MILWAUKEE -- For the first time since 1982, the Brewers will finish the season with the best record in the Majors.
When the Phillies lost to the Twins on Saturday night, the Crew clinched the National League’s No. 1 seed and home-field advantage throughout the postseason, since Milwaukee (96-65 after Saturday’s 7-4 loss to Cincinnati at American Family Field) owns the tiebreaker over Philadelphia (95-66), having gone 4-2 in the season series. The Brewers had already secured a better record than every team in the American League.
That means the Brewers not only will host Game 1 of the NL Division Series next Saturday against the winner of the Padres-Cubs NL Wild Card Series, but they would host each subsequent Game 1 all the way through the World Series should they advance. Manager Pat Murphy drove that point home, sensing some angst from the sellout crowd about a team that is 18-21 since a 14-game winning spree in August all but locked up the NL Central, and 1-5 over the past week.
“Credit the Reds,” Murphy said of a surging opponent that can clinch a postseason berth with a win on Sunday or a Mets loss to the Marlins. “They’re in survival mode and they’re playing their best baseball, and it’s dangerous. Just like the Mets were last year at this time, it’s dangerous. We’re playing, you know, not exactly lining up to win at all costs, you know what I mean? We’re doing some different things. You can say, ‘Don’t coast,’ but I don’t think they’re coasting. They had great effort. But it’s not the same.
“Nobody expected us to win. We don’t have the experience that would say we’re going to win, or maybe even the talent that says we’re going to win. We just have a team, and that team ended up with the best record in baseball. So, I’m not going to criticize this club for anything. I’m not going to evaluate the psychological state of them in a game [where] the ramifications now aren’t that great.
“Nobody got hurt. You can’t say they weren’t excited to play. The crowd was fantastic. They started booing this team and stuff like that, and I started laughing, like, ‘It’s unfortunate they don’t realize.’ And then they put up on the board in the sixth inning that we’re the No. 1 seed in baseball with the best record.”
That's right: Whatever happens come October, it will mark the first time since Harvey’s Wallbangers powered their way to a 95-67 record and the AL East title in 1982 that the Brewers will finish the season atop MLB’s overall standings. That team -- managed beginning in June by the hands-off Harvey Kuenn and featuring five future Hall of Famers by year’s end in Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, Ted Simmons, Rollie Fingers and Don Sutton -- beat the Angels in five games in the best-of-five AL Championship Series and took the Cardinals to a decisive Game 7 of the World Series. It stands as the Brewers’ only appearance in the Fall Classic to date.
This year’s Brewers surged to the best record in the Majors with winning streaks of eight, 11 and a franchise-record 14 games during a sensational stretch from late May through mid-August. They haven’t been winning at the same clip since then, but they were the first team in the Majors to clinch a postseason berth on Sept. 13, the second team to clinch its division on Sept. 21, and with victory No. 96 in San Diego on Wednesday, they tied the 2011 and ‘18 Milwaukee teams for the most regular-season wins in franchise history.
All that’s left is to win one more game to break the club record. But that’s proven a bit of a slog, with the Brewers prioritizing postseason readiness over everything else.
Take Saturday, when Cincinnati scored six runs in a third-inning rally that began with a throwing error from starter Robert Gasser, featured two misplays from left fielder Isaac Collins -- including a run-scoring throwing error -- and a bases-loaded walk issued by Jacob Misiorowski in his Major League relief debut.
“He didn’t hold his water,” Murphy said.
The Brewers threw the rookie right into the deep end, summoning him with the bases loaded, two outs and the Reds leading, 1-0. To make it a true bullpen test, coaches had given Misiorowski no prior notice about what sort of situation they had in mind for him going into his relief debut, and the 23-year-old conceded that coming into a bases-loaded, two-out situation was “nerve-wracking.”
“You can give him a soft landing, and then what? Where do you go from there?” Murphy said. “So, I thought it was the right thing to do. It wasn’t best for the team today, but I think it was the right thing to do.”
Misiorowski’s outing began with bad luck, when Ke’Bryan Hayes hit a swinging bunt for a run-scoring infield hit to the third-base side of the pitcher’s mound to make it 2-0. Then Misiorowski missed wildly with his first two pitches against Reds No. 9 hitter Matt McLain before walking him to make it 3-0.
Then it got ugly. TJ Friedl hit a two-run single to Collins, who threw to an uncovered third base for a run-scoring error that made it 6-0.
Misiorowski eventually settled in to deliver two more scoreless innings, but his 58-pitch outing left him in a tenuous position as far as the NLDS roster is concerned. His fate could hinge on what the coming week brings for relievers Trevor Megill (right flexor) and DL Hall (right oblique), who could return from the injured list as soon as Sunday to test their health against the Reds.
Asked where he believes he fits in the team’s postseason plans, Misiorowski said, “Wherever they put me. I’m just excited to be here and help support and be a part of the team.”
The manager, too, was throwing his support behind his guys.
He knows they earned it.
“I’m very confident in this team,” Murphy said. “We won 96 games for a reason.”