Milwaukee’s trip to the National League Championship Series came with very little room to breathe. The Brewers eliminated the Padres with a 3-1 win on Wednesday, closing a four-game NLDS in which neither club ever built a lead larger than two runs.
A Division Series decided in the smallest margins
- The first three games were each settled by one run, keeping both dugouts and both bullpens under constant late-inning pressure.
- Milwaukee finished the series in Game 4 with a 3-1 victory, the largest final margin of the matchup.
- Even that two-run result fit the pattern: at no stage of the series did either the Brewers or Padres hold a lead of more than two.
It was only the second postseason series of at least three games to remain that tight from start to finish. The other came in the 1915 World Series, when the Boston Red Sox beat the Philadelphia Phillies in five games.
That 1915 set opened with a 3-1 Boston win, and each of the next four games ended with a one-run decision. Like Milwaukee and San Diego more than a century later, neither side ever got ahead by more than two runs.
Brewers move on
The Brewers now turn toward Game 1 of the NLCS on Sunday, with the opener scheduled for FOX, FS1, FOX Deportes and FOX One.
For Milwaukee, the reward for surviving four games of scoreboard-tight baseball is a place in the National League’s final round. For everyone who spent the series pacing through the late innings, it is finally time to exhale.
