The Milwaukee Brewers are heading back to the National League Championship Series, and Garrett Mitchell put his stamp all over the clincher.
Milwaukee beat the San Diego Padres 3-1 on Wednesday night to take the Division Series in four games, leaning on sharp pitching, a few timely swings and one huge defensive moment that flipped the night. In the eighth inning, Mitchell went up and robbed Manny Machado of what looked like a game-tying home run, keeping the Brewers in front when San Diego was threatening to take the momentum away.
Mitchell didn’t stop there. He finished with two hits, an RBI and a run scored, giving Milwaukee impact work on both sides of the ball. His leadoff triple in the fifth inning helped set the table for Jackson Chourio, who followed with the go-ahead RBI single.
Chourio’s hit carried another layer of significance, too. At 22 years old, he became Milwaukee’s career postseason RBI leader with 17, moving past Ryan Braun.
The Brewers added insurance in the sixth when Sal Frelick drove in a run with a sacrifice fly.
San Diego’s lone run came on a solo homer from Fernando Tatis Jr., but Milwaukee’s pitching kept the Padres from stringing much together. Robert Gasser started and gave up one run over four innings, Aaron Ashby handled the middle with three scoreless innings and picked up the win, and Trevor Megill finished it off for his second save of the series.
The victory also snapped Milwaukee’s 12-game postseason road losing streak, a stretch that dated back to 2018.
Now the Brewers turn right back around for another shot at the Los Angeles Dodgers. Milwaukee and Los Angeles will meet in the NLCS for the second straight season after the Dodgers eliminated Atlanta on Wednesday. Game 1 is set for Sunday in Milwaukee.
The Brewers closed the regular season with 103 wins, but October has a way of stripping away the record book noise. On Wednesday, they showed exactly why they’re still standing: contributions across the lineup, clean defense under pressure and enough pitching to finish the job.
With Mitchell’s robbery sealing it, Milwaukee is four wins from the World Series.
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Edwin Dazs Dodgers Turnaround Has An Unexpected Reason Behind It
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Dave Roberts has pointed to Dazs recent success as the justification for bringing him in, and that logic is starting to look better by the day. The Dodgers needed a late-inning arm who could handle postseason pressure, and Daz has given them exactly that after a reset that came from a quiet conversation in the organization. It is the sort of detail teams love when it works, a small mechanical tweak leading to a much bigger October payoff. [Read more 🡒]