The Brewers-Padres NLDS brings together two teams that don’t look alike but arrive with the same kind of noise around them. Milwaukee won 103 games and has spent the year leaning into power on the mound more than power at the plate.
San Diego, meanwhile, comes in as the hottest club in the field, having won 19 of its past 22. Both clubs have a home-field edge and the kind of crowds that can turn October into a pressure cooker.
Still, one question towers over everything else: can the Padres solve Jacob Misiorowski?
Milwaukee’s breakout ace is a problem in every sense. He can touch 103 mph, and because of his extension, that fastball plays like 105.
The Brewers were 22-8 when he started. San Diego did beat him once, though, and that game showed the route the Padres are likely to need again: survive his innings, stay close, and try to cash in late against Milwaukee’s bullpen.
That May 13 meeting ended 3-1 in favor of the Padres. Misiorowski carved through seven shutout innings and left with a 1-0 lead before San Diego pushed across three runs in the ninth against Abner Uribe.
That’s the blueprint for the Padres here, and they may need it more than once. Misiorowski has made 38 of his 44 career starts on at least five days of rest, with six on four days and none on three.
Even so, Milwaukee has not closed the door on bringing him back on three days’ rest in Game 4 if the Brewers are down 2-1. A Game 5 start is also very much in play.
That’s a long way off, of course, and it depends on how Misiorowski comes out in Game 1, but the possibility is there.
The arms race in this series is real. No team in recorded history threw more 100 mph pitches than these two clubs, though Milwaukee did it by a ridiculous margin - 60% more than anyone else.
The Brewers also posted the highest average four-seam velocity of any playoff team since tracking began in 2008. That kind of profile makes this matchup feel tailor-made for San Diego, which handles elite velocity well.
Milwaukee’s identity is built around going against the grain. The Brewers hit the fewest home runs, 154, for any 103-win team since the 1986 Mets.
That’s not usually the formula for a title run, either. The last six World Series winners all finished in the top four in homers, and no champion has ranked in the bottom half since the 2015 Royals.
Even so, Milwaukee has managed to come within one win of a championship without ever getting over the top.
There are a few more layers here, starting with the two Jacksons. Pat Murphy views Jackson Chourio as the key to Milwaukee’s offense, while Jackson Merrill has been catching fire for San Diego. Different teams, different roles, but both lineups are counting on a young bat to tilt the series.
The back ends of the bullpens could be just as decisive. San Diego has Adrian Morejón and Mason Miller, both bringing 100-plus mph heat to Craig Stammen’s late-game plan.
The question is how aggressively Stammen will use them, especially when the game stretches beyond three outs. Morejón has gone more than three outs 25 times, including eight two-inning outings.
Miller has done it nine times, with two two-inning appearances. Together, they could cover the final nine outs of a game if needed.
Milwaukee and San Diego also share a quieter but important storyline at first base: veteran hitters who revived their seasons on minor league deals. Jake Bauers turns 31 on Tuesday after nearly walking away from the game following a .199 season in 2024.
His wife was set to return to work, then got pregnant, and Bauers has said he kept playing partly to keep health care coverage for his family. He signed a minor league contract with the Brewers, made the roster, hit .235 in 85 games in 2025, then adjusted his setup and swing - more upright, no drift with his head - and broke out this year.
He entered the season as a career .365 slugger and finished by slugging .484.
Ty France, now 32, had his own rebound path. After hitting .257 with seven homers last season across three teams and winning a Gold Glove, he couldn’t find a major league job and signed a minor league deal with San Diego in mid-February, right as camp opened.
He was competing with Miguel Andújar, Gavin Sheets and Nick Castellanos for the first-base job. He hit well all spring, was told five days before opening day that he had made the team, earned a $1.35 million salary, and then went on to hit a career-high 21 home runs.
There’s even a Cy Young connection in the series. Padres Game 1 starter Robbie Ray had never really had a changeup that worked.
As a supinator rather than a pronator, he struggled to get the ball to turn over. After the 2024 season, when he threw zero changeups, Ray texted Tarik Skubal to ask how he threw his changeup.
Skubal, who is also a supinator with a similar arm slot, had figured out a way to throw the pitch without pronation, and it became one of the best in the game.
Skubal sent Ray instructions, videos, pictures and drills. In return, Ray shared tips on throwing the slider. The result is that the changeup, a pitch Ray didn’t even throw two years ago, now grades as his best offering.
In Other News...
Padres Have Every Right To Be Furious About This Game 1 Twist
A strange break in Game 1 of the NLDS put the Padres in an early hole before the baseball really had a chance to breathe. Ty France sent a ball skyward at American Family Field, it struck a cable supporting the roof, and Jackson Chourio came down with it for an out. It was the kind of play that makes everyone in the ballpark stop and check the rule book, even if the answer winds up being more mundane than the reaction.
Under the parks ground rules, the ball stays live if it hits the cable above fair territory, so the ruling was correct. Still, the setting only added to the frustration for San Diego, with MLB controlling whether the roof is opened or closed in the postseason and the roof closed for this game. For a team trying to seize an early edge in October, it was the sort of twist that leaves plenty of room for argument, even if not much room for protest. [Read more 🡒]
Padres Open NLDS With Brutal Ending Fans Wont Stop Debating
The Padres NLDS opener in Milwaukee came down to one of those October moments that can linger long after the final pitch. San Diego dropped Game 1, 3-2, but the conversation afterward centered on Ty Frances drive in the top of the ninth, a ball that looked for a moment like it might flip the game and the series with one swing.
Instead, it hit the closed roof at American Family Field and was caught by Brewers left fielder Jackson Chourio for an out, a ruling the Padres challenged before it was upheld under the stadiums ground rules. Milwaukee then finished off the final out, leaving San Diego to regroup and leaving fans to keep arguing about a play that felt one step away from changing everything. [Read more 🡒]
Brewers Got A Massive Playoff Break Thanks To One Bizarre Bounce
A strange break in Milwaukee helped turn one of Game 1s biggest swings into a routine out, and the Padres were left to shake their heads. Ty France sent a deep fly toward the roof at American Family Field, where the ball took an odd bounce and was ultimately caught by Jackson Chourio, erasing what looked like a possible go-ahead homer for San Diego.
Craig Stammen challenged the call, but the umpires let it stand under the parks ground rule, which treated the ball as fair after it hit the roof. It was the kind of play that can feel unique to one stadium, one postseason game, and one unlucky sequence, especially since the balls path probably would have played differently in most major league parks. [Read more 🡒]