The Milwaukee Brewers are in Chicago with a chance to sweep the Cubs at Wrigley Field this afternoon for their first postseason series victory since 2018. After taking the first two games in convincing fashion in Milwaukee, they’ll look to keep their good fortunes going on the road.
It has been a week of spy games and subterfuge, but Quinn Priester will start this afternoon’s game. Priester was used as a decoy in game three and warmed up in the bullpen apparently in order to make the Cubs believe
he was going to be the team’s “bulk guy” after opener Aaron Ashby. But Milwaukee’s plan all along was apparently to do a bullpen game in game two, which worked perfectly after Ashby’s first-inning hiccup. That leaves a fresh Priester for game three.
Priester, who went 13-3 with a 3.32 ERA this season, pitched against the Cubs three times. The first was a momentous outing; on May 2nd, Priester was shelled for seven runs in 4 1/3 innings, a game after which many called for his demotion to Triple-A Nashville. Instead, the Brewers stuck with him, and his fortunes turned around immediately: though he lost his next two outings, he allowed a combined two earned runs across ten innings. After a tough-luck loss on May 24th—Milwaukee lost 2-1 to Pittsburgh in a game in which Priester allowed one run on seven strikeouts and no walks in six innings and took a no decision—Priester won on May 30th, and the Brewers didn’t lose another game in which he pitched for nearly four months. That stretch included two wins over the Cubs: July 29th, when Priester allowed two runs in 5 2/3 innings in a 9-3 victory in Milwaukee, and August 21st in Chicago, when he battled his command but allowed just one run in 4 1/3 innings in a 4-1 Brewer win.
Priester was better on the road this season with a 2.91 ERA in 86 2/3 road innings versus a 3.82 in 70 2/3 home innings, though the extent to which that’s a mirage is unclear. Priester’s batted ball numbers are about even; he actually allowed a slightly higher opponent OPS on the road than at home, but it’s important to stress that those numbers are essentially equal (.700 at home to .715 on the road). Beyond the surface-level ERA, there’s basically nothing to separate his performance at home versus on the road. The Brewers have opted not to use an opener for Priester, which they’d done on occasion this season, but the likely only option for that move today would’ve been Robert Gasser, and Milwaukee is obviously more comfortable with Priester going from the start. Michael Busch, subsequently, is in from the start for the Cubs.
After Tuesday’s off-day, Milwaukee’s bullpen should be a full go today, with the exception of Jacob Misiorowski (who threw 57 pitches in his three scoreless innings on Monday) and possibly Ashby (who threw 43 pitches in 1 2/3 innings). Chad Patrick (11 pitches), Jared Koenig (16), Trevor Megill (9), and Abner Uribe (13) all threw efficient innings, and Nick Mears faced just one batter and threw only three pitches. While I’m certain that Pat Murphy will have no hesitation about pushing these pitchers if they can close the series today, there is the added wrinkle that Milwaukee does not have an off-day tomorrow if they do not win tonight; I doubt that will factor much into the bullpen’s usage today, but it’s something to consider.
Chicago will send the big right-hander Jameson Taillon to the mound today. He had a solid if unspectacular season: 11-7, a 3.63 ERA (105 ERA+), and a somewhat unsightly 4.66 FIP. Taillon doesn’t walk many but he doesn’t strike out many, either—he finished the season with just 98 strikeouts in 129 2/3 innings, a rate below seven strikeouts per nine innings, uncommon in today’s game. Like Priester, Taillon saw the Brewers three times this season: he went six strong innings in a 6-2 victory on May 3rd, got beat up to the tune of five runs in four innings on June 19 in an 8-7 Milwaukee win, and had one of his best outings of the season in the second game of August 19th’s doubleheader, when he threw six innings and allowed one run on five hits and a walk. Taillon missed all of July and the first half of August with a calf strain, but he finished the season strong: in his last six outings of the season, starting with that win over the Brewers on August 19th, Taillon allowed only six runs in 34 1/3 innings for a 1.57 ERA, and never more than two in a single start. He went 4-1 in that span, and the Cubs won five of those games.
Taillon is the first right-handed starter that the Brewers have seen this postseason, which means a different lineup. One name that remains in that lineup, though, is Jackson Chourio. It’s unclear whether Chourio’s hamstring injury is just more mind games or not—I’m inclined to think that well there could be some gamesmanship happening, the team really is concerned about Chourio’s leg. Regardless, he’s back in the lineup today, but with Taillon on the mound, he will bat second and we will indeed see postseason leadoff Christian Yelich. Yelich hadn’t hit leadoff for the Brewers all season (he’d only done it a couple of times in his eight seasons as a Brewer) but led off in each of Milwaukee’s last six games; interestingly, it didn’t go all that well. Yelich hit just .208, and while he did draw a few walks, he had only one extra-base hit, a double. Yelich has four singles and a walk in nine plate appearances through these first two postseason games, so he’s in fine form.
There are two other notable lineup changes today, one not a surprise and one, decidedly, a surprise. The first is that Jake Bauers, who finished the season on a tear, will start the game as the first baseman, moving Andrew Vaughn to the bench. The second is that Brandon Lockridge, who appeared defensively in both of the first two games of this series but doesn’t have a major-league at-bat since August 28th, will start the game in center field, where Blake Perkins started the first two games. It’s a bit of a gamble, but in small samples, Lockridge (who is right-handed but has reverse splits in both the majors and minors this year) batted .254/.297/.284 this season against right-handers (in 75 plate appearances) while Perkins hit .206/.274/.308 in 117 PA. For those of you with math skills, that’s a one-point difference in OPS. But Lockridge hit well at Triple-A in September (.351/.413/.404) and in the minors over the whole season hit .288/.355/.367 against right-handed pitching.
First pitch this afternoon is at 4:08 p.m., and find the game on TBS or HBO Max, or, of course, the Brewers Radio Network.
