The Milwaukee Brewers beat the San Diego Padres 3-1 at Petco Park on Wednesday night to win their Division Series three games to one — and to book an NLCS rematch with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The series will be remembered for one catch. Garrett Mitchell raced back to the centre-field wall and pulled down a Manny Machado drive that Statcast-style measurements pegged as a home run in 19 of 30 ballparks, with a .960 expected batting average and 106.7 mph exit velocity. It was, as one national writer put it, a game-changing, series-changing moment — the kind of play that ends seasons for the team on the wrong side of it.
Jackson Chourio drove in a key run, starter Robert Gasser set the tone, and Milwaukee’s bullpen held a one-run game where it so often matters most. The win was the Brewers’ first road playoff victory in eight years, snapping an 0-12 skid away from home in the postseason. It is also their second straight trip to the National League Championship Series.
For San Diego, the ending was quiet: three hits, one run, and a winter of what-ifs about a wild-card ride that swept the Cubs and then ran into the league’s most complete team.
Milwaukee now gets the opponent it wanted and the one it feared. The NLCS opens Sunday against a Dodgers club that swept the Brewers at this stage a year ago. Mitchell’s glove has already changed one October. Milwaukee needs it — and everything else — to change another.
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