SAN DIEGO – For the second straight year, the Brewers will play for the pennant.
And for the second straight year, the Dodgers are standing in the way.
If this Milwaukee team really is different after winning a franchise-record 103 games in the regular season and taking down baseball’s hottest second-half team in the National League Division Series, which ended Wednesday with a 3-1 Brewers win over the Padres in Game 4 at Petco Park, then this is the time to show it. Milwaukee is moving on to the League Championship Series for the second straight season and the fifth time in franchise history. Their last three have been against the Dodgers.
Game 1 is Sunday at American Family Field, after the Dodgers finished off the Braves in four games earlier Wednesday. And if you’re wondering what’s different about this Brewers team compared to the others, it starts with this: Jacob Misiorowski will be on the mound.
The NL Cy Young Award frontrunner was in the bullpen for the start of Wednesday’s game in a sign of the urgency the Brewers carried into the night. If they could take the NLDS in four games, they would have Misiorowski primed and ready to throw the first pitch of the NLCS. But for that to become a reality, the Brewers had to rewrite the narrative that they cannot win a postseason game on the road. They had come up empty in each of their last 12 tries, tying for the longest road losing streak in the postseason in MLB history.
The last time they had won on the road in the playoffs? Game 3 of the 2018 NLCS, when they beat Walker Buehler at Dodger Stadium.
And who started for the Padres on Wednesday night? None other than Buehler.