Brewers vs Padres Game 4 ended 3-1 as Garrett Mitchell and Jackson Chourio sent the Brewers to the NLCS and ended a 12-game road skid.
The Brewers spent seven years carrying around a postseason road problem.
They ended it against the same pitcher who was standing on the mound the last time they had won one.
Milwaukee beat the Padres 3-1 Wednesday night at Petco Park, taking the NLDS three games to one and advancing to the National League Championship Series for the second consecutive season. The Brewers had lost 12 straight postseason road games since Game 3 of the 2018 NLCS, tying the longest such streak in Major League history.
That 2018 win came at Dodger Stadium against Walker Buehler.
So did the end of the streak.
Gasser Survived the First Test
Robert Gasser entered Game 4 as one of Milwaukee’s least obvious October protagonists.
He was once a Padres prospect, moved to Milwaukee in the 2022 Josh Hader trade, spent most of the previous two seasons working back from Tommy John surgery and did not make the Brewers’ Opening Day roster.
Then San Diego loaded the bases in the first inning.
Gasser got out of it.
That escape became more important as the game unfolded. He worked four innings, allowed one run on three hits, walked one and struck out three. The Padres put traffic around him without ever creating the inning capable of forcing Pat Murphy to abandon the plan.
Gasser left with Milwaukee ahead 2-1.
In an elimination game for San Diego, that was enough to turn the rest of the night over to the deepest part of the Brewers roster.
Mitchell Changed the Game Three Times
Garrett Mitchell entered Game 4 having gone 2-for-11 with six strikeouts in the series.
He left as the player most responsible for Milwaukee advancing.
Sal Frelick reached on an infield single and stole second in the third. Mitchell then lined a single to center against Buehler to put the Brewers ahead 1-0.
Fernando Tatis Jr. answered in the bottom half with a 429-foot homer to center, tying the game and briefly giving Petco Park the sense that San Diego’s Game 3 escape might become something larger.
Mitchell answered again.
He opened the fifth with a triple just inside the first-base line. One out later, Jackson Chourio ripped a single through a drawn-in infield to score him and restore Milwaukee’s lead.
The third Mitchell play was the one San Diego will remember longest.
Machado Nearly Tied It
The Padres had a runner on with one out in the eighth when Manny Machado drove an Abner Uribe pitch toward the right-center-field wall.
Off the bat, it looked like a tie game.
Mitchell got back to the wall, timed his jump and pulled it down above the fence.
Statcast estimated the ball would have been a home run in 19 of 30 Major League parks, including American Family Field.
At Petco Park, it became the second out.
Brice Turang followed with a difficult catch in foul territory to end the inning, and Trevor Megill retired the Padres in order in the ninth.
The series had been built on narrow margins from the beginning. Mitchell literally caught one at the wall.
Chourio Keeps Building an October Record
Chourio’s fifth-inning single did more than break a 1-1 tie.
It gave the 22-year-old his 17th career postseason RBI, moving him past Ryan Braun for the Brewers franchise record.
It also tied Andruw Jones for the most postseason RBIs in Major League history by a player before his 23rd birthday.
Chourio drove in six of Milwaukee’s first 12 runs in the series. That is an extraordinary amount of October responsibility for a player who is still younger than plenty of prospects waiting for their first full season.
The Brewers did not need him to provide every run Wednesday. They needed him to convert Mitchell’s triple when San Diego pulled the infield in.
He did.
Ashby Took Away the Middle
Milwaukee’s third run came in the sixth after Jake Bauers singled, Cooper Pratt doubled and Frelick lifted a sacrifice fly to left.
From there, the game moved to the part of Milwaukee’s roster that has made this team difficult to finish all year.
Aaron Ashby threw three scoreless, hitless innings. He struck out three, walked two and covered 38 pitches despite working for the fourth time in five days.
That bridge changed the geometry of the night. San Diego did not get to move directly from Gasser into a collection of short relievers while searching for one favorable matchup. Ashby absorbed the fifth, sixth and seventh without allowing a hit.
By the time Uribe entered, the Padres had only six outs left.
By the time Megill entered, they had three.
He struck out two in a perfect ninth for his second save of the series.
San Diego Never Found the Hit
The Padres’ season ended with three hits.
Two came in the first inning, when Jackson Merrill singled and Machado reached on a bunt single. San Diego eventually loaded the bases and failed to score.
Tatis’ third-inning homer was the Padres’ final hit of the night.
That left San Diego spending the final six innings trying to turn walks, defense and isolated contact into a rally against a pitching staff that kept changing shapes.
The Machado drive in the eighth came closest.
That is what will make this series particularly difficult for San Diego to process. The Padres were not overwhelmed across four games. They were repeatedly one play from altering them.
The first three games were decided by one run. In Game 4, the potential tying homer ended in Mitchell’s glove.
The margins were small enough to see.
Milwaukee won more of them.
Buehler Could Not Recreate the Past
Buehler’s presence gave the night an almost absurd piece of symmetry.
The last pitcher Milwaukee defeated in a postseason road game was Buehler, pitching for the Dodgers in the 2018 NLCS.
Seven years and 12 consecutive road playoff losses later, he was starting for San Diego with a chance to force Game 5.
Buehler allowed one run on three hits over three-plus innings. He walked two and did not strike out a batter before San Diego moved into a bullpen already carrying the accumulated demands of the previous game.
Robbie Ray stranded two runners in the fourth but allowed Mitchell’s leadoff triple in the fifth. Bradgley Rodriguez surrendered Chourio’s go-ahead single. Jason Adam allowed the traffic that became Milwaukee’s third run.
Mason Miller was back from the paternity list and escaped a bases-loaded situation later in the game. By then the Padres were already trailing 3-1.
The bullpen helped keep San Diego alive.
The lineup never gave it enough to protect.
The Road Problem Is Over
Milwaukee’s 12-game postseason road losing streak had survived trips to Los Angeles, Washington, Atlanta, Chicago and San Diego.
It had tied the Major League postseason record.
Christian Yelich was the only active Brewer still around from the team that had last won one in 2018.
Game 4 ended all of it.
The significance is larger than removing an ugly historical statistic. Milwaukee no longer has to carry the idea that its style somehow stops travelling in October.
Gasser gave the Brewers four innings. Mitchell delivered at the plate and at the wall. Chourio converted another important chance. Ashby covered three innings. The infield made plays. Megill finished it.
The Brewers won a road playoff game the same way they won 103 regular-season games: without needing one player to own all of it.
Wednesday Belonged to the Visitors
Milwaukee’s breakthrough was part of a larger Division Series shift.
All four road teams won Wednesday. Cleveland won in Chicago, the Dodgers eliminated Atlanta, Tampa Bay eliminated New York and Milwaukee finished San Diego.
Road teams are now 8-6 through the first 14 Division Series games.
The scoring environment has also remained compressed. The Wild Card round averaged 8.3 combined runs per game. The Division Series is at 5.9 through Wednesday.
Only three of those 14 Division Series games have reached at least five combined runs through five innings. Brewers-Padres Game 4 fit the pattern: Milwaukee led only 2-1 after five and the final score stopped at four combined runs.
This series was built for that kind of October. San Diego and Milwaukee kept producing games where one converted chance mattered more than a collection of impressive at-bats.
The Brewers converted more of them.
The Dodgers Are Waiting Again
Milwaukee advances to its fifth League Championship Series and its second in as many seasons.
The opponent is familiar.
The Brewers will face the Dodgers for the second consecutive year, with Game 1 Sunday at American Family Field. Los Angeles swept Milwaukee in four games in last year’s NLCS while allowing the Brewers only four runs.
This time Milwaukee owns home-field advantage after winning a franchise-record 103 games.
Jacob Misiorowski never had to leave the bullpen Wednesday, which leaves the NL Cy Young frontrunner lined up for Game 1.
The Brewers spent the Division Series answering one persistent question: could their regular-season formula survive the compressed margins of October?
Four games against San Diego produced the answer.
Now they get the team that ended last October.
Sources
MLB, October 8, 2026 — Brewers win NLDS Game 4 and advance to NLCS | MLB / San Diego Padres, October 8, 2026 — Padres NLDS elimination recap | MLB, October 7-8, 2026 — Brewers-Padres Game 4 box score and game story | Reuters, October 8, 2026 — Brewers 3, Padres 1 and NLCS advancement