The Milwaukee Brewers have already put themselves in a strong position to reach October, but their impact on the National League playoff picture goes beyond simply getting in. They’re part of the tightest squeeze in baseball right now: the fight for the NL’s top two seeds and the first-round bye that comes with them.
That’s why a tiebreaker Milwaukee already owns - and another one it could still grab - matters so much. ESPN’s David Schoenfield recently called it the “best playoff race” in MLB, and the Brewers sit right in the middle of it with the Los Angeles Dodgers and Atlanta Braves.
The difference between finishing second or third in the standings is enormous. The No. 3 seed does not get the bye and instead has to survive a best-of-three Wild Card series, where one bad stretch can wipe out a strong season in a hurry.
Milwaukee is currently 3.5 games ahead of both clubs, but if records end up matching, the Brewers have a clear edge over Los Angeles already. In mid-August, they took three of four from the Dodgers in Los Angeles, giving Milwaukee a 4-3 season-series win. Under MLB’s tiebreaker setup, head-to-head record comes first, so the Brewers would finish ahead of the Dodgers in that scenario.
The situation with Atlanta is more complicated. Milwaukee and the Braves split their season series, so the next tiebreaker is intradivision record. Right now, Atlanta has the upper hand there, 28 wins to the Brewers’ 23.
That could still change, though, because Milwaukee’s September schedule is packed with NL Central games. The Brewers have 18 divisional matchups left, including 15 straight to open the month.
Seven of those are against the Chicago Cubs, with the Pittsburgh Pirates and Cincinnati Reds also on the slate before the regular season ends at home against the St. Louis Cardinals.
Atlanta’s path is no cakewalk either. The Braves have 12 divisional games remaining, and seven of them are against the red-hot Philadelphia Phillies. They finish the season against the Miami Marlins.
With those schedules lined up, the Brewers-Braves tiebreaker could end up being decided on the final day of the regular season. That’s one more layer on top of a playoff race that already has MLB buzzing.
In Other News...
Pat Murphy Sends A Clear Message With Brewers Lineup Choice
The Brewers are back at it against the Orioles on Wednesday afternoon, and Pat Murphy is taking a deliberate approach as Milwaukee turns to left-hander Robert Gasser for the second game of the series. Trevor Rogers will start for Baltimore, but the more notable development for the Brewers is the lineup Murphy chose, one that gives several regulars a breather while the club tries to manage the stretch run with a little more intention.
It is the kind of move that says plenty about where a manager thinks his team is right now, especially with a 3:05 p.m. first pitch on the schedule and the game set for Brewers.TV, WTMJ 620, and the Brewers Radio Network. The rest day signals Murphy is thinking beyond just one matchup, even if the immediate question is how Milwaukees adjusted lineup will hold up in a game the Brewers still want to win. [Read more 🡒]
Brewers Suddenly Have An October Pitching Call They Can't Avoid
The Brewers spent part of the week huddled with Pat Murphy and the pitching staff, looking ahead to the last stretch of the regular season and the roster choices that come with October. Even with the postseason race settling into focus, there is still real work to do on the mound, and recent bumps from Dustin May and Kyle Harrison have made the conversation more complicated than a routine September tuneup.
May said he feels fine physically but has had trouble with execution, which is the kind of detail that can linger when the games start mattering more. Milwaukee is also weighing who gets the ball in the final series and how the NLDS pitching group should be shaped, with a 12-pitcher, 14-position player setup like last year among the possibilities. For a club trying to line up its best arms at the right time, the decisions in front of Murphy and his coaches are the sort that can define a month. [Read more 🡒]
Brewers Have One Playoff Concern Fans Cant Ignore
The Brewers have spent the season answering almost every question with wins, and with eight games left before the playoffs they are on the verge of matching a franchise record while sitting atop baseball. Even with that kind of overall success, the way they have built their offense stands out as one of the more unusual profiles in the league, because they have scored the second-most runs without leaning on the long ball nearly as much as anyone else.
Milwaukee has made small ball work during the regular season, but October tends to ask different questions, especially when pitching gets sharper and mistakes get scarcer. The concern is not whether the Brewers can create runs over 162 games, but whether an offense that has lived on contact and movement can keep producing when postseason games often turn on one swing. [Read more 🡒]