MILWAUKEE - The Brewers have turned October into a knife fight, and that’s exactly how they want it.
Game 1 of the National League Championship Series was another Milwaukee special: tight, tense, and decided by one run. The Brewers beat the Dodgers 2-1, and the winning sequence was as tidy as it gets - walk, bunt, single. That was enough to give Milwaukee its fourth win in five postseason games, all of them played within two runs.
It also came against a team that usually expects to survive these moments. Instead, the Brewers found a way again.
Milwaukee’s pitching has been the backbone of this run. Through five postseason games, the Brewers’ staff has averaged 97.7 mph on fastballs, and in Game 1 every one of the five pitchers who appeared hit at least 97.1 mph.
They reached 99 mph 65 times. In the pitch-tracking era, there have been only 11 games where a team threw 60 or more pitches at 99 mph or faster - and all of them belong to the 2026 Brewers.
That velocity has come with real consequences for hitters. Milwaukee has allowed only three extra-base hits in five postseason games, and the bullpen has given up just one earned run. Aaron Ashby said the group’s maturity has mattered.
“I just think that another year of experience for this entire staff is proving so valuable,” Milwaukee reliever Aaron Ashby said. “We’ve put such an emphasis on dying with your best pitch. And so, it seems like maybe we're in that situation a lot more often throughout these last couple games.’
Ashby also pointed to the way the Brewers mix power with movement.
“It feels good to be in crunch time all the time,” Ashby said. “For the bullpen, everyone down there throws a sinker. So, getting the ball on the ground certainly helps limiting damage.
“And everyone’s got a swing-and-miss pitch to offer. It helps when you have swing-and-miss stuff.
In the postseason, it plays like soft contact, because everyone’s so good. And so, just a lot of sinkers from our guys and all the starters throw four-seams.
I think we have a great combination and variety.”
The reliever has become a heavy October weapon himself. In just five games, Ashby has already logged three appearances of more than one inning without allowing a hit or a run, leaving him one shy of the record shared by Ron Davis, Héctor Neris and Luke Weaver.
The Brewers also showed how they’re willing to manage the game minute by minute. Pat Murphy pulled left-hander DL Hall after the fifth inning and went to righty Abner Uribe even though Shohei Ohtani was due up second. Murphy’s choice reflected the recent reality with Ohtani, who has not hit a home run for two months and has not looked like the version that usually tilts games.
Jacob Misiorowski started Game 1, and while he hasn’t been overpowering through October, he has kept Milwaukee alive. He went 4.1 innings, allowed five hits and one earned run, walked three and struck out five. It was also the first time this year he issued a four-pitch walk to start an inning, and it came back to hurt him.
Hitters are clearly adjusting to the high fastball. They’re not chasing the one just above the letters, and they’re getting on top of the fastball in the zone.
Misiorowski’s fastball whiff rates in his last two starts have dropped to 13% against San Diego in the NLDS and 18% against Los Angeles in the NLCS. He’s usually at 39%.
Still, the Brewers keep putting themselves in position to win these games.
Christian Yelich was benched against Tarik Skubal in Game 1, and it didn’t slow Milwaukee down. Murphy asked seventh hitter Cooper Pratt to bunt ahead of the bottom of the order, and Luis Lara followed with a first-pitch single that brought in the go-ahead run.
Brice Turang also delivered a big swing, ripping a solo homer off a 2-and-0 sinker from Skubal to tie the game. It was a loud answer in a game where every run mattered. Turang became only the 10th left-handed hitter to homer off Skubal, and just the second lefty to do it on a Skubal sinker.
The Dodgers, on the other hand, keep finding themselves on the wrong side of these razor-thin games. Over the past three postseasons, they had gone 15-2 in playoff games decided by one or two runs.
Sunday was different. Los Angeles dropped a nine-inning postseason game by one run without an extra-base hit, sacrifice or stolen base for only the second time.
The other was Game 4 of the 1966 World Series.
There was another Milwaukee note tucked into the night as well: with Logan Henderson starting Game 2, the Brewers will have used a starting pitcher in his 20s for 87 straight games.
And there’s no mistaking the type of roster Milwaukee is running out there. Its center fielder brings rare tools, with sprint, arm and bat speed all landing in the 90th percentile alongside Mitchell, Fernando Tatis Jr. and Jordan Walker. The walk Mitchell drew helped set up the decisive run.
“I don’t pay attention to these things,” Mitchell says, “but my wife tells me my Baseball Savant page is loaded with reds [good] and blue [bad]. There’s like no in between.”
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