The Brewers' regular season strength that has disappeared in the postseason

It was extremely difficult to identify any flaws during the Milwaukee Brewers' first two postseason games of 2025. Sure, you could point to the first inning runs, or the four longballs that Brewers' pitchers allowed in Games 1 and 2 of the NLDS, but when the team outscores their division rivals by 10 runs in two games, pointing out even the smallest of shortcomings feels futile.

However, in playoff baseball, the tides can turn quickly, changing seemingly meaningless pitfalls of a team's performance into major question marks. As has become the case for the Brewers, whose offense could do no wrong on Saturday afternoon and Monday evening when they collected emphatic wins over the North Siders to gain a commanding 2-0 series lead before suffering two disheartening losses at Wrigley Field to send the series to a win-or-go-home Game 5.

On Monday night, after the Brewers slugged three homers to give them a stress-free four-run victory over the Cubs, nobody was scrutinizing the team's lack of stolen bases in the postseason, because Milwaukee didn't need to manufacture runs in order to pull off the win. However, now that the mood has changed after two discouraging performances from the Brewers' offense on the North Side of Chicago, concerns over where Milwaukee's base-stealing threat has disappeared to in October have grown louder. With the Crew failing to scratch a single run across in Game 4 of the NLDS last night, fans are wondering where the scrappy, opportunistic offense that led the Brewers to a franchise-record number of wins in the regular season has gone.

After leading the NL in stolen bases in the regular season, the Brewers haven't swiped a single base in the postseason

The Milwaukee Brewers stole 164 bases during the 2025 regular season. It was a far cry from the 217 that they swiped a season ago, but stolen bases were down across the league this year, and the Brewers' 164 were still enough to lead the National League.

However, since their postseason journey has begun this year, the Brew Crew has failed to steal a single base. Not only that, the Brewers haven't even attempted a stolen base this postseason. They stole five bases in three games against the New York Mets last year, so this isn't some change in strategy that Pat Murphy and his squad adopt once October baseball rolls around.

To make matters worse, Carson Kelly, the Cubs' backstop who has started every game for them during the NLDS, is very average when it comes to throwing out would-be base stealers. His caught-stealing percentage (CS%) was a modest 27% during the regular season, ranking 16th among big-league catchers. The average speed of his throws down to second base was just 78.9 mph, which ranked 40th in baseball, meaning some teams had two catchers with stronger throwing arms than Kelly. And it's not like he makes up for it with an elite pop time; at 0.64 seconds, Kelly's exchange time is 39th among major-league backstops, according to data provided by Statcast.

Jackson Chourio's hamstring injury could certainly be preventing him from being a base-stealing threat in the postseason, and Sal Frelick, Caleb Durbin, and Brice Turang, three of Milwaukee's best base-stealers, have on-base percentages of .250 or lower in the postseason, meaning they haven't had many opportunities to swipe a bag. However, the Brewers aren't even looking to take a bag when they reach base this October, and for a team that made stealing bases a part of their identity en route to earning the top seed in the MLB playoffs, straying from that strategy in the postseason makes little sense.

The Brewers are staring down one of the most important games in franchise history tomorrow night, and a well-timed stolen base could go a long way in helping them pull off a victory and advance to the NLCS. Look for someone like Durbin, Turang, or Frelick, or even a late-inning pinch runner like Brandon Lockridge, to steal a base in a big moment tomorrow night and break this concerning streak.