The Unlikely Heroes in Brewers Post-Season History

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Photo via Tobias Myers - Instagram

Tobias Myers

Tobias Myers

MLB legends are born in October, but sometimes they start out as unlikely candidates.

One of the unique things about baseball is the fact that everyone in the lineup has to play. While a star quarterback in football or a point guard in basketball is virtually assured to have the ball in their hands with the game on the line, in baseball circumstances sometimes leave the season in the hands of a bottom-of-the-order hitter or less-heralded pitcher.

If the 2024 Milwaukee Brewers are going to have an extended playoff run they’re perhaps more likely than most teams to need a big moment from someone surprising. While they certainly got a few star-level performances on their way to 93 wins, the sixth most in franchise history, their strength has come more from the depth of their talent than from any single standout performance: They’re one of the best teams in baseball at getting production from the bottom of their lineup and they’ve been cobbling together their starting rotation all year. Only three pitchers started more than 15 games for the Brewers this season and two of them are Tobias Myers, a rookie pitching for his sixth professional organization, and Colin Rea, who is two years removed from spending a season in Japan.

Fortunately for the Brewers, there is precedent for less-heralded players having a memorable or even iconic moment on baseball’s biggest stage. For every Cecil Cooper, who collected 205 hits during the 1982 regular season before connecting for the biggest one in Brewers history that October, there’s a guy like this who took a much more unlikely path to their big moment:

Yuniesky Betancourt, 2011

By both advanced and traditional metrics, Betancourt was one of the worst Brewers in franchise history. Logging nearly 300 games as a Brewer despite a .258 on-base percentage and poorly rated defense, FanGraphs estimates Betancourt was roughly two wins less valuable than a replacement-level player during his time in Milwaukee.  In the 2011 NLDS, however, he had one of the biggest hits in franchise history.

While everyone remembers Nyjer Morgan’s walk-off single in the tenth inning of that series’ win-or-go-home Game 5, the Brewers took the lead for the first time in that game when Betancourt lined a single to center to drive home Ryan Braun in the sixth inning. While it’s not the most-replayed moment in that game, the Brewers would not have advanced to the NLCS without it.

Dave Bush, 2008

After decades idling in the garage, the Brewers’ postseason bandwagon stalled going around the first corner in 2008. Their first postseason appearance since 1982 appeared destined for an early exit after the Phillies took the first two games of the best of five series in Philadelphia and sent the Brewers home with their backs against the wall. 

That Brewers team had Yovani Gallardo, CC Sabathia and Ben Sheets on the roster but the best pitching performance of the series came from Dave Bush, a pitcher with a 4.73 career ERA who was pitching in the postseason for the only time in his nine-year MLB career. Bush took the ball for Game 3 of the series and extended the Brewers’ season, allowing a single run across 5 1/3 innings and becoming the first Brewers pitcher to win a playoff game in 26 years.

Pete Ladd, 1982

Future Hall of Fame closer Rollie Fingers was one of the iconic performers on this legendary Brewers squad, logging 29 saves a year after winning the American League MVP and Cy Young Awards in 1981 when he closed out 28 games with a 1.04 ERA. With Fingers injured and unavailable to pitch in the postseason this year, however, the Brewers had to dig deep for bullpen help.

Pete Ladd had pitched in just 26 regular season games as a major leaguer when he got the call to work the late innings in two of the biggest wins in franchise history, recording the final four outs in the Brewers’ 5-3 win over the Angels in Game 3 of the ALCS and then returning to the mound to work a perfect ninth on just nine pitches and clinch the series in Game 5.