Padres anticipate ‘very tough’ NLDS against Brewers, owners of baseball’s best record in 2026

With a Wild Card sweep of the Cubs firmly in the rear-view mirror, the Padres are facing a completely different opponent in their National League Division Series against the Brewers, which opens under the roof at Milwaukee’s American Family Field on Saturday night.

First of all, they’re facing the team that had the best record in baseball, 103-59, though the Brewers lost four of the six games they played against the Padres this season.

But that kind of imbalance didn’t matter to the Friars in the Wild Card Series. The Cubs had defeated the Padres five of six times prior to this week.

Secondly, the Padres are going to have to face right-handed fireballer Jacob Misiorowski twice in the best-of-five series, in Game 1 and a possible Game 5, both on the road.

“It’s going to be a tough series,” Padres manager Craig Stammen said after the Padres eliminated the Cubs with a 4-1 win at Petco Park on Wednesday night. “The regular season is out the window. As we saw, the Cubs kicked our butt in the regular season, and we were able to handle them for two games.

“Anything can happen in a short series. They’re going to be a tough opponent. Every game we played with them was really close in the regular season. I anticipate something similar to that in this coming week.”

Misiorowski is the best pitcher in the NL and right up there with the Yankees’ Cam Schlittler for best overall starter in MLB. He’s the certain NL Cy Young Award winner having finished with a 16-5 record, a 1.80 ERA, 256 strikeouts and 44 walks in 174 2/3 innings over 30 starts.

He had a no-decision vs. the Padres on May 13 despite throwing seven innings of no run, four-hit, 10-strikeout ball in a 3-1 San Diego victory.

Postcards from Milwaukee. pic.twitter.com/vfVfhn1pOD

— San Diego Padres (@Padres) October 3, 2026

“He was a tough task that day,” Stammen said. “He’s going to be a tough task [Saturday] also.”

The Padres have decided to go with Robbie Ray, a trade deadline acquisition from the Giants, rather than Walker Buehler, who had a decent season as the No. 2 anchor in the Padres rotation, Stammen said Friday in Milwaukee.

“I think he’s going to do well against this lineup,” he added. “As far as how far he goes or how long, he’ll determine a lot of that, how well he pitches. And we know with Robbie, he can be erratic at times. If he’s throwing strikes I feel good about Robbie being in there.”

Michael King, whose no-hitter went by the boards during the seventh inning of Tuesday night’s 8-0 win over the Cubs, is slated to pitch Sunday against rookie right-hander Logan Harrison, Stammen confirmed.

Whichever team survives this series would play the winner of the Dodgers-Braves NLDS, which also opens Saturday at Dodger Stadium. The Padres finished second in the NL West nine games in arrears of the 100-win Dodgers, who are the defending two-time World Series champions and trying to three-peat for the first time since the 1998 to 2000 Yankees.

“That’s a long ways away,” Stammen said. “Milwaukee has been the best team all year. It’s going to be a very tough five-game series against them. We’re going to have to play our best, just like we did against the Cubs, to knock them out, and we’ll see where we are after that.”

The primary concern right now, just as it was for the Wild Card Series, is roster construction for the NLDS. The Padres have until a couple of hours prior to Saturday’s 5:30 p.m. PT start to make their final decision.

The main question: If Joe Musgrove makes the cut. His inclusion on the Wild Card roster was a major surprise coming two years from the starter’s last appearance during the 2024 playoffs. From there he had Tommy John ligament replacement surgery among other procedures and spent the next 24 months experiencing the fits and starts of his recovery.

Stammen had the opportunity to throw him right out there in the ninth inning on Tuesday with the Padres leading, 8-0.

“Probably the lowest impact situation you can get,” said Musgrove, a San Diego kid whose mother and father were in attendance to see him that night.

Musgrove threw 22 pitches, which for him, turned out to be high-leverage. He struck out Michael Busch looking and then loaded the bases because of a walk to Ian Happ sandwiched by Seiya Suzuki and Nico Hoerner singles.

The Petco crowd of 47,084 was in a frenzy as Pedro Ramirez popped out to second and pinch-hitter Michael Conforto struck out looking. It was quite a punctuation point to an exciting night.

“It was humbling to see the ovation I got,” Musgrove said. “It was hard for me to sit back with the contract I’m on and not pitch for two years. I’d done everything in my power to get back on the mound, and I hadn’t found my way.”

He found his way back into a best-of-three game series, where, based on his recovery time, he wasn’t expected to pitch again. The Padres may not have that luxury in a best-of-five series. Musgrove has had problems flexing his arm from his elbow after five or six inning starts. It has taken him days to recover.

The Padres are banking on the fact that the shorter the outing, the shorter the recovery time. Tuesday was Musgrove’s first relief appearance since 2021.

“That’s up to how he feels each day,” Stammen said. “It will be different. He’s in a new space of his career and a new space of this recovery where he has been feeling really good lately, but we’ll see – he pitched a playoff inning with a lot of intensity and the crowd going crazy, just a different environment than what he has been pitching in, live batting practice at Petco Park or an instructional league game.”

For his part, Musgrove has been clamoring to pitch. Even during his minor league rehab starts when he was suffering from the stiff elbow he asked management to activate him and let him go. The doctors declined and told him not to pick up a ball for two weeks.

When he started throwing again, it was on a much restricted program that allowed him to get into Tuesday night’s game. Stammen let him know two days before the series he’d be on the playoff roster.

“I’m grateful,” Musgrove said. “I feel bad for the guys who grinded it out all year and didn’t make the roster. But they called on me, and it’s my job to pitch.”

That might not now be the case again.