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Barring a remarkable collapse, the Milwaukee Brewers are lined up for a historically significant event this week. They enter play on Monday with a two-game lead over the St. Louis Cardinals and a 3 1/2 game lead over the Colorado Rockies for the National League’s top Wild Card spot. Unless they fall behind both in the season’s final six games, they’ll clinch just the fifth postseason appearance in their 50-year franchise history and their first since 2011. A combination of four Brewers wins and Rockies losses in the season’s final week is all that’s needed to extend the season for at least another few days.
If the Brewers clinch a postseason berth this week, they’ll get a moment to add to the list that follows.
Oct. 3, 1981
The first Brewers team to ever reach postseason play did so under unusual circumstances. A player strike in the middle of the ’81 season led to the year being played in two halves, with the division champion from each half qualifying for MLB’s first-ever division series. The Brewers went 31-25 in the first half but 31-22 in the second half, edging Boston by a game and a half.
The Brewers took a two-game lead with one game to play on Saturday, Oct. 3, of that season with a come-from-behind thriller against the Detroit Tigers. Hall of Fame pitcher Jack Morris held the Brewers scoreless across seven innings before the Brew Crew came through with two runs in the eighth inning on a walk, sac bunt, bunt single, RBI groundout, intentional walk and a Gorman Thomas sac fly. Rollie Fingers—who had entered the game in the previous inning—retired the side in order in the ninth to complete the victory and the Brewers’ playoff chase.
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Oct. 3, 1982
A year-to-the-day later, the Brewers once again took the field with the season on the line. They had gone to Baltimore for the season’s final weekend needing just one win in four games to clinch their first outright division title in franchise history but lost both halves of a doubleheader on Friday and a single game on Saturday to force a winner-take-all matchup on the season’s final day.
The Brewers struck early in that contest as Robin Yount homered in the first inning to give the Crew a 1-0 lead. They tacked on individual runs in the second, third, sixth and eighth innings before finally blowing the game open with five runs in the ninth and winning 10-2. Future Hall of Famer Don Sutton outdueled fellow future Hall of Famer Jim Palmer for the victory.
Sept. 28, 2008
The Brewers clinched their first postseason appearance in 26 years and their first one as a member of the National League on a nail-biting day for the ages. First, they came from behind to beat the NL Central champion Chicago Cubs by a score of 3-1 on Craig Counsell’s seventh-inning, bases-loaded walk and Ryan Braun’s eighth-inning, two-run home run to clinch a share of the NL Wild Card.
About 90 minutes later, however, the Brewers got a favor from the Florida Marlins, who scored two runs in the eighth inning to beat the New York Mets 4-2 and eliminate New York from postseason contention in what turned out to be the last MLB game at Shea Stadium. Former Brewer Wes Helms homered for Florida and scored the winning run.
Sept. 23, 2011
With 20 games left to play in the 2011 season, the Brewers appeared poised to cruise to their first-ever NL Central championship as they beat the Cardinals 4-1 on Sept. 5 to open a 10 1/2 game lead in the division. What followed, however, was an 11-9 finish combined with a massive hot streak from St. Louis that powered the Cardinals into the postseason and kept Brewers fans in suspense into the season’s final week. The Brewers finally broke through on Sept. 23, when a three-run, eighth-inning home run by Ryan Braun powered them to a 4-1 win over the Marlins, and a Cubs come-from-behind win over the Cardinals gave Milwaukee its first division championship in the National League.
