Tom Krasovic: Be careful what you wish for, Padres fans — Brewers look like a juggernaut

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Milwaukee Brewers players celebrate after they defeated the Dodgers, 6-4, in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series to complete a sweep and advance to the World Series on Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026, at Dodger Stadium.

Padres fans got what they desired over the past several days. The small-market Brewers wiped out the Dodgers, sweeping the National League Championship Series. Follow the long ball. Against L.A.

, Brewers hitters pumped seven balls over the wall after outhomering the Padres 3-2 in the four-game Division Series. Even a modest output would’ve stood out. The Brewers were second-to-last in home runs during the regular season. Over the past three years, they were 27th of 30.

The Brewers were already adept in several key areas, going back a decade. If the power surge signals even modest growth next season — which wouldn’t be surprising; hitters in their 20s have accounted for nine of the 10 postseason home runs — the smaller-budget Brewers may become even more formidable in the Padres’ regular-season pursuit of favorable playoff seeding. The Padres aren’t shaking in their cleats. They have MLB’s fifth-best record over the past three years.

Asked what stands out about the Brew Crew’s success, Padres team-builder A.J. Preller lauded Milwaukee’s habit of going to the playoffs almost every year for the past decade. As he often does, Preller used the Padres’ pursuit of a franchise-first World Series title to provide context.

“It’s going to be a challenge over the next 12 months to get better and put ourselves in a spot where we’re hosting those games at Petco to start off, and hopefully, we’re on the winning side of another playoff series against an organization like that,” he said. Preller was nodding toward the 2026 Padres having won 91 games to book Petco Park for the best-of-three wild-card playoff series against the Cubs.

The Padres breezed in Games 1 and 2, rewarding some 47,000 noisy fans in the East Village each night. In the next round, the Brewers parlayed their own homefield advantage into a pair of one-run victories in Milwaukee’s roofed stadium. The Brewers have averaged 97.8 wins over the past three years. This season, the Padres ended up 12 games behind them.

So in some respects, the team in MLB’s smallest market has become a Dodgers-sized obstacle to Padres aspirations. How did Brewers hitters end up second of 30 teams in walks despite lacking the home run power to spook many pitchers?

“They control the zone,” Padres manager Craig Stammen said Wednesday, while noting also that Jackson Chourio, age 22, William Contreras, 28, and Brice Turang, 26, have good home run power. Stammen deemed Brewers hitters “super-patient at the plate” and “very disciplined. ” The team’s potent running game, he added, turns up the heat.

Remarkably, these Brewers are the fourth team in the divisional era, which began in 1969, to finish a full regular season in MLB’s bottom three in home runs and top three in walks, per Katie Sharp of Stathead.com. The others were St. Louis , Cleveland and Montreal . In Game 2 of the NL Division Series, the Brewers’ knack of drawing walks contributed to the most excruciating Padres postseason defeat other than Game 1 of the 1998 World Series.

Down 3-2 against closer Mason Miller, the Brewers drew three ninth-inning walks to set up Chourio’s walkoff single off Miller’s 40th pitch. The biggest walk: pinch-hitter Gary Sanchez’s six-pitch effort, which loaded the bases. Sanchez was a .185 hitter this year but had a good walk rate. Brewers lefty hitter Sal Frelick, who earned the second walk after falling behind 1-2, said “selfless baseball” was at work.

“Everybody wants to play hero; you dream of those kinds of moments,” he said. “But at the same time, you’ve got to take what the pitcher gives you. You can’t try to do too much. ” Brewers hitters did more than control the strike zone.

They batted .259 with a .379 slug rate on strike zone pitches. And they hit .281 with a .386 slug rate on Padres pitches to the zone’s outer fringes.

“I have a lot of respect toward what they’ve done,” Preller said of the Brewers, “and how they’re doing it. ”

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