MILWAUKEE — These aren’t the same Milwaukee Brewers who have made regular playoff appearances the last several years.
Milwaukee became the first major league team to clinch a division championship Wednesday when it sealed its third NL Central title in the last four years. The Chicago Cubs’ 5-3 home loss to the Oakland Athletics enabled the Brewers to wrap up the division crown.
The Brewers’ clubhouse emptied of players with one out to go in the ninth inning in Chicago a couple of hours before Milwaukee’s scheduled first pitch against Philadelphia. A muffled cheer could be hear after the final out when the Brewers won their first consecutive division title for since 1981-82.
This marks the Brewers’ sixth postseason berth in the last seven years, a remarkable accomplishment for a team that made the playoffs just twice in a 35-year stretch from 1983-2017. But this run to the playoffs has been a little different from the rest.
Although the Brewers have grown accustomed to outperforming preseason expectations, the odds seemed stacked against them even more than usual this year.
Craig Counsell, the winningest manager in Brewers history, left for the rival Cubs. Corbin Burnes, the 2021 NL Cy Young Award winner, was traded to the Baltimore Orioles.
Two-time All-Star right-hander Brandon Woodruff didn’t pitch all year as he recovered from shoulder surgery and two-time NL reliever of the year Devin Williams missed the first half of the season with stress fractures in his back. All-Star outfielder Christian Yelich and pitchers Wade Miley and Robert Gasser suffered season-ending injuries.
None of it mattered.
The Brewers took over first place for good at the end of April and never looked back. They lived up to the comments Yelich made at spring training amid speculation Milwaukee would take a step backward without Counsell.
“Even when we’ve been good these last few years, no one ever picks us to be good just because we’re the Brewers,” Yelich said at the time. “It is what it is. But I think we have a chance to really surprise some people with the talent in this room.”
That’s just what they’ve done.
The Brewers benefited from the leadership of Pat Murphy, who had been Counsell’s bench coach since 2016. Rather than following Counsell to Chicago, Murphy stayed in Milwaukee and got his first full-time opportunity as a major league manager two weeks before his 65th birthday. Murphy’s only previous MLB managerial experience had come as an interim manager with San Diego in 2015.
Murphy has kept the locker room loose while guiding a team that hasn’t suffered more than three straight losses at any point this season. The Brewers are the only team that hasn’t had a losing streak of at least four games.
“I heard about what people were saying,” Murphy said this week. “A lot of people laughed at us, (said) this is a rebuild, said things like that.”
The Brewers never agreed with that assessment. They knew they had enough to contend.
“You look at the names of the guys in this locker room,” third baseman Joey Ortiz said. “We’ve got Christian Yelich, Willy Adames, (William) Contreras, Rhys Hoskins — great leaders on this team making sure we’re locked in every single day.”
The Brewers have succeeded with what Murphy refers to as an “all-hands-on-deck” approach.
Milwaukee’s had 17 different pitchers start games this season (only the Miami Marlins and Los Angeles Angels had more). Twelve different Brewers pitchers have collected a save, just two shy of the record of 14 set by the 2021 Tampa Bay Rays. Milwaukee entered Wednesday with a 3.65 ERA that ranked fourth in the majors.
The Brewers relied largely on their pitching the last few seasons and ultimately came up short in the playoffs, as they’ve lost nine of their last 10 postseason games. This year’s Brewers lineup appears to pack more punch.
Milwaukee entered Wednesday ranked fourth in total runs scored (733) and 11th in OPS (.735) after finishing 17th in runs (728) and 23rd in OPS (.704) last year.
Yelich was leading the NL in batting average (.315) and on-base percentage (.406) before back issues ended his season in late July. Contreras has developed into one of the game’s best hitting catchers. Adames is the first Brewers shortstop to have a 30-homer, 100-RBI season, something even Hall of Famer Robin Yount never accomplished in Milwaukee. Jackson Chourio, who doesn’t turn 21 until next spring, is the youngest player ever to hit 20 homers and steal 20 bases in one season.
“They just took on that attitude: ‘This is who we are, warts and all. We’re going to go after it and we’re going to fight.’” Murphy said Tuesday.
They’ve fought their way back into the postseason.
Now they want to keep proving people wrong all the way through October by doing something this franchise has never accomplished.
“The thought is not about clinching,” pitcher Frankie Montas said Tuesday. “It’s about going all the way and trying to win a World Series.”
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