Brewers clinch eighth trip to playoffs in nine years

MILWAUKEE -- If the Brewers were going to punch their ticket to October, they might as well leave an exclamation point.

Milwaukee clinched its eighth postseason berth in nine seasons Friday night at American Family Field, and there was little suspense about whether the celebration would arrive. The Brewers overwhelmed the Reds, 20-0, turning clinch night into a rout almost from the moment Jackson Chourio opened the bottom of the first inning with a double.

They scored eight runs in the first two innings. Then, somehow, eight more in the fifth, an avalanche punctuated by Garrett Mitchell’s grand slam -- the Brewers’ first of the season. Every member of Milwaukee’s starting lineup recorded a hit as a night that began with the possibility of another trip to October quickly became a celebration of one.

The 20-run margin was also the largest victory by any team on the day it clinched a postseason berth, surpassing 17-run wins by the 2001 Braves and 1996 Yankees, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. The Brewers already had some recent history in that department, winning by 15 runs over the Marlins on the day they punched their ticket to October in 2023.

The victory was Milwaukee’s 92nd of the season, improving the Brewers to 92-56 and a franchise-record 36 games over .500. And while the Brewers still have much bigger goals ahead -- another NL Central title, postseason positioning and potentially the best record in baseball -- they can officially check off the first one.

They’re going back to October.

The celebration reflected that balance. There was a toast in the clubhouse and plenty of appreciation for what it took to get there, but no champagne-soaked party. That can wait.

“You have to celebrate the moments, no matter how big or how small,” Mitchell said. “With how long a season is and all the ups and downs, you’ve got to be able to celebrate the moments when you have them because you never know when you’re going to get them and you never know when the last one’s going to be.”

Then came the qualifier.

“We still got a lot more to go,” Mitchell said.

“I know we’ve made it look like it’s not that hard, but it’s extremely hard to get to this point every year,” said Christian Yelich, the Brewers’ unofficial captain. “It shouldn’t be taken for granted. And there’s a lot of hard work ahead of us, still.”

For the Brewers, this has become business as usual. But to Yelich’s point, it was not always this way for the franchise, which was founded in 1969 as the Seattle Pilots and moved to Milwaukee to become the Brewers the following year.

First 49 seasons: .478 winning pct., four postseason berths
Last 9 seasons: .567 winning pct., 677-518 going into 2026, eight postseason berths

Some of that can be chalked up to the structure of the sport; more teams make the postseason than ever. But that doesn’t account for the Brewers’ culture change. From 1969-2017, covering the first 49 seasons of Brewers franchise history, only five teams had a lower regular season winning percentage: the Mariners, Marlins, Rockies, Rays and Padres. In the nine seasons since, only four teams have had a better winning percentage: the Braves, Yankees, Astros and Dodgers. And since Pat Murphy was promoted to Brewers manager for the start of the 2024 season, no team has a better winning percentage.

“I think you have to appreciate it,” Murphy said. “It’s not easy to do. It’s just not. Look at how many teams haven’t done that. How many teams have? It’s pretty special.”

Murphy spent part of his clubhouse toast recognizing the people who rarely receive the same attention -- clubhouse attendants, bat boys, bullpen catchers, trainers, strength coaches, chefs and members of the front office -- emphasizing that Milwaukee’s run has required much more than the players visible every night.

“It doesn’t just happen because you have good players,” Murphy said. “You have to have hungry, committed players to a certain standard.”

But it took a lot to get to this position again in 2026.

Even as 24-year-old right-hander Jacob Misiorowski began to come into his own as an ace, the Brewers sputtered at the start of this season. Health and perhaps some inexperience played a part in that. By the end of the second week of the regular season, a third of the starting lineup was on the injured list – electric outfielder Chourio with a fractured hand sustained while winning the World Baseball Classic with Team Venezuela, power threat Andrew Vaughn with a hamate fracture and Yelich with a groin injury. They wouldn’t all be back until the middle of May.

By then the pitching staff had taken some major hits. After two-time All-Star Freddy Peralta was traded to the Mets in January and 2025 standout Quinn Priester was lost for the year to thoracic outlet syndrome, Brandon Woodruff’s velocity plummeted on the final day of April and he landed back on the injured list. While he would briefly return in June and early July, he was never the same.

Without their two most experienced starting pitchers, the Brewers were left with a collection of arms with much promise, but little track record. Here was the Major League service time for the Brewers’ healthy rotation candidates going into this season:

• 1.136 years - Robert Gasser
• 1.102 years - Kyle Harrison
• 0.125 years - Chad Patrick
• 0.109 years - Misiorowski
• 0.075 years - Logan Henderson
• 0.045 years - Carlos Rodriguez
• 0.022 years - Brandon Sproat
• 0.000 years - Shane Drohan

“We’re inexperienced,” Murphy said then, “but that doesn’t mean we’re not good.”

It took a while for that to show. After enduring no losing streak longer than four games in Murphy’s first two years as manager, the Brewers dropped six in a row during one stretch of April and finished the month at 16-14.

Then they started getting healthier. And they started to win.

A victory behind Misiorowski at Wrigley Field on May 19 pushed the Brewers into first place in the NL Central for good. And after jockeying with the Dodgers and Rays for the best record in baseball during the middle of the season, Misiorowski struck out Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman in the decisive moments of an Aug. 15 win at Dodger Stadium that propelled the Brewers to the top of MLB’s overall standings. They haven’t trailed since.

The Brewers will spend the remaining weeks of the regular season trying to remain on that perch in order to secure home-field advantage throughout the postseason. That’s only one of the goals still to play for. The franchise record for wins (97, set last season) is another.

Murphy made that point clear during the toast.

“You check the box now,” Murphy said. “Next.”

There are more boxes waiting.

“This isn’t the end goal,” Brice Turang said. “We all know what the end goal is, and that’s what we’re chasing. So this is a small little step. We just enjoy it tonight, and then tomorrow we go out and try to win a game.”

Not bad for a team that consistently bucks preseason expectations.

“Coming into the year every year, everyone pretty much says we’re not going to win any games,” catcher William Contreras said. “I’m someone who likes to shut people’s mouths on the outside who say that. I get inspiration from that. We’re going to give everything we’ve got and battle to the last game of the year.”

They have accomplished the first goal. They will play games in October – again.