Brewers Eliminate Padres in NLDS Game 4, Set Up NLCS Rematch With Dodgers

SAN DIEGO — The Los Angeles Dodgers finally know who they’re playing next. The Milwaukee Brewers beat the San Diego Padres 3-1 in Game 4 of the National League Division Series on Wednesday night at Petco Park, closing out the series 3-1 and setting up a rematch of last year’s NLCS — the one the Dodgers swept. But this is not last year’s Milwaukee team, and everyone in Los Angeles knows it.

The Brewers clinched the series in the most unlikely way possible for a team with their October road history: by winning at someone else’s park. Milwaukee snapped a 12-game postseason road losing streak — tied for the MLB record, dating back to 2018 — in front of an announced sellout crowd of 47,712 that spent the night waiting for a Padres rally that never quite arrived, according to Reuters’ Field Level Media coverage. It was the only game of the four-game series not decided by one run, and it ended the Padres’ season for the fourth straight year without an NLCS appearance.

The swingChourio rewrites the franchise record book

Jackson Chourio is 22 years old, and he already owns the Milwaukee Brewers’ postseason RBI record. His tiebreaking single in the fifth inning — a line drive off reliever Bradgley Rodriguez after Garrett Mitchell tripled just inside the first-base line off Robbie Ray — gave Chourio 17 career postseason RBIs, breaking the franchise mark previously held by Ryan Braun (16), per Reuters.

It was the kind of swing that explains why this Brewers team feels different. Chourio didn’t just drive in the go-ahead run; he drove it in after Mitchell, his center-field partner in October heroics, manufactured the triple himself. Mitchell went 2-for-4 on the night with the triple, an RBI and a run scored, and he was far from finished making noise.

The sixth inning gave Milwaukee the breathing room it needed. Jake Bauers led off with a single off Jason Adam, Cooper Pratt followed with a ground-rule double into the left-field corner, and Sal Frelick’s sacrifice fly scored Bauers for the 3-1 edge, according to Field Level Media. Frelick had opened the scoring in the third — reaching on an infield single, stealing second, and scoring on Mitchell’s line single to center off Padres starter Walker Buehler. Buehler lasted just 3-plus innings, giving up one run on three hits with two walks and no strikeouts.

William Contreras added two hits for Milwaukee, and Bauers reached base four times, going 1-for-1 with three walks and a run scored. It was a complete, professional offensive night from a club that scored just four runs in all of last year’s NLCS sweep.

The catchMitchell steals one back from Machado

The play of the night — and maybe the play of the series — belonged to Garrett Mitchell’s glove. In the eighth inning, with Fernando Tatis Jr. on base after a leadoff walk, Manny Machado launched one to center that looked like the game-tying two-run homer. Mitchell leaped above the center-field wall and brought it back off reliever Abner Uribe, turning a 3-3 tie into a line-drive-out highlight that will live in Brewers October lore, per Reuters.

Tatis had been the only Padres player to do anything at the plate. His solo homer in the third — a 429-foot shot to center, complete with a big bat flip — accounted for San Diego’s only run of the night and their last real celebration, according to the Journal Sentinel. The Padres’ only other hits were a Jackson Merrill single and a Machado bunt single back in the first inning, when San Diego left the bases loaded. After that, the Milwaukee bullpen slammed the door.

The armsAshby, Gasser and Megill slam the door

The Brewers won this series the way they’ve won all season: with a bullpen that never blinks. Robert Gasser gave them four solid innings as the starter — one run, three hits, three strikeouts and a walk — and then Aaron Ashby took over and threw three innings of scoreless, hitless relief, striking out three and walking two on 38 pitches for his first career postseason win, per Field Level Media.

Trevor Megill finished it with a perfect ninth for his second save of the series — and the same Trevor Megill who was the winner when Milwaukee rallied to take Game 2. The Brewers’ pitching plan was never a secret; it just kept working.

The Padres, meanwhile, are left staring at the same ceiling for the fourth straight season. Their World Series dreams were crushed at home in a four-game series where three games came down to a single run and the one that didn’t was a slow-burn Brewers chokehold, the NY Post wrote. Four consecutive years without an NLCS appearance for a roster built — and paid — to win it all.

The rematchLast year was a sweep. This year is different.

Here’s the part Los Angeles has been waiting on. The Dodgers and Brewers will meet in the NLCS for the second straight year, with Game 1 on Sunday at American Family Field in Milwaukee — a rematch of last year’s series, which the Dodgers swept while holding Milwaukee to just four runs.

But this year is different, and the difference starts with home field. The Brewers finished with the best record in baseball; the Dodgers and Brewers were the top two records in the majors, and the two-game edge in the standings means the NLCS opens — and, if it goes the distance, ends — in Milwaukee, not Los Angeles. The Brewers also won the season series 4-3, and they did it with Chourio still ascending into the star he looked like on Wednesday night.

That’s the headline for the LA reader: the road to the World Series goes through Milwaukee now. The Dodgers just finished off the Braves in Game 4 to reach their third straight NLCS, and Yamamoto’s 10-strikeout masterclass in Game 3 showed what this pitching staff can do when it’s locked in. But the sweep is history, not a preview. This Brewers team owns the best record in the sport, a bullpen that suffocated San Diego over four games, and a 22-year-old who now holds their franchise postseason RBI record. The rematch, as our Game 4 preview noted, was always the matchup the Dodgers were bracing for. Now it’s official.

What’s nextSunday in Milwaukee

NLCS Game 1 is Sunday at American Family Field. The two best records in baseball, a rematch of last year’s sweep, and a Brewers team that just ended a 12-game October road losing streak by winning the game that sent them to the NLCS. For the Dodgers, the path to another World Series now runs through the city that owns home-field advantage — and a 22-year-old who just rewrote the Brewers’ record book.