Garrett Mitchell’s game-saving catch spurs moment of déjà vu for Brewers’ foe Manny Machado

For the second consecutive year, the Milwaukee Brewers are advancing to the NLCS as the No. 1 seed in the National League. They had to thwart a red-hot San Diego Padres team to get there, clearly establishing themselves as the class of the Senior Circuit alongside the Los Angeles Dodgers.

There were countless highlights that will be played on social media and sports talk shows for years to come, from Ty France's roof ball to Jackson Chourio's heroic walk-off against Mason Miller, but the lasting image of this series will undoubtedly be Garrett Mitchell's catch up against the center field wall in the bottom of the eighth inning of Game 4. With that snag, the Friars' final hopes were all but extinguished.

In a cruel twist of fate for Manny Machado, whom Mitchell robbed Wednesday night, the play is eerily similar to the game-saving catch Adam Jones made at Petco Park back in the 2017 World Baseball Classic. Whether just an unfortunate coincidence or a glitch in the matrix, it's probably time for Machado to start taking aim at other parts of his home ballpark in clutch moments.

Garrett Mitchell's robbery of Manny Machado is a paradigmatic example of how Brewers win

I won't pretend that Mitchell's catch was more impressive than Jones' effort; the latter had to make a perfectly timed jump off a dead sprint for a true home-run robbery. Meanwhile, the Brewers' center fielder was in the right place at the right time, barely having to hop off the ground to keep the Crew's 3-1 lead intact.

But if that's not what Brewers baseball is all about, what is? This is one of the best-prepared teams in the league that constantly wins on the margins. Sure, favorable luck helps when France skies a ball into the American Family Field retractable roof, but Mitchell playing Machado that deep to right-center field is no coincidence. The Crew are constantly doing the little things right over the course of the summer -- that work just tends to show up in big moments once October rolls around.

It's that philosophy that should give them hope against the Dodgers in the NLCS. Yes, this same matchup turned into a beatdown last year, but this Brewers team is better equipped to handle all the star power coming out of Los Angeles. Heck, they just took down a surging Padres team headlined by Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado.

So, devastating though it must have been for Machado to relive a painful memory, the Brewers' series-clinching effort against the Padres shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone familiar with this team. They were the class of baseball for a reason this season, and they'll put that reputation to the test against San Diego's big brother next round.

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