After a well-deserved week of rest, the Milwaukee Brewers are finally set to start their postseason action. A week filled with preparation, simulated games and workouts all leads up to the Crew\u2019s first ever postseason matchup against the San Diego Padres.<\/p>\n
The Brewers will have their ace on the mound in Jacob Misiorowski. The leading NL Cy Young contender, Misiorowski led the league in ERA (1.80) and strikeouts (252). The Padres will have the veteran left-hander Robbie Ray on the bump. Ray pitched to a 3.59 ERA this year, making 30 starts. He was a deadline acquisition from the San Francisco Giants. In Ray\u2019s nine starts with the Padres, he had a 5.02 ERA.<\/p>\n
The Padres used their two best starters to get through the Cubs in the Wild Card series. We\u2019ll see just how deep into the game the Padres are looking to have Ray go against this Brewers lineup.<\/p>\n
Even though there\u2019s a left-handed starter on the mound, Pat Murphy elected to not put Andrew Vaughn in the starting lineup and went with Christian Yelich as the DH. When asked for the calculus as to why, Murphy said \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s calculus involved in that one.\u201d Referring to Yelich\u2019s body of work over his career as a large factor in the decision.<\/p>\n
Murphy went on to say that Jake Bauers is still dealing with the toe and shin injuries and that if Bauers were 100% healthy, that he could have been an option in the outfield and put Vaughn at first. But the \u201crisk of less defense\u201d led him to keep Bauers at first base and put Lara in right.<\/p>\n
That wasn\u2019t the only interesting lineup decision from Murphy for Game 1. Cooper Pratt is batting 6th in the starting lineup, marking the first time in his young career that he has started higher than 7th. Pratt has been hitting .315 with a .794 OPS over the last 28 days, so he\u2019s on a hot streak.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re considering the other team, your own team, your individual player, his psyche, the options it gives you later, the mindset of who\u2019s pitching\u201d Murphy said. \u201cWe feel like with what we\u2019re facing, Cooper is the best option there and letting Joey [Ortiz] hit down in the order.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brandon Woodruff also shared an update pregame that he will start throwing off a mound soon, though he does not have an exact date. The earliest he could possibly return would be if the Brewers made it to the World Series.<\/p>\n
The Padres are staggering four lefties throughout their lineup against Jacob Misiorowski: Dustin Harris (2nd), Jackson Merrill (5th), Ethan Salas (7th) and Jake Cronenworth (9th). But mixed in between are some heavy hitters with Fernando Tatis Jr, Manny Machado, Ty France, Xander Bogaerts, and Luis Campusano.<\/p>\n
Game 1 is here. The Brewers have their ace on the mound and need him to set the tone. We\u2019ve seen Misiorowski step up in big moments before, and the energy of the playoffs will light up the radar gun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a well-deserved week of rest, the Milwaukee Brewers are finally set to start their postseason action. A…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":820953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2407],"tags":[5,72545,4,43,137,18,4339,4338],"class_list":["post-820952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego-padres","tag-baseball","tag-milwaukee-brewers-discussions","tag-mlb","tag-padres","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-sandiego","tag-sandiegopadres"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117379714483055174","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/820953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}