The Brewers just ran through one fastball-hunting lineup in the NLDS, and now they’re staring at another.
After holding the Padres to a 1.80 ERA and 3.47 FIP in that series, Milwaukee’s staff gets the Dodgers in a rematch of last year’s NLCS. On paper, that looks like a much tougher climb. The Padres finished the regular season with a 102 wRC+, while the Dodgers were second in baseball at 111.
But October doesn’t always follow the regular-season script. The Padres came in scorching hot, ranking second with a 119 wRC+ in the second half.
And stylistically, they already forced the Brewers to make plenty of pitches. So the Dodgers are a bigger name and a deeper lineup, but not an entirely different problem.
The real question is how Milwaukee chooses to attack them.
The Brewers have leaned hard on fastballs for years, and for good reason: they’re the easiest pitch to land for strikes. No team has thrown a higher percentage of fastballs since 2023.
That plan held in the NLDS, too. Milwaukee threw heaters 66.4% of the time in the regular season and 64.9% against San Diego.
The result was exactly what the Brewers wanted, with Padres hitters posting just a .294 wOBA against those fastballs.
The Dodgers are built to make that approach uncomfortable. They were the best fastball-hitting team in baseball this year, and even after some second-half regression, their .356 wOBA against heaters still ranked second behind the Padres.
Still, Pat Murphy isn’t interested in abandoning what got the Brewers here.
"By executing pitches, that stops offenses," Pat Murphy said before a team workout on Saturday afternoon. "We're still going to pitch to our strengths, and we're going to try to go-it's like any other fight. It's like, styles matter, but we can only do what we can do."
That’s the Brewers’ guiding principle, and it starts with the stuff they already trust. Jacob Misiorowski’s four-seamer led all pitches in run value this year, and Logan Henderson’s four-seamer ranked 19th. Milwaukee also has enough quality secondaries to get creative when the matchup calls for it.
That matters against a Dodgers lineup that, on a hitter-by-hitter basis, shows some clear cracks. Most of their bats do real damage against sinkers, no matter who is on the mound.
That doesn’t mean Milwaukee’s sinker-heavy arms have to shelve the pitch entirely, but it does suggest that pitchers like Robert Gasser, Shane Drohan, Dustin May and Chad Patrick may want to mix in more than just their primary fastball. Antonio Senzatela, Abner Uribe and Aaron Ashby can still lean on their sinkers, but the broader picture points toward more variety.
The other opening is short sliders. Several Dodgers hitters have struggled against that look, which could put Drohan and DL Hall in the spotlight. Uribe has also leaned more slider-heavy in certain matchups over the last two seasons, and this series may fit that pattern.
That’s the balancing act for Milwaukee. Misiorowski doesn’t need to become a junkballer, and the bullpen behind him doesn’t need to get cute.
But the Brewers do have enough weapons to adjust when the Dodgers’ swings dictate it. With Los Angeles, sticking to strengths and knowing when to lean into something else might be the difference.
"We can't worry about changing what we do," Murphy said. "We just have to go in and be a little better at the things we do."
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