Remembering Nick Mears' best moments with the Milwaukee Brewers

In recent years, Milwaukee Brewers fans have endured a great deal of roster turnover. It's telling that just four players from the team's 2021 NLDS roster remain on the Brewers' roster today (Aaron Ashby, Freddy Peralta, Christian Yelich, and Brandon Woodruff). However, this strategy, while it may make buying a Brewers jersey a more difficult process, is by design. Milwaukee's front office is one of the best in the league at evaluating when a player will hit their prime and when it's time to move on from them. Said strategy is made easier by the team's coaching staff and player development team, who have become known as some of the best in baseball at getting the most out of their players.

Many Brewers fans were expecting their team to buck this roster turnover trend during the 2025-26 offseason, with the front office's expert roster building tactics of recent past giving Milwaukee the ability to return essentially the same team that won a franchise-record 97 games during last year's regular season. However, over the weekend, the Brewers executed a trade that sent two everyday big leaguers to the Kansas City Royals in exchange for a high upside southpaw, hopefully continuing their strategy of moving on from players at the right time, while bringing in players to the organization who are destined for a breakout season.

The trade, which added Ángel Zerpa to the Brewers' pitching staff, resulted in the departures of both Isaac Collins and Nick Mears from Milwaukee's roster. Mears, who the Brewers acquired back at the 2024 trade deadline from the Colorado Rockies, had an inconsistent tenure in Milwaukee, but included during that span were several electric moments that Brewers fans are not likely to forget anytime soon.

Here are some of the best moments from Mears' time in the blue and gold.

Nick Mears dominates Mets hitters in 2024 NL Wild Card series

Heading into the 2024 postseason, Mears was somewhat of a question mark in the Brewers' bullpen. Despite clearly possessing a nasty four-seam-slider combination that was generating a great deal of strikeouts, Mears was struggling to keep the ball in the ballpark. In just 13 appearances with the Brewers during the regular season, Mears allowed five homers; in the postseason, that high-likelihood of surrendering a longball generally doesn't bode well for relief pitchers hoping to make an appearance.

However, Pat Murphy displayed a great deal of confidence in Mears when the Brewers' NL Wild Card Series match-up with the New York Mets rolled around. Mears appeared in Games 1 and 3, and despite the fact that Milwaukee lost both contests, their trade deadline acquisition was dominant. In Game 1, Mears covered four perfect outs, collecting a strikeout of Mets catcher Francisco Alvarez in the process. It took Mears just 12 pitches, nine of which were strikes, to shut down a Mets offense that had put up eight runs before he entered the game.

Then, two nights later, Mears had his Brewers moment. The winner-takes-all Game 3 started with six scoreless innings from both pitching staffs. When the seventh inning arrived, Murphy once again turned to Mears to keep the game an even 0-0 tie. Mears struck out Pete Alonso, retired the red-hot Jose Iglesias, and struck out ex-Brewer Jesse Winker, who the Milwaukee faithful don't particularly like. With a scream of excitement and encouragement coming off the mound, Mears fired up his team, and in the bottom half of the frame, they broke the scoreless tie. The game didn't end the way the Brewers wanted, no need to discuss that further, but Mears' electric seventh inning won't soon be forgotten.

Mears transforms into an escape artist during the first half of the 2025 season

Fast forward to the following season, and expectations for Mears were significant. A full offseason with the Brewers' pitching department and now with the added confidence from his postseason performance, many expected Mears to become a high-leverage weapon in Milwaukee's bullpen in 2025. Through the first seven weeks of the season, that's exactly what Mears was.

After posting a 0.79 ERA in the month of April, Mears not only rose to the top of Murphy's trust tree, but he also displayed a knack for getting out of jams. His Houdini-esque abilities were on display throughout the season, but perhaps the most important moments came during a series against the Houston Astros in early May. On back-to-back nights, Mears stranded two runners on base, maintaining the slim lead that Milwaukee held at the time. The Brewers went on to win both games, during a time when consecutive wins were hard to come by.

Though Mears struggled during the second half of May, he returned to his elite form in June, when he, coincidentally, once again posted a stellar 0.79 ERA. At one point, when his ERA was hovering around 2.00 in early July, Mears even looked like he might get some consideration for the All-Star Game, but such a feat is incredibly difficult to accomplish for a non-closer relief pitcher. The rest of the season was an up-and-down battle for Mears, who followed his strong month of June by allowing five earned runs in 6.1 innings in July. However, when the postseason rolled around, Mears once again rose to the occasion.

Mears caps his Brewers tenure with a spotless performance in the 2025 NLDS

After back tightness landed Mears on the IL during the final month of the 2025 regular season, concerns over whether or not he would be able to pitch in the postseason arose. However, Mears returned with plenty of time to spare and was named to the NLDS roster ahead of the Brewers' highly anticipated match-up with the Chicago Cubs.

Mears made three appearances in the NLDS, collecting outs in each of Games 1, 2, and 3. His role was similar to the escape artist one that he assumed at times throughout the regular season; those three appearances totaled just five outs, but they came during important moments with runners on base. Whether it was relieving Aaron Ashby of his duties in Game 2, following his shaky start, or doing the same for Quinn Priester in Game 3, Mears was one of the most trusted relievers in Milwaukee's 'pen throughout the NLDS.

Somewhat surprisingly, Mears was left off the NLCS roster, which might have been the writing on the wall that the Brewers were ready to move on from him. Regardless, Mears' time in Milwaukee might have been brief, just a season and a half, but his impact was significant. Whether it was getting a big out and stranding opposing runners on base or stepping up in the postseason, Nick Mears will forever be a part of Brewers history.