Brewers not coasting their way into postseason: 'Win tonight' (2024)

CINCINNATI – The question -- at least the start of the question -- was about how the Brewers would approach September given their cushion in the National League Central. With a 10-game lead over second-place Chicago going into Sunday’s 11-inning, 4-3 loss to the Reds at Great American Ball Park, Fangraphs pegged Milwaukee’s odds of winning the division at 99.6 percent.

Of course, nothing has been won yet. And there are still the overall NL standings to think about. But with all of those caveats in mind, the gist of the query was whether the Brewers have built themselves enough of a lead for skipper Pat Murphy to start managing his pitching staff and position-player group with October in the back of his mind.

Before the questioner could finish, however, Murphy cut him off.

“I’m sorry,” Murphy said. “I don’t mean to be a [jerk] about this, but I look at the game tonight. You can’t be closed-minded to players’ health, but it’s ‘win tonight.’”

Sometimes managers say that just to say it, but Murphy proved it in a series that saw the Brewers take three of four from the Reds. On Friday, in Milwaukee’s first doubleheader this season, Murphy used all of his available high-leverage relievers to secure a win in Game 1, even though it left him thin behind Game 2 starter DL Hall, who was pitching in the Majors for only the second time since April.

It worked because Hall and Joe Ross combined for a five-hitter in a blowout win, which sealed Hall’s spot as a September callup and kept the bullpen in relatively good shape to win a one-run game on Saturday and be well-stocked for Sunday’s series finale, which was the seventh of 10 games in nine days.

The Brewers took their bid for a rare four-game sweep all the way to an 11th inning thanks to Bryse Wilson, the last Milwaukee reliever to pitch in the series, covering parts of five innings, the first four of them scoreless before pinch-hitter Santiago Espinal hit a comebacker that glanced off Wilson and won the game for the Reds. Unfortunately, the game also stretched that long thanks to a Brewers offense that went 0-for-21 to finish the day against a Reds relief corps that included old friends Jakob Junis and Brent Suter.

“I was happy with everything I saw and everything I did, and the outcome sucks. That’s how the game works sometimes,” Wilson said.

Was Murphy satisfied with three of four in the series?

In previous years, the Brewers might start to prioritize rest in this situation. That’s how they approached the end of 2021 when they had a comfortable lead, only to go ice cold in late September and into a first-round playoff loss to the Braves. Murphy seems to prefer to push.

“I have plenty of people around me, please believe me, who are going to remind me of that [stuff], both up,” Murphy said, referring to the front office, “and sideways. I do hear it all and I’m not trying to be disrespectful, like I don’t even think about it.

“You see the games we have left. You see the teams we’re playing. … We’re not talented enough to not stick to our way of doing things.”

That’s not a knock on his players’ talent. It just means that Murphy believes his team has exceeded expectations because of a word he uses often: Relentless.

Here’s how shortstop Willy Adames, who homered again Sunday to give him a homer in all four games in the series, described that message on Friday night: “We’re going out there and competing, trying to win the moment. Not worrying about tomorrow but worrying about tonight. It’s been working. The mindset was set up in Spring Training: ‘Win today.’”

The Brewers will try to keep it working. Their September schedule is home-heavy (the next six games are at American Family Field, and 16 of the remaining 25) but includes seven games against the red-hot D-backs, three huge games against the Phillies -- as Milwaukee and Philadelphia vie for a first-round bye in the postseason -- and finishes with three against a Mets team that is still in the postseason hunt.

“I think we’re playing some of the best baseball we’ve played all season,” Wilson said. “We’re excited going forward and looking forward to finishing the last month and going into the playoffs.”

Was Murphy satisfied with winning three of four games over the Brewers’ 72 hours in Cincinnati?

“I’m going to only be able to concentrate on today and what we could have done better,” Murphy said. “We just keep going on, keep moving ahead.”