MILWAUKEE – Jacob Misiorowski will be on the mound for the Brewers on Tuesday night with a chance to ruin another rival’s clubhouse carpeting.
The Brewers’ first chance to clinch the National League Central for the fourth consecutive season and the fifth time in six years comes when Misiorowski opens a three-game series at PNC Park against the Pirates. As far as clinch scenarios go, it will take a Brewers win over the Pirates and a Chicago loss at home to the Braves to seal the deal on Tuesday.
Whenever the time comes, it will be time to pop champagne bottles. And if that happens in Pittsburgh, it would complete the Brewers’ nearly decade-long tour of clubhouse carnage around the NL Central.
Here’s where they have partied during this run of eight postseason berths in the past nine years (with an asterisk next to 2020, since the celebration, like all things that year, was muted.) They just need a party in Pittsburgh to complete the division cycle:
2018 playoff clinch: Busch Stadium, St. Louis
2018 NL Central clinch: Wrigley Field, Chicago
2018 NLDS clinch: Coors Field, Denver
2019 postseason clinch: Great American Ball Park, Cincinnati
2020 postseason clinch: Busch Stadium
2021 NL Central clinch: American Family Field, Milwaukee
2023 NL Central clinch: American Family Field
2024 NL Central clinch: American Family Field
2025 NL Central clinch: Busch Stadium
2025 NLDS clinch: American Family Field
Who picks up the tab for carpet cleaning when a club has a big party? The hosts do, like the Brewers did when the Reds celebrated clinching a postseason berth last season at American Family Field. Over time, those things even out.
But the Brewers have made this sort of party an annual tradition in a way unlike the first five decades of franchise history, when the postseason field was smaller and Brewers’ winning seasons were few and far between. These days it’s different, thanks to homegrown talent like Misiorowski, a 2022 second-round Draft pick who is 14-5 with an NL-leading 1.95 ERA going into Tuesday night, making him a leading contender for the NL Cy Young Award with probably three starts to go.
He’s bidding to be the fourth Brewers pitcher to win a Cy Young Award (Rollie Fingers in 1981, Pete Vuckovich in 1982, Corbin Burnes in 2021) and the second to win a league ERA title. Only Burnes (2.43 in 2021) has done that before.
Burnes led all MLB qualifiers in ERA that season, and if Misiorowski wants to do the same, he’ll have to hold off the Yankees' Cam Schlittler. At the moment, they are neck and neck – each with a 1.95 ERA. Technically, Misiorowski is a hair ahead, though he’s pitched 23 1/3 fewer innings.
He’ll be making his second career start at PNC Park in his search to not only go ahead in the ERA race, but to guarantee the Brewers a spot in the postseason once again. Misiorowski held the Pirates to one run on three hits over seven innings on Sept. 7 last year.
“He’s just scratching the surface,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said after Misiorowski’s most recent start against the Cubs. “This kid can be really, really good. He’s worn out. We all know that. But this kid can be really, really special. He’s just learning how to pitch. He’s got electric stuff.”