Jackson Chourio delivered the tiebreaking single and Garrett Mitchell robbed a potential game-tying homer in the eighth inning to help the Milwaukee Brewers advance to the National League Championship Series with a 3-1 road victory over the San Diego Padres in Game 4 on Wednesday night.
Aaron Ashby (1-0) tossed three innings of scoreless, hitless relief for the Brewers, who halted their major-league-record-tying 12-game postseason road losing streak dating back to 2018.
Ashby struck out three and walked two in a 38-pitch effort as Milwaukee finished off the best-of-five NL Division Series with a three-games-to-one edge.
Milwaukee will face the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS for the second straight season. The Dodgers swept the four-game set last year when the Brewers scored just four runs.
“I think it is different this year. … We’re going in to beat them,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy told Fox Sports. “We earned it in the regular season to get home-field advantage. We’re going in to beat them, we don’t care who they have.”
Mitchell had two hits, an RBI and a run in addition to his big defensive play. Sal Frelick scored once and had an RBI, William Contreras had two hits, and Jake Bauers went 1-for-1 with three walks and a run.
Fernando Tatis Jr. homered in the third inning for the Padres. The only other San Diego hits came in the first inning, when Jackson Merrill singled and Manny Machado followed with a bunt single. The Padres wound up leaving the bases loaded without scoring in that frame.
“You’re facing the best team in baseball, and one of the best pitching staffs in all of baseball, if not the best,” Machado said. “We had opportunities there and we didn’t come up with the clutch hit and they did.”
San Diego had one on and one out in the eighth inning when Machado hit a deep drive to center off Abner Uribe. Mitchell jumped above the wall to make the catch and thwart Machado’s bid for a tying homer.
“I got a good read off the bat and got back to the wall as quickly as I could just to kind of get my feet set and I made the play,” Mitchell said.
“It’s unfortunate. Nice play,” Machado said. “I couldn’t have hit it harder.”
Trevor Megill struck out two in a perfect ninth for his second save of the series. He also was the winner when Milwaukee rallied to take Game 2.
The score was tied at 1 when Mitchell tripled just inside the first base line off Robbie Ray (0-1) to start the fifth. One out later, Chourio ripped a liner over the head of reliever Bradgley Rodriguez and into center field to give the Brewers a 2-1 lead.
The hit gave the 22-year-old Chourio 17 career postseason RBIs, breaking the franchise mark previously held by Ryan Braun.
In the sixth, Bauers hit a leadoff single off Jason Adam and Cooper Pratt followed with a ground-rule double into the left field corner. Frelick followed with a sacrifice fly to left to score Bauers and give Milwaukee a two-run edge.
Milwaukee pushed across a run in the top of the third against Padres starter Walker Buehler. Frelick reached on an infield single, stole second and scored on Mitchell’s line single to center.
San Diego knotted the score in the bottom of the inning when Tatis sent a 429-foot blast to center off Brewers starter Robert Gasser.
Gasser allowed one run and three hits over four innings. He struck out three and walked one.
Buehler gave up one run on three hits over three-plus innings. He walked two and fanned none.
–Field Level Media
