Brewers extinguish red-hot Padres, advance to NLCS for second consecutive year

The Milwaukee Brewers are heading to the National League Championship Series for the second consecutive year. After winning Games 1 and 2 of the National League Division Series at American Family Field over the weekend, the Brewers suffered a narrow loss in Game 3 at the San Diego Padres' ballpark, setting up a situation in which Pat Murphy's squad had to close out the series in Game 4 or risk returning to the Cream City for a winner-takes-all Game 5.

In the early hours of Thursday morning, Brewers fans in Milwaukee watched their team close out the red-hot Padres, who were coming off an excellent month of September and an emphatic win over the Chicago Cubs in the Wild Card Series, with a 3-1 victory in Game 4 and officially punch their ticket to the NLCS for the second straight year.

As was the case in Games 1, 2, and 3, Game 4 was a nail-biter. The Brewers jumped out to an early lead for the first time in the series thanks to a third-inning RBI-single from Garrett Mitchell, who ultimately became the hero of Game 4. San Diego, however, quickly tied things up as Fernando Tatis Jr. led off the bottom of the third with a solo homer to center field.

Outside of his lone mistake to Tatis, Game 4 starter Robert Gasser was excellent in his first postseason start. Gasser ultimately covered four innings, and allowed just the one earned run on three total hits, while working around a few uncharacteristic plays from the defense behind him. Even still, when Gasser's strong outing came to an end after four innings, the game was tied 1-1 and the Brewers were in need of a big hit.

The bringer of big hits, Jackson Chourio, once again came through. In the top of the fifth, after Mitchell led off the inning with a triple, Chourio, facing the flame-throwing Bradgley Rodriguez, laced another RBI single up the middle, very similar to his hit off Mason Miller, and Mitchell jogged in from third to give the Brewers the lead.

That lead held throughout the remainder of the game, but not without incredible performances from the Brewers' bullpen, especially southpaw Aaron Ashby, and a memorable catch from Mitchell in center field.

Aaron Ashby, Garrett Mitchell lead Brewers to NLDS-clinching victory over San Diego Padres

After Gasser's outing, manager Pat Murphy turned to his high-leverage arms in the fifth inning, starting with Ashby, who pitched in Games 1 and 2, but not Game 3 on Tuesday night. Fans started doing the bullpen math and factored two innings for Ashby, one for Abner Uribe, and one for Trevor Megill, but that left one uncovered inning, which some thought Jacob Misiorowski, who was in the bullpen for Game 4, might cover. However, Ashby instead turned in a heroic performance covering the fifth, sixth, and seventh innings, without allowing a single hit, before turning the ball over to Uribe for the eighth.

During Ashby's incredible performance, the Brewers scratched across another run, thanks to a single from Jake Bauers, a ground-rule double from Cooper Pratt, and a sacrifice fly off the bat of Sal Frelick. As a result, when Uribe came on for the eighth inning to face the top of the Padres' lineup, the Brewers were sporting a 3-1 lead.

Uribe issued a leadoff walk to Tatis Jr., and after Jackson Merrill struck out, Manny Machado came to the plate as the tying run. On the second pitch of the at-bat, Machado crushed a sinker at the bottom of the zone to center field. Mitchell worked his way back to the short wall in right-center, reached up, and grabbed the would-be game-tying homer out of the air. Uribe closed out the frame, Megill was perfect in the bottom of the ninth, and the Brewers won the series and broke their streak of 12 consecutive road playoff losses.

It's a huge victory for the Brewers, and not only because of the obvious reason that it punched their ticket to the NLCS for the second consecutive year. The Brewers winning in four games means they avoid a winner-takes-all Game 5, like they played in last year, which would have been played on Friday night and forced Murphy to use Misiorowski again before the NLCS. Now, the Brewers will have three days off and the luxury of being able to line up their pitching staff before facing the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 1 of the NLCS on Sunday night. Game 1 will take place at American Family Field on Sunday at 7:00 p.m. CT, according to the FS1 broadcast.

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