Why The Brewers, Back In The NLCS, Feel 2026 Is Different: ‘Everyone Believes’

SAN DIEGO, Calif. — Matt Arnold is a stress eater. On Wednesday night at Petco Park, tortilla chips were the guilty pleasure for the Brewers’ president of baseball operations. But by the eighth inning of the game that would send his team through to the National League Championship Series for the second straight season, the architect of an overlooked and undervalued Milwaukee roster was also overachieving in his own way. He had mustered the willpower to switch to a healthier option when Padres third baseman Manny Machado launched a baseball 406 feet into the night sky and sent 47,712 fans into an anticipatory uproar. “I was chewing on ice,” Arnold told me. “I was trying to reduce calories.” The frozen substitute did not, however, reduce Arnold’s stress levels, which were creeping up jointly with the decibels inside the stadium on a deep drive that could have tied the game and changed the series: “You see that ball, and you see enough of these balls hit where you’re like, ‘That’s trouble.’” That much was clear from Machado’s reaction, one that went immediately from expectant to incredulous. After launching the ball 106.7 mph off the bat, the Padres slugger took a couple small side steps in the batter’s box and admired the moonshot. He clearly thought he got it, up until the point that Brewers center fielder Garrett Mitchell fought through a sea of Padres fans in the first row to emerge with the baseball. Machado put his hands on his head and removed his helmet in disgusted disbelief. For the second time in a four-game, heavyweight, back-and-forth bout, a potential Padres home run stayed in the field of play. In Game 1, it was a deep drive from Ty France that ricocheted off a roof cable at American Family Field. In the deciding Game 4, it was Mitchell bringing Machado’s blast back at Petco Park, thwarting the Padres’ last-ditch effort to save their season in a 3-1 Brewers win. “I think we have a different type of confidence and belief in ourselves, together as a team,” Mitchell said. “It’s just a quiet, subtle confidence. It’s not showboaty. … Just, everyone who’s in this clubhouse, front office to the staff, everyone believes.” With that snag, and a perfect ninth inning to follow from closer Trevor Megill, the best team in baseball extinguished the hottest team in the sport and removed a burden that had weighed on Milwaukee’s shoulders for nearly a decade. Entering Wednesday, the Brewers had lost 12 straight road playoff games. Their all-time postseason road record of 6-24 was the worst mark in MLB. They heard about it over and over. But even inside one of the most difficult road environments in the sport, at a field in which the Padres produced a 51-30 record during the regular season and had smothered the Cubs during a two-game wild-card sweep, there was a novel sense of composure and poise. Like they knew they would find a way. “It’s not outwardly showing something, it’s just that belief,” Mitchell said. “We’ve been here before.” “There’s just a different feeling, man,” added reliever Aaron Ashby, who fired three scoreless frames to earn the Game 4 win. “I don’t know that I can explain it. … You can just feel that it’s different, like there’s a calm confidence around the team.” Entering Wednesday, the Brewers hadn’t won a playoff game away from home since the 2018 NLCS at Dodger Stadium, a game that was started by Walker Buehler. As it turned out, their next road win would also come in a game started by Buehler. The October standout gave the Padres a chance Wednesday night, allowing just one run over three innings before Fernando Tatis Jr. sent the home crowd into a frenzy with a third-inning solo shot. All series, though, the Milwaukee offense countered. “It never feels like we’re out of it,” Ashby said, “because we aren’t.” On Wednesday, the Brewers didn’t record their first strikeout until their 29th batter of the game, with one out in the seventh inning. They looked like the same relentless lineup that led MLB in batting average and on-base percentage, the one that everyone claimed would not translate to October. After one series, they lead all playoff teams in both categories as well. “I think we’re proving that, no, we still can win in the postseason,” said Brewers manager Pat Murphy. “Good baseball is good baseball.” For many of the lefties in the lineup, though, it hadn’t looked so crisp for much of the series. Through the first three games against the Padres, Mitchell, Brice Turang and Jake Bauers were hitting a combined .152 with no extra-base hits. So before Game 4, Murphy met with each of them individually. And on Wednesday, Mitchell started the scoring with an RBI single and later added the deciding run after a leadoff triple in the fifth. “Through mistakes, through the ups and downs, he has always said that he believed in me,” Mitchell said. “And he has given me every opportunity to continue to go out there and be myself.” Bauers, meanwhile, was coming off a Game 3 in which he struck out in four of his five plate appearances. That made for a tough night of sleep. But a day later, he responded by reaching base all four times up and adding an insurance run after a leadoff single in the sixth. The discussion with Murphy helped. “He didn’t say anything that I didn’t already know, but it was good to have the conversation, have someone else tell me too that it was time to refocus a little bit,” Bauers said. “Last night, obviously, I struck out four times, hit a ball out of the stadium 300 feet foul. That’s not who I’ve been this entire season. Just was trying to do way too much. To hear him say ‘just be you’ was a good reminder.” The deep drive from Machado, however, threatened to erase all of their work. “Obviously, he’s got some juice,” said Brewers designated hitter Christian Yelich. “You don’t feel too good about it when he puts a swing on it like that. You see him stand up at home plate, you’re like, ‘Man, he got it.’” Yelich had seen that swing before. Nine years ago, he was playing left field for Team USA when Machado sent a deep drive to an identical location at the exact same field. That hit was robbed by Adam Jones. On Thursday, it felt like déjà vu when Mitchell tracked it down, setting the stage for a celebration in the road clubhouse at Petco Park. The Brewers popped bottles of Budweiser and Prosecco and puffed on Padrón cigars until 10:40 p.m., when they suddenly cleared out of the clubhouse and back onto the field. They wanted a team picture to commemorate the occasion and a group they feel is more together than past iterations. “I do notice it,” Arnold told me from next to the pitcher’s mound, where players and staff lined up for photos with their families. “I don’t know how to talk about it. You can’t measure it, but you can feel it. I think it’s kind of cliché to say it, but it’s a real thing.” “We’ve been through this a few times,” Brewers pitching coach Chris Hook told me, trying to explain what others could not. “The more you do something, the more you’re under this kind of stress, I think you get a little bit more comfortable in the environment.” It’s that confidence that has the Brewers believing that they’re better equipped this year to handle their next opponent in an NLCS rematch against a Dodgers team that swept them last October. “As a team, we noticed that maybe [the belief] was lacking a little bit last year, like we were just happy to be there,” Bauers told me. “This year, it’s a little bit more of a choice.” “Why wouldn’t you want another chance to go at it?” Mitchell added. “I don’t think that’s any more pressure on us. It’s just, let’s see what we can do.” And have some snacks handy for the front office. “I’ll just kill chips,” Arnold said. “Chips and dip.”