Now that the wild-card round is in the books, the Milwaukee Brewers know their opponent for the National League Division Series: the San Diego Padres.
San Diego handled the Chicago Cubs in convincing fashion, opening the series with an 8-0 win on Tuesday before finishing the sweep with a 4-1 victory on Wednesday. That sets up Game 1 of the NLDS in Milwaukee on Saturday, Oct. 3, and it shapes up as one of the more interesting matchups of the postseason.
Milwaukee’s edge starts where it has lived all year: on the mound. The Brewers are carrying elite pitching into October, and Jacob Misiorowski is set to start Game 1.
He’s coming off a regular season in which he posted a 1.80 ERA and struck out 252 batters across 174 2/3 innings. He also saw San Diego once during the year and was dominant, firing seven shutout innings with 10 strikeouts on May 13.
The rotation doesn’t stop there. Logan Henderson is next in line, and he finished the season with a 2.47 ERA in 18 starts.
Behind those starters, Milwaukee can still shorten games. The Brewers closed the year with the third-best bullpen ERA in baseball at 3.40, which goes a long way toward explaining how they piled up 103 wins.
That’s the Brewers’ biggest strength. But the concern is obvious too: the Padres are arriving with serious momentum.
This is not the same San Diego team that was wobbling earlier in September. At one point, a playoff berth didn’t even look certain.
Then the Padres caught fire, went 18-6 in September after entering the month at 73-65, and rolled straight through the Cubs in the wild-card round. They’re playing elite baseball right now, and in October that matters.
Milwaukee may be the more complete team on paper. San Diego, though, is the hotter club at the exact moment the calendar turns. And that’s what makes this series so compelling.
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