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Jackson Merrill celebrates with Jake Cronenworth after scoring a run during Wednesday\u2019s win over the Chicago Cubs in Game 2 of the National League Division Series. (Meg McLaughlin \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\nMILWAUKEE \u2014 Xander Bogaerts\u2019 eyes widened and he shook his head.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, we know who they\u2019re throwing Game 1, right?\u201d he said, infusing a bit of soberness into the Padres\u2019 celebration on Wednesday night. \u201cSo, let\u2019s celebrate today, and let\u2019s be ready for the fastball.\u201d<\/p>\n
At that, he chuckled.<\/p>\n
Facing Jacob Misiorowski is certainly no laughing matter.<\/p>\n
The prohibitive favorite to win the National League Cy Young Award, Misiorowski reaches 100 mph on nearly 35% of his pitches. That is akin to facing Mason Miller for six or seven innings in a game.<\/p>\n
Among the five times the Brewers\u2019 24-year-old ace went at least seven innings while allowing no more than one run this season was May 13 against the Padres on the same mound from which he will cut an imposing figure on Saturday in the opener of the National League Division Series.<\/p>\n
The Padres, as a whole, are not good at hitting the fastball.<\/p>\n
Fernando Tatis Jr. is the lone Padres player whose batting average against fastballs of any velocity (.308) is better than the league average (.275).<\/p>\n
The Padres\u2019 focus will be not chasing Misiorowski\u2019s breaking pitches while remaining ready for the fastball, which is much easier said than done.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely gonna be tough,\u201d Bogaerts said. \u201c\u2026 But I feel like in the playoffs every team has at least a couple good arms. Not a lot of guys that might be able to throw 100, 104 as a starter. But they all have good stuff. A lot of teams have two, three starters that have the ability to be aces in any other team. So it\u2019s gonna be a tough, tough task but we\u2019re all up for it.<\/p>\n
\u201cGotta be ready for a pitch and try to execute on whatever mistakes he makes, if he leaves some balls over the plate.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Brewers won 22 of the 30 games their 24-year-old ace started, though they did not win that game in May when he shut out the Padres on four hits and struck out 10 in seven innings. Gavin Sheets\u2019 three-run homer off Abner Uribe with two outs in the ninth inning lifted the Padres to a 3-1 victory that day.<\/p>\n
The fact that Misiorowski can start twice in this series is no small factor in the Brewers being favored.<\/p>\n
As legitimate as that thinking might be, it should also be considered that this Padres offense is entirely different from the one the Brewers saw in May. The Brewers experienced that up close in August when the Padres outscored them 18-7 in a three-game sweep at Petco Park.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re like, \u2018Wow.\u2019 This team could be a team to be reckoned with, for sure,\u201d Brewers manager Pat Murphy said.<\/p>\n
It has only gotten better. And more consistently so.<\/p>\n
The Padres\u2019 offense was prone to cold spells and was as streaky a group as there was in the major leagues for nearly two-thirds of the season.<\/p>\n
But in winning 19 of their past 22 games, they have averaged an MLB-high 6.2 runs a game. They failed to score at least four runs in just three of those games.<\/p>\n
In the 66 games from the All-Star break to the end of the regular season, the Padres averaged 5.2 runs per game, tied with the Brewers for second in the major leagues and quite a bit more than the 3.9 runs they averaged in the first half. The Padres\u2019 second-half OPS of .781 also ranked second in the majors, 27 spots better than their .673 mark before the break.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a really good season, of course, but especially towards the end, we started kicking into different gears,\u201d Bogaerts said. \u201c\u2026 I am a big believer in that momentum.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jackson Merrill celebrates with Jake Cronenworth after scoring a run during Wednesday\u2019s win over the Chicago Cubs in Game 2 of the National League Division Series. (Meg McLaughlin \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n
They certainly carried it into the NL Wild Card Series against the Cubs. The Padres scored eight runs in Game 1 and four in Game 2. They hit four home runs, which is twice as many as they had in three games in the 2025 NL Wild Card Series.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got to play our game, continue what we did (against the Cubs), what we\u2019ve been doing for a long time,\u201d Manny Machado said. \u201cIf we do that, we\u2019re gonna be all right.\u201d<\/p>\n
But pitching was the Cubs\u2019 weakness. It is among the Brewers\u2019 strengths. Likely Game 2 starter Logan Henderson has above-average stuff, posted a 2.47 ERA and struck out nearly 30% of the batters he faced this season. The Brewers\u2019 bullpen had six pitchers who threw at least 50 innings and had an above-average Stuff+ rating, a metric that purports to measure how difficult a pitcher is to hit based on factors such as velocity, spin rate, movement and release point. (The Padres also had six, tying the Brewers for most in the majors.)<\/p>\n
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So, perhaps most significant when assessing the Padres\u2019 chances is the fact that they have produced against the top-tier starting pitchers they have faced more often than they did earlier in the season.<\/p>\n
Since the All-Star break, the Padres have scored at least three runs against Gerrit Cole, Tyler Glasnow, Nick Martinez, Eury P\u00e9rez, Chris Sale, Gavin Williams and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.<\/p>\n
Most of those pitchers ranked among the best in the major leagues in ERA and\/or Stuff+.<\/p>\n
Misiorowski\u2019s 128 Stuff+ rating is the highest in the major leagues among starting pitchers.<\/p>\n
Among the 12 teams that made the postseason, the Padres\u2019 .770 OPS against the nastiest pitchers in the league was tops in the major leagues since the trade deadline, according to ESPN. That was based on their production against starting pitchers with a Stuff+ rating of 100 or better and relief pitchers with a Stuff+ rating of 105 or better.<\/p>\n
Fernando Tatis Jr. watches his solo home run in the first inning against the Chicago Cubs during Game 1 of the National League Wild Card Series at Petco Park.. (K.C. Alfred \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)The turnaround of the offense has been discussed since early August. The better numbers are largely due to Tatis finding his power and Merrill posting close to a 1.000 OPS<\/a> over a nearly two-month stretch in the second half.<\/p>\n