The Brewers are going to the NLCS. Milwaukee beat the Padres 3-1 at Petco Park on Wednesday night to take the Division Series 3-1, and the series came down to a 22-year-old outfielder who keeps turning up in the biggest at-bats in the franchise’s October history.
Jackson Chourio singled through a drawn-in infield in the fifth to drive in Garrett Mitchell with the go-ahead run. That was his 17th career postseason RBI, passing Ryan Braun for the most in Brewers history. He drove in at least one run in all four games against San Diego and accounted for six of Milwaukee’s 13 runs in the series.
Milwaukee scored 13 runs in four games and won anyway. That tells you how little San Diego did, and it tells you how much of the Brewers’ offense ran through one player.
Chourio Is Already Milwaukee’s Best October Hitter Ever
Chourio is hitting .313/.348/.588 across 22 career postseason games. He set the franchise record for postseason home runs in Game 1 of this series. He hit the walk-off that put Milwaukee up 2-0. And his 17 postseason RBIs match Andruw Jones for the most in MLB history by a player under 23.
Pat Murphy’s team won a franchise-record 103 games this year, and it did not win this series by slugging. It won with Chourio in the middle of the order and a bullpen that gave up nothing after the fourth inning.
Garrett Mitchell Saved This Game Twice
Robert Gasser gave the Brewers four innings and allowed one run, a Fernando Tatis Jr. homer leading off the third. Aaron Ashby followed with three hitless innings. Abner Uribe and Trevor Megill finished it, and Milwaukee retired the final 24 Padres hitters without a hit.
The signature moment belonged to Mitchell, who had started the series 2-for-11 with six strikeouts. He singled in a run in the third, tripled to lead off the fifth ahead of Chourio’s go-ahead hit, then ran to the center field wall in the eighth and caught a 106.7 mph Manny Machado drive that Statcast said would have left 19 of 30 parks.
“It kind of just happened,” Mitchell said. Machado’s version: “Nice play. Should have hit it harder.” Uribe, who threw the pitch, said he thought the ball “was way gone.”
The win also ended a postseason road losing streak that had stretched eight years and a dozen games for this organization.
Now Comes Los Angeles Again
Game 1 of the NLCS is Sunday at American Family Field, and it is a rematch of last year’s NLCS, which the Dodgers swept. Los Angeles just finished off the Braves in four and is chasing a third straight title.
Murphy is not pretending otherwise. “We have a monumental task ahead of us, based on what I know about the Dodgers,” he said. Christian Yelich kept it simpler: “I’m just proud of the guys.”
Milwaukee has not reached a World Series since 1982. The Brewers had the best record in baseball, they have the best young hitter left in this postseason, and they still get to be the underdog on Sunday. Give me the Brewers in six.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.