overturns challenged. Contreras has also gained two inning-ending strikeouts on challenges. He turned things around by tightening his radius. In August, Contreras challenged seven pitches more than one inch outside the strike zone. In September, he only challenged one. In the postseason, he’s challenged none. Even when home-plate umpire Lance Barrett had 12 calls challenged in Game 2 of the NLDS, Contreras showed restraint. He won three of four challenges, only losing on a first-pitch ball to Xander Bogaerts in the eighth inning that missed by half an inch. Contreras has also become more disciplined at the plate. He’s cut his chase rate from 28.3% in the regular season to 25.7% in October, boosting his walk rate from 9.5% to 14.3%. Just as being opportunistic has helped him enforce the strike zone, it’s also made him the Brewers’ best postseason hitter. Contreras leads the club with three home runs and a 212 wRC+ in October, spearheading the playoff power surge that brought the team to the World Series. That’s been more than enough to mask his remaining shortcomings. Contreras has still been a poor framer and blocker in the postseason, but October has unleashed a sharper version of him. He willed the Brewers to a pennant with his bat, and he's started helping his pitchers on the margins when it matters most. Poor ABS use was one of Milwaukee's few glaring weaknesses entering the postseason, but Contreras fixed his side of it when it mattered most. Image courtesy of Kiyoshi Mio-Imagn Images View full article

The 2026 campaign was a prove-it season for Garrett Mitchell. First, he needed to prove he could stay healthy. Four years into his big-league career, Milwaukee's former first-round pick had played in just 141 games and taken 443 plate appearances, due to myriad injuries. He cleared the health hurdle. Mitchell modified his routine and physical preparation over the winter and carried it into the regular season. He learned when, within games, to push his body to its limits and when to ease off the gas without sacrificing competitiveness. It wasn't always smooth (early in the year, Mitchell's defense suffered as he played cautiously near the outfield wall), but he quickly found the right balance and played in a career-high 145 games. The next step was proving he could perform. Mitchell flashed his high ceiling throughout those four years, hitting .254/.333/.433 (114 wRC+) with elite bat speed and raw power, but those results came with red flags. He struck out 33.9% of the time over that span. Due to a gaping hole in his swing path, he whiffed on 48.5% of swings against high fastballs. He benefitted from a .376 BABIP, the highest among all hitters with at least 400 plate appearances during that span. According to Statcast, his expected slash line of .220/.303/.361 didn't come close to supporting his results. A full season was supposed to answer what kind of player Mitchell truly was and whether he would hit big-league pitching. Over a larger sample, his extreme metrics on both sides would trend toward the mean. That didn't fully happen. There's more to a player than his Statcast summary card, but in Mitchell's case, it's a good summary. In nearly every facet of the game, he's either one of the best or one of the worst. Mitchell didn't quite prove that his extreme profile will work long-term, but he did prove that it can work. The red on that card far outnumbers the blue. He didn't cut down his swing-and-miss, but he made up for it with a disciplined approach and by crushing the ball when he made contact. Mitchell hit .262/.354/.416 (116 wRC+), and this time, his expected line of .268/.356/.447 was better than his results. It was a milestone season for Mitchell. He punctuated it with the swing that sent the Brewers to their first World Series in over four decades. The NLCS posed a daunting matchup for him. The Brewers were facing the Dodgers, baseball's reigning back-to-back champions and one of the few teams that knows how to exploit his weaknesses and can execute those sequences. In their regular-season matchups, LA pitchers peppered Mitchell with high fastballs and low changeups, and he managed just two singles in 11 at-bats, with six strikeouts. They had a similar plan in the postseason. The Dodgers challenged Mitchell with high fastballs throughout the series, daring him to hit them. For the most part, he didn't, going 2-for-14 with six strikeouts. But true to form, the Orange County native made those two hits count in two dramatic homecoming moments: a solo home run to cap the Brewers' seventh-inning comeback against Blake Snell in Game 3, and the tie-breaking shot in Game 4 that ended the Dodgers' hopes of a threepeat. Mitchell's outlier swing worked this year because of his zone awareness. The holes in his swing remain, but when a pitch is in his wheelhouse, he hits it hard. Mitchell knows this and refined his swing decisions this year around his personal scouting report. He's patient against pitches he can't hit (including high fastballs) and forces pitchers back into his hot zones over the heart of the plate. His decisive home run on Thursday night epitomized the approach that carried Mitchell through a productive season. Facing left-hander Tanner Scott, he fell behind 0-2 on a pair of sliders, then refused to chase and worked the count full. In a tie game on the brink of elimination, Scott wasn't going to put the go-ahead run on base with a leadoff walk; he was coming back with his best strike pitch. Mitchell had forced him into his damage zone. He got a center-cut fastball and launched it to center, completing the Brewers' final comeback of an NLCS sweep. With his elite speed and power, Mitchell always had the upside of a potential postseason game-changer—the kind of player who could decide a series with one memorable play. He waited years for that moment, dealing with physical setbacks and questions about his performance. The Brewers waited for years for that moment, floundering in early playoff exits as Mitchell struggled or sat out. The moment arrived for both of them. Mitchell had his big swing, and he and the Brewers are going to the World Series. Image courtesy of Kiyoshi Mio-Imagn Images View full article

For the past two seasons, Abner Uribe has been Pat Murphy's iron man. Uribe pitched 75 times last regular season, and while he pitched only 61 games this year (because he spent 20 days on the injured list with a forearm strain), he pitched more often on a rate basis. It's no surprise, then, that Murphy has floored the gas pedal with Uribe this postseason, pitching him in all seven of the Brewers' October games so far. On the surface, it worked through the first six games, as Uribe tossed six scoreless innings. Results can be deceptive in a small sample, though. Uribe pitched poorly in all four of his Division Series outings; he threw just 37.9% of his pitches in the strike zone; issued two walks and a hit-by-pitch against just one strikeout; and nearly allowed a game-tying home run in Game 4 that Garrett Mitchell robbed. His 9.22 xERA and 6.33 SIERA described his performance more accurately than his 3 ⅔ scoreless innings. Uribe's slider command was particularly non-competitive throughout the series. Uribe turned the page with two dominant outings to start the NLCS, but the chickens came home to roost in Game 3. He looked like his NLDS self, but the Dodgers didn't bail him out with bad chases and poorly placed contact, as the Padres (and Lady Luck) did. Handed a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the sixth, Uribe walked the bases loaded with one out, then left a first-pitch sinker down the middle that Will Smith roped for a go-ahead double. Murphy and the Brewers' pitching coaches managed the inning poorly. It was an awkward lineup pocket for Uribe. If a runner reached, the Dodgers had left-handers Kyle Tucker and Shohei Ohtani due up, and Max Muncy was also likely to pinch-hit. The Brewers had southpaw DL Hall and righty Chad Patrick warming in the bullpen, but they stuck with the erratic Uribe for Ohtani and Smith. After the game, Murphy told reporters that he wanted the Uribe vs. Smith matchup, but the way the inning unfolded, that wasn't an acceptable rationale. Using Uribe at some point wasn't unreasonable. Because of team off days between games and series, he's pitched seven times in the last 12 days. That's a heavy but manageable workload in a small sample. He can't continue at that rate for the rest of the postseason, though. Few relievers can stay sharp while pitching more often than not, and Uribe already hasn't been sharp. If they have a lead in Game 4, Murphy and the Brewers should go full throttle to finish an NLCS sweep. Winning in four games would give them a full week off before Game 1 of the World Series to reset and stack their cards. Uribe should be the one pitcher off-limits. With a 3-0 series lead, he shouldn't pitch again in Los Angeles. Given his wildness, they should watch closely when he does return to action. The postseason is the time to push the envelope with workloads. When few future games are guaranteed, saving players for future games isn't worth it. There should still be limits in non-elimination games, though. Murphy pushed his iron man too hard on Wednesday, and he's about to do the same with his cumulative workload—unless he throttles back and learns to trust another pitcher or two in his relief corps. Image courtesy of Kirby Lee-Imagn Images View full article