The Brewers have spent two games showing that October baseball can turn on one swing, one walk, one outfield read, one timely poke through the infield. And right now, the player at the center of it all is Jackson Chourio.
On Saturday night, Chourio delivered the kind of blast that changes the temperature of a playoff game instantly: a game-tying two-run homer to right-center against the Padres that made it 2-2. Buried inside that moment was a franchise marker, too. With that shot, Chourio moved into sole possession of the Brewers’ all-time postseason home run lead.
That number comes with a little perspective. Milwaukee hasn’t exactly been overflowing with October power through the years, largely because the club wasn’t a regular postseason presence until 2018.
Before Chourio went deep Saturday, Orlando Arcia - yes, that Orlando Arcia - sat atop the team list with four. Chourio passed him in a hurry, and given that he’s locked up through the 2031 season, he’s positioned to keep stretching that lead for a long time.
He’s already becoming one of the defining Brewers, and the postseason stage has only sharpened that.
The same was true again on Sunday afternoon, when Milwaukee had to dig itself out of a messy game and did it anyway. The Brewers committed three errors, an unusual look for a team that’s usually sharper than that.
But they kept coming. Christian Yelich opened the comeback with a one-out walk, then a couple more walks set the table for Chourio.
Down to his final strike, he sent a ball back through the infield up the middle to finish the job.
That wasn’t his only big swing of the series, either. In Game 1, Chourio took advantage of a leadoff walk from Garrett Mitchell in the bottom of the third and tied the game at 2-2. Later, William Contreras added a solo homer that pushed Milwaukee ahead 3-2 late.
Contreras has been piling up his own October power, too. With three postseason home runs in just a few appearances, he now sits third on the Brewers’ all-time postseason list.
For a club that has not always been able to find the big hit when the moment demanded it, these first two games have felt different. The franchise’s most memorable postseason clutch moments still include Nyjer Morgan’s walk-off base hit against the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2011 to send Milwaukee to the National League Championship Series, and Mike Moustakas coming through in Game 1 of the NLDS against the Colorado Rockies in 2018. Now Chourio has carved out a place alongside those moments with his walk-off hit to survive a sloppy game against the San Diego Padres.
There have also been plenty of postseason disappointments that still linger. In the 2024 Wild Card, the Brewers had the tying run at the plate and couldn’t deliver.
In the 2021 Division Series against the Atlanta Braves, they needed one run to tie and went 1-2-3 instead. Those are the kinds of missed chances that make these current moments stand out even more.
Milwaukee’s pitching has been a huge part of why the Brewers are up 2-0 heading to San Diego. Through 18 innings, Padres hitters have been on base 12 times, but only three of those trips have ended with a run. The Brewers stranded eight San Diego runners on Sunday and 12 on Saturday night, and that work kept the door open for the offense to finish the job.
Even in the strange little moments, Chourio has been there. The fly ball involving Ty France and the wire attached to the roof was one of those plays that can get lost in the chaos, but it was not an easy adjustment to make mid-flight, and Chourio made it. It’s another reason he’s quickly building a postseason résumé that already carries real weight in Brewers history.
Now Milwaukee heads into what figures to be a brutal road if it’s going to reach the World Series. As the National League’s No. 1 seed, the Brewers already have a target on them, and after handling one of September’s hottest teams in San Diego, they’re still staring at a steep climb. A series win would send them toward either the Los Angeles Dodgers or the Atlanta Braves, two teams they’d like to finally get over the hump against.
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