On the pitching side, the way the Brewers vanquished the Cubs in Game 5 of the NLDS mirrored how they got to this point. Of the 13 pitchers Milwaukee rostered in New York on Opening Day, only five were on the NLDS roster. The team retooled their staff on the fly during the regular season, by promoting players from the minor leagues and making in-season acquisitions.
“What you thought about a certain player at the start of the year can certainly evolve,” general manager Matt Arnold said leading into the series. “We’re not always right on guys, and I love being proven wrong in a lot of cases. But you have to find out. I think the big thing is just building up a number of players that have ingredients that you like, and then hopefully that can come together with the coaching that we have and try to get the most out of those players.”
Early in the year, the Brewers were forced to piece things together with their pitching staff. They were doing the same with their season on the line on Saturday. In both instances, it worked.
“Next man up, right?” said Blake Perkins.
In keeping with the season-long theme, Jacob Misiorowski and Chad Patrick combined for 5 ⅔ of the nine innings. Patrick excelled as a first-half fill-in for injured starting pitchers, but was optioned to Triple-A Nashville once the rotation returned to full strength. Eventually, he moved to a swingman role. Misiorowski did not debut until June.
It was the second time in the series that Misiorowski stepped up as the centerpiece of an all-hands-on-deck pitching plan. After Seiya Suzuki greeted him with a game-tying home run to open the second inning, he allowed just two singles in four crucial innings, leaning heavily on his cutter-like slider and his curveball. Best known for his outlier fastball, the right-hander used his heater a career-low 31% of the time.
“I think it was just an adjustment,” Misiorowski said. “Suzuki jumping on a heater, and kind of realizing, ‘Oh, that’s what they’re going to go with,’ and going with it.”
“We’re definitely not winning this series if not for him,” Christian Yelich said. “He pitched a ton of big innings for us in Game 2, and tonight he was really unbelievable. Really settled the game down and set the tone for the rest of the guys out of the pen.”
Misiorowski worked seven innings in the series, but Patrick was not far behind, logging 4 ⅔ scoreless frames while pitching in four of the five games. On Saturday, he put out a sixth-inning fire by inducing a Suzuki lineout and striking out Ian Happ looking with a perfectly painted back-door cutter. He then returned for a perfect seventh with two more punchouts, paving the way for Abner Uribe to earn his first career two-inning save.
“Chad was big, coming in and getting a bunch of big outs. And Uribe for two in the end there was awesome,” Yelich said. “That’s why you celebrate. You celebrate with your teammates and friends that you’ve got to grind throughout the season with and watch them take huge strides in their career.”
On the offensive side, the Brewers got the job done in a manner less emblematic of their usual success, but in a way that was going to be necessary in this particular matchup.
Milwaukee’s offense finished the regular season 22nd in home runs and 25th in isolated power, instead scoring many of its runs by grinding out plate appearances, putting the ball in play, and taking more extra bases than any other team. That approach leaves lineups vulnerable to batted-ball luck in short samples, and an excellent Cubs defense could foil it. The Brewers needed to drive enough balls over the fence to combat both of those realities.
That’s precisely how the decisive game transpired. The Brewers hit 22 balls within the field of play, but only three went for hits. Instead, they scored all three of their runs on solo homers, each coming from players who boast ample raw power and took turns carrying the lineup throughout the season.
William Contreras, who can hit the ball harder than most but often pounds it into the ground, opened the scoring with his first-inning shot. Andrew Vaughn, a midseason acquisition who posted a 141 OPS+ as the replacement for an injured Rhys Hoskins, put the Brewers up for good with his blast in the fourth.
“Big moment there,” Vaughn said. “Just swung the momentum in our dugout. It was huge, got everybody fired up.”
Brice Turang, who tapped into his impressive raw power during a strong second half but entered the night just 3-for-20 in the series, snapped out of his funk and provided insurance with the longest round-tripper of the night, smacking an outer-third slider 416 feet off the batter’s eye.
“We just talked [between at-bats] about, ‘Hey, Brice, you’re a great hitter, man. This is just a couple games,’” Pat Murphy said. “‘You’re doing great. You’re not getting results, but you’re doing great. Just keep swinging the bat.’”
Inexperienced pitchers who emerged as in-season replacements stepped up again under the bright lights. An offense that didn’t slug consistently during the regular season did so when it mattered most. The result was Milwaukee’s first playoff series win since 2018, a trip to the NLCS, and the relief of breaking a hex that spanned five postseasons.
“I’ve been on the other end of it. This is a whole lot better,” Perkins said.
“Just a big win for us tonight, big win for the organization, for the fanbase, for everybody,” Yelich said. “We really wanted to make sure we were able to deliver tonight and throughout this series. Just a great night overall.”