This story was excerpted from Adam McCalvy’s Brewers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
It all comes down to the final few days for the Brewers. If things go exactly right for three straight days, they’ll make it to a fifth consecutive postseason. If things don’t go right, they’ll go home.
The Brewers are two games back of the Phillies in the chase for the final NL Wild Card spot going into a three-game series against the D-backs beginning Monday night with Brandon Woodruff on the mound. But it’s a steeper climb than it sounds. Because the Phillies hold the tiebreaker, the Brewers must sweep the D-backs, and see the Phillies swept by the Astros in Houston, for Milwaukee to make the playoffs. It’s improbable. But it’s not impossible. Not yet.
By my count, this marks the eighth time in the Brewers’ history that the team is going into its final regular-season series with a postseason berth in the balance.
Here’s how those other sprints to the finish worked out:
1981
Fortified by a blockbuster trade with the Cardinals that landed a future Hall of Fame closer in Rollie Fingers, a future Hall of Fame catcher in Ted Simmons and a bulldog starter in Pete Vuckovich, the ‘81 Brewers were off to a 31-25 start when the players went on strike over a disagreement with owners about the rules of free agency. Baseball shut down on June 12 and didn’t resume until Aug. 10, and it was decided that the first-half and second-half champions would meet for the first Division Series in Major League Baseball history.
In the East, the second-half “championship” came down to the 29-21 Brewers facing the 28-21 Tigers in a season-ending three-game series at County Stadium. If the Brewers could win the series, they would win the second half and the right to face the Yankees in the first round of the playoffs. The Brewers clinched on the season’s penultimate day with a two-run rally in the eighth inning that featured only one hit — and a bunt hit from Cecil Cooper at that. Gorman Thomas, the franchise’s first Draft pick in 1969, drove home Robin Yount for the winning run with a sacrifice fly. When Fingers sealed a 2-1 victory, the Brewers celebrated a postseason trip for the first time.
1982
The race between the Brewers and Orioles came down to the final day — 40 years ago today — and a matchup of two future Hall of Famers at Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium: Don Sutton for the Brewers, Jim Palmer for the Orioles. Palmer blinked first. Yount hit solo home runs in the first and third innings as the Brewers built leads of 3-0 and 5-1 before blowing the game open with five runs in the ninth. Left fielder Ben Oglivie made the defensive play of the day in left field to quiet a budding Baltimore rally in the eighth inning against Sutton, who allowed eight hits and five walks but limited the damage to two runs over eight frames. The Brewers were AL East champs.
1992
Rookie shortstop Pat Listach was the pace bunny under rookie manager Phil Garner, whose club led the Majors with 256 stolen bases — 48 more than the runner-up Cardinals — and won 92 games with only two players hitting double-digit home runs. The year ended with the Brewers taking the eventual World Series champion Blue Jays down to the final weekend of the regular season in the AL East race, and Listach and Cleveland’s Kenny Lofton contending for the AL Rookie of the Year Award. Listach ultimately won that honor, but the Brewers were eliminated from contention with a loss in Oakland on the penultimate day of the season.
“We made Toronto earn it,” Garner told reporters that day. “We played the best baseball we could play in this stretch, but they stayed a step ahead of us.”
2007
Milwaukee jumped out to the best record in Major League Baseball in April and May and inspired a city that had not hosted a playoff game since the 1982 World Series. But from 24-10 the Brewers fell with a thud to 34-30, losing the 20th of 30 games on June 12 when they were no-hit by Detroit’s Justin Verlander. The Brewers won 12 of 14 and built a division lead of 8 1/2 games, a franchise record. Then they dropped seven of 10 on the final road trip before the All-Star break. All told, the ‘07 Brewers led the National League Central or were tied atop it for 133 days before missing the playoffs for the 25th consecutive season.
The final series of the regular season — Padres vs. Brewers at Miller Park — impacted both the division race and the Wild Card race. The Brewers went into that four-game series two games back of the Cubs but lost the first two games and were eliminated. The next night, Tony Gwynn Jr., of all people, tortured his dad’s former team with a game-tying, two-out triple off Trevor Hoffman in the ninth inning before then-Brewers utility man and current Brewers broadcaster Vinny Rottino hit a walk-off single in the 11th, pushing the Padres toward a one-game playoff with the Rockies for the Wild Card. Colorado won and went on to play in the World Series.
The Brewers, meanwhile, had taken a significant step toward being a contender again.
“It hurts to be so close,” said first baseman Prince Fielder, the Brewers’ statistical and emotional leader.
2008
The Brewers had a 5 1/2-game lead in the Wild Card standings on Sept. 1 before going ice cold for a stretch that cost manager Ned Yost his job with only 12 regular-season games to go. The team saved its season under interim skipper Dale Sveum thanks to one of the most memory-packed weeks in the franchise’s 50 years, winning six of their final seven games, including a dramatic win over the Cubs in the regular season finale to clinch the NL Wild Card over the Mets.
Ryan Braun hit the go-ahead homer, CC Sabathia flexed after finishing his complete game, but the drama wasn’t complete. The Mets still had to lose or the teams would meet in a tiebreaker. So fans remained in place at Miller Park to watch on the scoreboard. Players, unsure of what to do, either watched from the dugout or squeezed into a small dining room in the clubhouse.
“That last day of the regular season will forever be one of the highlights of my career,” said Braun. “High levels of stress and anxiety all day. Following the scores on the scoreboard to find out what the other teams were doing. Amazing day.”
2017
Before the season began, FanGraphs ran its statistical magic and pegged the Brewers’ postseason chances at 1.1 percent. The oddsmakers at Bovada set Milwaukee’s over/under for victories at 69.5. Even the most bullish projection from Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA system was modest, forecasting 78 wins. It was the second full season under GM David Stearns and manager Craig Counsell, and the team was rebuilding. And yet there they were on the penultimate day of the season at Busch Stadium, with Counsell managing for the postseason. That’s where Milwaukee’s run came to an end, with a 6-0 lead slipping away in a 7-6 loss to the Cardinals that handed the Rockies the final National League Wild Card.
“I’ve never been on a team that had as much fun,” first baseman Eric Thames said. “At the beginning of the year, nobody cared. Nobody thought there was pressure on us to win the division. But we still played hard, we worked hard, we played together, and we came within one game of being in a postseason spot.”
2020
What a strange end to a strange season. On the final day of the pandemic-shortened 2020 slate, the Brewers never had a lead in their 5-2 loss to the Cardinals at Busch Stadium, finished two games under .500 at 29-31, and celebrated a third straight postseason berth. Technically, they became the first team in MLB history to clinch a postseason berth with a losing record — only to be joined a few minutes later by the 29-31 Astros on the AL side.
How did this happen? The Phillies owned the tiebreaker over the Brewers and only needed to match Milwaukee to get in, but they finished a game back at 28-32. The Giants matched the Brewers’ record at 29-31, but lost the tiebreaker because they were 18-22 against the NL West. The Brewers were 19-21 against the NL Central. In other words, the Brewers made the playoffs because their losing record against divisional opponents was one game better than the Giants’ losing record against divisional opponents. In 2020, that was good enough to celebrate.