MILWAUKEE -- Pat Murphy remembers sitting with Freddy Peralta in Spring Training and laying down a challenge. For years, Peralta was part of a triumvirate of Brewers starting pitchers with Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff, but Burnes was traded ahead of the 2024 season and Woodruff went into this year still recovering from shoulder surgery, so Peralta would have to lead the staff once again.
“You're the guy. You're coming into the year the ace,” Murphy remembers saying. “And the ace has to post.”
Peralta posted an outing somewhere in the middle over 5 2/3 innings of the Brewers’ 5-1 loss to the Dodgers in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series on Tuesday at American Family Field. He was good enough to give the Brewers a chance, but not as good as Dodgers right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who mowed through Milwaukee’s lineup for all nine innings of a game that left Peralta & Co. in a terrible position, down two games to none as the best-of-seven series moves to Los Angeles for Game 3 on Thursday.
Not only are the Brewers in a 2-0 hole, they are out of fully built-up starting pitchers until Quinn Priester can go again after working four innings of bulk relief in a 2-1 loss in Game 1. The Brewers are likely to lean on veteran left-hander Jose Quintana for innings in Game 3, but Quintana has not started a game since Sept. 14 and Murphy was not ready to say he was the pick. Quintana topped out at 49 pitches in his lone relief outing in Game 3 of the NLDS against the Cubs.
It’s why Murphy said the Brewers “basically have one-and-a-half starters available, or maybe a total of two,” coming into this NLCS.
And Peralta is the bona fide No. 1.
How will they piece things together from here?
“I don’t know what’s going to happen, who’s going to pitch, who’s not,” Peralta said. “And if you ask around, I don’t think they know. But it’s something they will take care of. There were times during the season we didn’t have five [regular starters]. It’s different.
“And you know, we’re still here. Let’s see if we turn the page.”
Briefly, he pitched with the lead. After Peralta held the Dodgers scoreless in a 19-pitch first inning with strikeouts of the slumping Shohei Ohtani and Will Smith, the Brewers claimed a 1-0 lead on Jackson Chourio’s first-pitch home run off Yamamoto, who lasted only two outs of a start in this ballpark on July 7 but would prove much more formidable in his return.
The Dodgers, down 1-0, struck right back in the second inning against Peralta. Teoscar Hernández hit a sky-high solo home run with one out to tie the game, and Los Angeles took the lead when eight-hole hitter Kiké Hernández singled with two outs and scored on Andy Pages’ opposite-field double to right.
“Our guys are hungry,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do. We’ve put ourselves in a good position, but those guys [the Brewers], they’re not going to quit.”
Peralta indeed settled in after that, allowing only one hit while putting zeroes on the scoreboard in the third, fourth and fifth innings, then retiring Freddie Freeman and Smith to open the sixth. Peralta was one out shy of clearing six innings for the first time in his six career postseason starts.
Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy had a different idea. His home run to straightaway center field extended L.A.'s lead to 3-1 and knocked out Peralta at 97 pitches. Muncy’s 14th career postseason home run set a new Dodgers record.
“That wasn’t the difference in the game,” Murphy said. “[Peralta] went out there and did the job.”
Brewers hitters, however, did not. Through the first 18 innings of this series, Brewers hitters have scored two runs on five hits and have had four plate appearances with runners in scoring position -- all in the ninth inning of Game 1.
“It’s not an ideal start to the series, by any means,” said Christian Yelich, who is hitless in his past 17 at-bats. “It’s not what you want to get off to. But we have to continue to battle and find a way to get the offense better. I’ve got to be better. We’ve got to be better. Just facts.”
The pitchers would appreciate the support, especially with the mixing and matching likely to take place until Priester returns in Game 4 (if the Brewers want to push him on three days’ rest after 58 pitches against the Dodgers in Game 1) or in Game 5 if they can push the series that far.
The Brewers also have a multi-inning weapon in Jacob Misiorowski to deploy during the Dodger Stadium segment of this series after he threw 54 pitches in four innings of the Brewers’ NLDS clincher against the Cubs. That was on Saturday, so he will be on five days’ rest for Game 4 against the Dodgers on Friday.
Murphy hasn’t ruled out a start for Misiorowski in the NLCS, and unlike other recent relief outings, Misiorowski said the team has informed him which day he’s likely to pitch in L.A.
Of course, neither Murphy nor Misiorowski would reveal that information to the Dodgers.
“It stinks we dropped these two, but it’s baseball and that stuff is going to happen,” Misiorowski said. “Our guys are hitting balls hard and a defender is right there. I think it’s going to even out.”
If it does, the Brewers will have a chance to turn this series around.
“It’s not like we haven’t been doubted all year,” Priester said. “And we did beat these guys six straight in the regular season. We took three at home, we took three there. I think we can look back on that success this year and say, ‘We absolutely can do this.’ Let’s not act like this is the first time people are saying, ‘They can’t do this.’”