The San Diego Padres arrived in Milwaukee less than 24 hours after wrapping up a Wild Card win over the Chicago Cubs, leaving the smell of stale champagne and beer at Petco Park behind as they look to take the next step toward a World Series title.
The Padres will play on the road Saturday and Sunday against the Milwaukee Brewers, who topped all of baseball with 103 regular season wins. Perhaps the biggest challenge facing the Friars is Milwaukee's Game 1 starting pitcher, National League Cy Young favorite Jacob Misiorowski, who throws as hard as closer Mason Miller and can do it for six or seven innings at a time.
"He's lights out. Bam. He's the best pitcher in the game right now. We're going to fight. It's going to be a dogfight and we can't wait to face him because he's the best in the game and that's what you want as a baseball player," Fernando Tatis Jr. said after Wedensday night's win.
For much of the season, a postseason celebration like the one in the Padres clubhouse seemed out of reach. The Padres were three games under .500 on July 24, and there was talk the team would sell off key pieces at the trade deadline. Instead, the Padres banded together to become the best team in baseball over the final two-plus months of the season.
"I think we went through failure to start the year. When you come out of failure, you know what you're able to accomplish. We trust each other and we just want to win games," center fielder Jackson Merrill said.
Manager Craig Stammen addressed the challenge ahead.
"This is a new Padres team in the playoffs. We played a great series. We've got to do it again here in a couple of days," Stammen said.
Tatis spoke to the team's approach.
"Brick by brick, man. We're building, we're building. One step at a time. One step at a time."
The goal in Milwaukee will be to at least split the two road games before returning home for Games 3 and 4 on Tuesday and Wednesday in the best-of series. While the top-seeded Brewers are considered the favorites, the Padres are heading into October feeling like a team of destiny.
"This group is special. Man, we're coming together as one. It's beautiful to see the way we're playing baseball right now," Tatis said.
Third baseman Manny Machado echoed that sentiment.
"We believe in each other. Look at this group of guys. Look at this. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. We all believed in each other. We believed in what we could do as a group, and we stayed true to it," Machado said while surveying his teammates celebrating.
While Machado and the offense were red-hot in September, the real strength of the Padres remains in the bullpen, which closed out the Cubs with 5⅔ shutout innings. That unit will need to be just as dominant if the Padres hope to knock off the Brewers in the next round.
Stammen, the ex-Padres reliever-turned-manager, praised his relief corps.
"A former bullpen guy loves deploying his bullpen, and we have a really good one. They all make me look really good. They pitched great tonight. Shut a great offense down."
Closer Mason Miller spoke about the team's collective approach.
"Nobody's getting too big. It's just about getting it to the next guy, putting us in position to win baseball games. That's what we've been doing all year and that's what we're going to continue to try to do," Miller said.
Machado and Merrill each expressed the team's ultimate goal.
"Our goal is still to bring a championship to the city. That's what I came here for," Machado said.
"World Series. You know the mission. There's only one goal. If it's not the World Series, it's a failure," Merrill said.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
