Brewers' Pat Murphy keeping close eye on the playoffs while looking for ways to get better

MILWAUKEE — Some players and coaches brood over heartbreaking playoff losses so much that they can’t bear to watch the rest of the postseason.

Milwaukee manager Pat Murphy has taken an entirely different approach in the week since his team squandered a two-run, ninth-inning lead and lost to the New York Mets in the decisive third game of their NL Wild Card Series.

“I’ve watched every inning of the playoffs because I love it,” Murphy said Thursday. “I love learning. There's a lot to be learned at that time and a lot to be reinforced at that time."

Murphy said his son Kai Murphy, a minor league outfielder in the San Diego Padres organization, has helped him move forward in the week since that playoff loss. Murphy had spent so many years encouraging his son. Now it was time for Kai to pay it back.

“He heard all the crap that I was preaching to him for all those years,” Murphy said. “So he didn’t let me stay down for too long.”

Murphy and the Brewers have plenty of reason to feel good about the way they performed.

Instead of regressing after manager Craig Counsell left for the rival Chicago Cubs and 2021 NL Cy Young Award winner Corbin Burnes was traded to Baltimore, the Brewers overcame a multitude of injuries and won the NL Central by 10 games. Their 93-69 record matched the fourth-best record in the majors.

The Brewers were the only team in the majors not to have a losing streak of more than three games, a testament to the consistency they showed in Murphy’s first full season as a major league manager. Murphy had served as the Padres’ interim manager for part of the 2015 season.

“It would be a crime if he doesn’t win Manager of the Year,” Brewers president of baseball operations Matt Arnold said.

The Brewers have reached the playoffs in six of the last seven seasons and have won the NL Central three of the last four years, but they haven’t won a postseason series since reaching Game 7 of the 2018 NL Championship Series. They haven’t made it to the World Series since 1982 and have never won the title.

Murphy took issue with the notion that the Brewers’ recent history suggests they’ve discovered a way to play well in the regular season and must figure out how to achieve similar postseason success. He believes that logic ignores the difficulty of winning in the major leagues’ smallest market.

“Someone says the Brewers got the regular season figured out, now they’ve got to figure out the playoffs,” Murphy said. “That’s absurd, that you’d say that, if you really know baseball. We don’t have the regular season figured out. It’s a grind every fricking year to get to be where they have been. I’ve watched it. I’ve felt it. It’s labor-intensive, because we are working with less, we are in a position where we have to maneuver.”

The Brewers face more hurdles. Shortstop Willy Adames can become a free agent after hitting 32 homers, stealing 21 bases and driving in 112 runs. Murphy praised Adames’ ability to produce in big moments as well as the mentality and presence he brought each day.

“I think that’s irreplaceable,” Murphy said. “It’s going to be really tough to replace him.”

Milwaukee could benefit from the returns of outfielder Christian Yelich and pitcher Brandon Woodruff. Yelich played his last game July 23 before back surgery, while Woodruff didn't pitch this season while recovering from shoulder surgery. Arnold said Thursday that left-hander Robert Gasser isn't expected return from Tommy John surgery until toward the end of next season.

Murphy intends to reach out for advice from people he knows who can identify with his situation.

And he’s also going to keep watching the rest of the postseason as the Mets seek to continue an unusual trend. Throughout the Brewers’ history, any team that has beaten them in the playoffs has ended up in the World Series.

“It just happened that the last four or five years, we’ve run into the hottest team in the National League in the first round of the playoffs,” Murphy said.