SAN DIEGO — The Brewers have three remaining games against the Reds to line things up the way they’d like for the postseason and make 2025 the best regular season in franchise history.
Jackson Chourio pulled back a three-run home run in the first inning and singled to spark the go-ahead rally in the seventh to help send the Brewers to a 3-1 win over the Padres at Petco Park on Wednesday, giving Milwaukee 96 victories to match the club record — with three more chances to break it.
The victory denied the Padres a sweep in a potential National League Division Series preview, and put the Brewers (96-63) on the cusp of clinching the NL’s No. 1 seed over the Phillies. Because the Brewers own the tiebreaker, all they need is one more Philadelphia loss — beginning Wednesday night in Miami — or one Milwaukee victory over the Reds this weekend at American Family Field, which would have the dual effect of surpassing the Brewers’ 96-win teams in 2011 and 2018.
“This is the best clubhouse to be in in baseball, and I’m lucky to be here,” said reliever Erick Fedde, who’d already pitched for the Cardinals and Braves this season before jumping on the Brewers’ runaway train in late August. “There’s so much positivity with confidence, but everybody is holding each other accountable. I think that comes from the top down. ‘Murph’ [manager Pat Murphy] has got these guys playing hard, playing smart, not making a lot of silly mistakes.
“That can be the difference in 10 wins in a year, in being the best club in baseball and not making the playoffs. From the top down, it feels like a well-run machine.”
That machine is chugging toward a No. 1 seed, which would come with home field advantage throughout the playoffs, including in the World Series, as the Brewers already have locked up a better record than every team in the American League.
It would also give the Brewers the best record in baseball for the second time in franchise history. The other time was 1982, when Robin Yount, Paul Molitor & Co. went 95-67 in the regular season and played all the way to the World Series.
But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. First, the Brewers would have to win a postseason series, and to do that, they’ll have to spark an offense coming off a relatively stale road trip.
Chourio was among the hitters who stalled, stuck in an 0-for-20 funk before he lined a two-out single off Padres reliever Adrian Morejon in the seventh inning to give the Brewers a chance to reclaim a lead they’d just lost when Jackson Merrill hit a two-out solo homer off Fedde in the sixth to mar what had been an excellent outing of eight up, eight down. Fedde came in behind Chad Patrick, who delivered three scoreless innings on three days’ rest so the Brewers could push originally-scheduled starter Quinn Priester to Friday and deny the Padres a look at him, in the event these teams play again in the NLDS.
Chourio stole second base, then scored on Brice Turang’s single to give the Brewers a lead that grew when catcher Danny Jansen smacked a homer off the Western Metal Supply Co. building in the ninth. It held up after Nick Mears escaped a one-out, bases-loaded jam in the seventh inning and Jared Koenig and Abner Uribe closed it out.
For Chourio, it was just the kind of afternoon he needed.
“That’s the game of baseball for you right there,” Chourio said via translator Daniel de Mondesert. “That’s what makes the game so hard and also what makes it so special at the same time. You’re going to go through stretches like that where you could call it a slump, but then you’re also going to go through moments that are the opposite, when you’re feeling really good at the plate and getting hits everywhere. You have to learn from the bad moments and try to take advantage of the good ones, and just try to keep going.”
His day began with a bad moment, when Chourio chased a high fastball from Dylan Cease for the seventh strikeout of what was at the time an 0-for-19 funk. But Chourio bounced right back in the bottom of the inning, when he sized-up Xander Bogaerts’ two-out, two-on fly ball and made a leaping catch at the center field wall.
“He was pressing a little bit, trying to produce numbers, and that’s not winning baseball,” said Murphy of Chourio’s recent struggles. “Winning baseball is staying in your process. As young as he is, hopefully he learns. I think the catch helped him.”
Chourio and the Brewers have three more games to build confidence for October. And three more chances to turn a surprising season into the winningest season in franchise history.
“This team has a way of figuring out a way of doing the unexpected,” Murphy said. “I trust them.”
