For most of the past decade, the story of the Milwaukee Brewers has been roughly the same. It has been an engrossing story, too, except perhaps for the lack of a storybook ending.
Since the beginning of the 2017 season, a full decade now, the Brewers have played just two games out of playoff contention. Yet, for all Milwaukee's regular-season success, it remains one of the five franchises still seeking its first-ever championship.
That's a lot of proverbial door-knocking, as the old metaphor goes. At no point have the Brewers knocked louder on the championship door than this season, the best yet in the 57-year history of the franchise.
Despite typically unenthusiastic preseason forecasts, the Brewers logged a franchise-record 103 victories, won the NL Central for the fourth year in a row and led all of baseball in run differential. That differential (plus-214) set a new franchise record by 50 runs, surpassing the 1982 AL championship team's mark that last year's team fell two runs shy of tying. The Brewers ranked second in runs scored and, despite featuring baseball's youngest pitching staff, second in team ERA.
Once again, it's the start of a great story. But every good story, in order to eventually reach a satisfying ending, needs a strong antagonist. As it has been for most of Milwaukee's ongoing run of success, that villain doesn't wear a black hat but a blue one. As ever, the dynastic Dodgers stand in the way of the Brewers' ideal final chapter.
Have they improved enough? We'll see. But Milwaukee is a better club than a year ago.
"It's really fun to watch these guys grow and develop over just the year," second baseman Brice Turang said. "And how much better of a team we've been. The growth in the clubhouse, as well. It's been really cool to be a part of."
This isn't to discount the Brewers' current task of getting past the red-hot San Diego Padres in the National League Division Series (and L.A. getting past Atlanta in the other series). It is indeed a considerable challenge, against a San Diego team that can commiserate with the problem of overtaking the blue-and-white behemoth that lords over Chavez Ravine. Still, as the Brewers continue to hone and perfect their processes, it is the Dodgers' door on which they have been pounding.
If and when the Dodgers answer that knock this October, what will they see waiting for them? Why is this the Brewers team that can finally clear the L.A. hurdle and join the club it has been trying so hard to get into for 57 years?
Every season is a little bit different, but the nature of the year-over-year evolution is especially pertinent to the Brewers, who in key ways are more or less a better but similar version of the team they were a year ago, when they also landed the NL's top seed only to run aground in the NL Championship Series when the Dodgers stymied them during an emphatic four-game sweep.
Last season, the Brewers scored 806 runs, third in the majors. This year, Milwaukee's 832 runs ranked second. In 2025, the Brewers scored just 33% of their runs via home runs, a lower rate than all but two other teams. This year, they scored 32.1% of their runs via the long ball, the lowest rate in the majors. The Brewers led the majors in average (.258), walk rate (10.6%) and on-base percentage (.341), improving in all categories from elite rates of a year ago. No team posted a lower home run rate (2.4%).
The lack of home runs, the only apparent hole in the Brewers' otherwise well-rounded game, became an ongoing topic around the club, if only because: Hey, you've got to have something to talk about.
"Everybody talks about our lack of slug," Milwaukee manager Pat Murphy lamented before one game. "It's not like we never hit homers. But people make a story on that because that's how you guys sell newspapers."
After the Brewers went out and hit three homers in the game, Murphy gleefully exclaimed, "Narrative finished!"
You never want to ignore an entire side of the game when looking at a team, so we're going to stipulate that the Brewers' elite run prevention (second in runs allowed, fifth in rotation ERA, third in bullpen ERA, fifth in defensive runs saved) will need to carry over deep into the postseason, as will be the case for every contender. For now, let's focus on the Brewers' counterintuitive approach to a 2026 big league offense, one that thrives without the surfeit of home runs that are supposed to be prerequisite to win in the current brand of the game.
There's a reason we're focusing on the offense: last year's NLCS. Entering that showdown with the Dodgers, Milwaukee had averaged 4.96 runs per game, including the first two rounds of the postseason. That number dipped to 4.40 when considering only the playoffs, but that figure was still the fourth best among the 12 playoff teams.
Against the Dodgers, though, Milwaukee scored four runs. Not per game but total. Not surprisingly, that powered the Dodgers to a sweep even though Milwaukee's run prevention (3.75 runs per game) was good enough to win with. So, why would things be any different this year for a team still playing a similar style of offense?
The real answer to this is that we won't know it can happen until it actually happens. If it does, the key descriptor of these Brewers will be "adaptability."
In essence, this means that collectively, Brewers hitters lean into a team style of offense that adjusts its approach depending on the needs of the situation. No one tries to get too big at any given moment, lapsing into what is often called "hero ball" when a player's ego overcomes his senses in a key situation.
"I think there's just a lot of really committed guys, and they know what they play, and they know it's a lot easier to play with everybody rowing together," Murphy said. "[The organization] pinpoints when we're not rowing together, and I think that's what helps us continue to grow. They're not afraid to have tough conversations. We call out people that aren't rowing in the same direction."
There are a number of tangible ways we can see this in the Brewers' under-the-hood numbers, but we'll narrow it down to a couple.
First, let's consider the differences in the Brewers' top-level stat lines when the bases are empty, as opposed to when they are not:
When the bases are empty, the Brewers are all about getting on base. No team draws more bases-empty walks, and no team hits a lower rate of solo home runs. This approach holds true in two-outs, no-runners-on-base spots, when Milwaukee's walk rate actually goes up to 11.3%.
Once runners are on base, the focus shifts to slug. The Brewers still rarely ambush first pitches, but they put the ball in play nearly 5% more often. Their slugging percentage -- 24th in bases-empty spots -- leaps to fifth with runners on. This difference in situational slugging percentage hardly looks like it could have been posted by the same team.
"We're not being passive," Murphy said. "We're just trying to really focus on balls and strikes. There's times when [opponents] think we're being passive, throws one down the middle and we smash."
This collective adaptability still rings true when you drill down to an even more micro split: bases-loaded situations. The Brewers produced 151 runs in bases-loaded spots during the season, more than all but two teams. They posted by far the best batting average with the bases juiced (.354, 31 points better than second-place Minnesota) and also led the majors in on-base percentage (.383).
There's a key bases-loaded indicator you might have noticed was omitted there, but it came up prominently in September, when the Brewers hosted a three-game weekend series against the last-place Cincinnati Reds.
In the opener, a 20-0 Brewers mauling of Cincinnati, the 23-hit attack was highlighted by a fifth-inning grand slam from outfielder Garrett Mitchell. The significance: It was the only grand slam the Brewers hit all season, even though only the Cubs and Twins had more plate appearances with the bases full. The feat seemed so unlikely that afterward, Murphy was skeptical that it was even true. (It was.)
"We take a lot of pride in the small things," Mitchell said. "Obviously, we aren't the biggest market, and we don't have all the big-time star players. But I would say we've got plenty of stars. How we work together as a group is second to none. I don't think anyone else does it as well."
Every team likes to tout its willingness to "hand the baton" to the next guy and, indeed, an emphasis on a team approach to offense is not unique to the Brewers. The difference is the Brewers actually do it consistently, and it's a collective trait in their hitters that has been identified by the team's scouting department and honed by its development staff. Even brand-new Brewers hitters such as touted rookies Cooper Pratt and Luis Lara manifest this trait.
"You get used to the standards and the expectations here," Murphy said, speaking to the Brewers' collective sense of buy-in for what the team wants to accomplish. "We've got work to do, but I think it's refreshing to know that your group bought into that. Hopefully it continues."
Because of this trait and the team's ability to get the bat on the ball up and down the lineup, the Brewers dominated in another under-the-radar statistic: RBI percentage. Milwaukee's 19.1% RBI rate (measured as runners driven in as a percentage of runners on base, with home runs removed) led MLB, a full percentage point better than Tampa Bay. The Brewers drove in 71 runs above expectation, 29 more than the second-place Rays.
"The guys feel like they have the responsibility to pass the baton in a way that is extraordinary," Murphy said. "They understand if this guy doesn't throw me a strike, I'm going to pass the baton. I think that's extraordinary. They're OK with a walk."
Selflessness. Adaptability. Team approach. It's not as sexy as simply blasting 250 home runs, but it has worked, even in the context of the current era of huge strikeout rates and home run dependence. Well, it has worked in the regular season anyway.
But will it keep working in the playoffs? Or, more succinctly, will it work against the Dodgers?
What we know about what has worked in the recent era of playoff baseball is that generally it's hard to win without hitting home runs. The pitchers in the postseason are just too good to string together hits against them. Even stealing bases -- another elite Brewers strength -- becomes more difficult as teams have a chance to really zero in on the tendencies of their opponent.
"When you get to the postseason, you have the best teams," Murphy said. "Some of them playing their best baseball. And some have more experience."
With the Brewers, as Murphy keeps trying to say, it's reductive to claim they can't hit home runs. There is a good deal of collective power on the team, and Milwaukee plays in a homer-friendly park. And while only the Blue Jays hit fewer homers, the Brewers picked up the pace some as the regular season went along, ranking 17th in long balls during September.
It's not that the Brewers can't go deep; it's that they don't rely on their ability to do so. And if adaptability is the headline adjective to describe their approach, being able to adapt to playing for the long ball would also be part of that equation.
As stated, we can't really know if Milwaukee's approach will work until it actually does. The Brewers ranked third in WOBA against pitches thrown at least 97 mph, perhaps an indication of an ability to hit elite pitching. They were more middle of the pack against soft and breaking pitches, but some of that is because they posted the league's lowest swing and chase rates against those offerings. When it comes to when those offerings are put into play, the Brewers ranked eighth with a healthy .325 average.
"You don't just change how you play the game," Murphy said. "You don't have specialty plays you're going to pull out. Like all of a sudden, 'Oh, this guy's going to start hitting right-handed.' You play like you play."
In the end, the proof of the Brewers' concept will be whether or not their approach holds up against elite pitching. The samples aren't huge, but Milwaukee posted a well-below-average OPS against each of the Padres, Braves and, yes, the Dodgers, the other three teams left on the NL bracket.
Thus, when it comes to adaptability, that's the final adjustment the Brewers will have to make: keeping their core traits intact against the best version of baseball's best pitchers. Last year, against the Dodgers, they failed to do that.
"We've gotten better in about every area," Murphy said. "You've got to remember, we were not predicted to win the league by anybody. And we haven't won the league yet. I feel like we got a good shot, but I think the team takes that personal."
When the Brewers won their only pennant, in 1982 when they were still in the American League, they fell a single win short of a championship, losing to the Cardinals in Game 7 of the World Series in St. Louis. Milwaukee led 3-1 in that game going into the bottom of the sixth before allowing five straight runs. It was a devastating loss for a city aching for a championship. Forty-four years later, that ache has only gotten more throbbing.
"We all know what the end goal is," Turang said after the Brewers clinched a postseason berth. "That's what we're chasing. So this is a small little step."
In his autobiography, former MLB commissioner and longtime Brewers owner Bud Selig described the aftermath of that long-ago near miss. Convinced to participate in a parade that he was sure no one would show up for, Selig and the Brewers were instead greeted by scores of adoring Milwaukee fans all along a parade route that led to County Stadium (the team's home from 1970 to 2000).
For anyone watching without knowledge of the World Series outcome, it would have been impossible to believe that they were watching a city celebrating a runner-up.
The Brewers have been trying to clear that last hurdle ever since. And so here they are again, knocking on that proverbial championship door. When it opens, there's a good chance that they're going to see the familiar, unfriendly face worn by the Dodgers hegemony. Do the Brewers at last have the right formula to sweep that final obstacle aside?
We won't know until we know. But one thing we can know for sure is that if the Brewers are finally able to pen that storybook ending, what a parade it will be.
