The Brewers walked out of Petco Park with a 3-1 win on Wednesday night, a National League Championship Series berth and a bullpen still carrying plenty of fuel. Milwaukee’s relief corps shut down San Diego after Robert Gasser’s four-inning start, finishing off the Padres to take the NL Division Series in four games.
Now comes another October meeting with the Dodgers, beginning Sunday in Milwaukee. The Brewers reached this stage against Los Angeles a year ago, but the clubhouse sees a different kind of relief weapon at its disposal this time around.
Quick facts
- Milwaukee beat San Diego 3-1 in Game 4 to win the NLDS.
- Robert Gasser worked four solid innings before Aaron Ashby, Abner Uribe and Trevor Megill combined to hold the Padres without a hit.
- The Brewers’ bullpen yielded three runs in the series, with only one earned.
- All four NLDS games were decided by two runs or fewer.
- The victory ended Milwaukee’s 12-game postseason road losing streak, which had lasted since the 2018 NLCS.
- The Brewers will face the Dodgers in the NLCS for the second consecutive season.
San Diego entered the series with a heavily regarded bullpen featuring Mason Miller and Adrian Morejon, and there was every reason to expect the Padres’ depth to dictate close games. Instead, Milwaukee’s relievers owned the late innings when the series turned.
The Padres’ bullpen allowed seven runs in the four games, six earned. Milwaukee gave up only three, one earned, and saved one more important arm for the next round: Jacob Misiorowski never entered Game 4, though he did warm up during the ninth inning.
Gasser, once a Padres prospect, gave Milwaukee four steady innings. Jackson Chourio then put the Brewers ahead in the fifth with an RBI single, and Pat Murphy handed the game to Aaron Ashby with a 2-1 lead.
Ashby made that decision stand. The left-hander covered three innings, issuing two walks and striking out three, while giving Milwaukee the bridge it needed to reach Uribe and Megill.
Murphy considered allowing Ashby to take another inning, but chose to turn the game over after three. Ashby, who appeared 75 times and threw 89 1/3 regular-season innings, had already been used in three of the four Division Series games.
“I almost left him in,” Murphy said. “He wanted to. But sometimes you have a feel, and three innings were what was called for tonight. And he got it done.”
That vote of confidence landed with Ashby in the celebration afterward. He said he thanked Murphy for trusting him with such a critical stretch, adding that a manager’s faith brings added confidence on the mound.
The eighth-inning turn
Uribe inherited the tougher assignment in the eighth, facing the top of the Padres’ order. He walked Fernando Tatis Jr. before striking out Jackson Merrill with an 89.2 mph slider beneath the zone.
Manny Machado then drove Uribe’s second pitch, a 99.6 mph sinker, toward the wall in right-center. Garrett Mitchell ranged into position and made the catch with a small jump, avoiding a game-changing extra-base hit. The ball was not projected to clear the fence, but a slightly different flight could have tied the game.
Uribe got Ty France to pop up and ended the threat. Pitching coach Chris Hook called that sequence the biggest inning of the night, pointing to Uribe’s ability to navigate the heart of San Diego’s lineup.
Megill took the ninth and closed it out, striking out pinch-hitter Gavin Sheets swinging for the final out. The closer credited the pitchers before him for putting him in position to finish the job.
Milwaukee had watched the Padres shuffle through four pitchers from the fourth through the seventh. The Brewers instead leaned on Ashby for length, then gave Uribe and Megill defined late-game assignments. It was the kind of alignment they have been building toward during the final three weeks of the regular season.
“When we come in with the lead, we’re confident that we’ll be able to win the game,” Uribe said.
That confidence heads home with the Brewers. Last year’s NLCS loss to the Dodgers remains part of the memory bank, but Hook believes this club has a new edge.
“I think this is a different group,” Hook said. “I think we’re ready to go.”
