Garrett Mitchell's Wall-Robbing Catch Clinches Brewers' NLDS Win, Sets Up Dodgers Rematch in NLCS

The Milwaukee Brewers closed out the San Diego Padres 3-1 in Game 4 of the National League Division Series on Wednesday night at Petco Park, taking the best-of-five series 3-1 and advancing to the NL Championship Series for the second consecutive year. Waiting for them is a familiar and formidable opponent: the two-time defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers, who eliminated the Atlanta Braves 4-1 in their own Game 4 that same evening to win their series 3-1, according to MLB's official scoreboard.

The pairing sets up a rematch of last October's NLCS, when Los Angeles swept Milwaukee in four games on its way to a second straight championship. This time the Brewers arrive as the No. 1 overall seed in the National League, having posted the best record in the majors during the regular season.

The Numbers From Game 4

Garrett Mitchell drove in the Brewers' first run with a third-inning single off Padres starter Walker Buehler, and Fernando Tatis Jr. answered immediately, tying the game 1-1 with a solo home run off Milwaukee starter Robert Gasser that left the bat at 110 mph, according to the ESPN game recap. Gasser worked four innings and allowed only that run. Buehler, who entered the night with a 4-4 career postseason record and a 3.04 playoff ERA across 19 appearances, did not finish the fourth inning.

Sal Frelick broke the tie with a sixth-inning sacrifice fly that scored Jake Bauers, putting Milwaukee ahead 3-1. From there the Brewers' bullpen trio of Aaron Ashby, Abner Uribe and Trevor Megill combined to retire the Padres without a hit over the final five innings, per the FanGraphs recap of the series.

The defining moment came in the eighth, when Manny Machado hit a deep fly ball toward the center-field wall with San Diego still down two runs. Mitchell climbed the wall, reached past a fan's outstretched hand and pulled the ball back, erasing what would have been a game-tying home run, as detailed in an ESPN report on the catch.

"GARRETT MITCHELL TAKES AWAY A GAME-TYING HOME RUN," Major League Baseball's official account posted minutes after the play, as the league broadcast replayed the catch from multiple angles.

How Milwaukee Got Here

The series opened in Milwaukee with two tight, low-scoring games that went Milwaukee's way. In Game 1, Jackson Chourio tied the score with a two-run homer off Robbie Ray in the third inning, William Contreras put the Brewers ahead with a home run in the seventh, and an apparent game-tying homer by Padres first baseman Ty France in the ninth was instead ruled an out after the ball caromed off the stadium's roof cables and was caught on review. Milwaukee held on for a 3-2 win.

Game 2 was even more dramatic. Trailing 3-2 entering the ninth against Padres closer Mason Miller, Chourio delivered a two-out, two-run single that gave Milwaukee a 4-3 walk-off victory and a 2-0 series lead, a result confirmed by Yahoo Sports' live coverage of the series.

After the series shifted to Petco Park, San Diego avoided elimination in Game 3 behind Jake Cronenworth's go-ahead home run in the fifth inning and a six-out save from closer Michael King, winning 4-3 and keeping alive the possibility of a decisive Game 5. The Brewers closed out the series in Game 4 instead.

Who Is Affected

Milwaukee finished the 2026 regular season 103-59, the best record in baseball, and won the NL Central by 14 games over the Chicago Cubs (89-73). The Brewers built that record despite opening the year without Chourio, who started on the injured list with a fractured left hand suffered when he was hit by a pitch in a World Baseball Classic exhibition game in March; he came back to hit .291 with 25 home runs, 75 RBIs, 27 doubles and 23 stolen bases over 127 games. Manager Pat Murphy's club now gets a chance to avenge last October's four-game sweep at the hands of the Dodgers in the 2025 NLCS, a series in which Los Angeles advanced on its way to a World Series title over the Toronto Blue Jays.

For San Diego, the season ends at 91-71, a mark that was good enough only for a wild-card berth behind the division-winning Dodgers (100-62) in the NL West. Buehler, Machado, Tatis and the rest of the Padres' core now face an offseason of questions after consecutive series losses in which the lineup struggled to produce consistently against Milwaukee's pitching staff.

The Dodgers, meanwhile, needed four games to dispatch Atlanta after Yoshinobu Yamamoto struck out 10 over seven innings in Game 3 and Kiké Hernández and Freddie Freeman each homered in that contest to put Los Angeles in position to close out the series. The win keeps alive Los Angeles' bid to become the first National League team ever to win three consecutive World Series titles, and the first team in any league to do it since the Yankees' 1998-2000 run, following championships in 2024 over the New York Yankees and in 2025 over Toronto.

What's Next

Under the postseason schedule MLB released before October began, the NLCS opens Sunday, October 11, on FOX or FS1, with the higher seed hosting Games 1 and 2. That seed belongs to Milwaukee, meaning the series opens at American Family Field before shifting to Los Angeles for Games 3 through 5, with Games 6 and 7, if necessary, returning to Milwaukee. Both teams will have had four days of rest between their division series clinchers and the opening pitch of the championship round, time Murphy is expected to use to reset a bullpen that threw heavily across the NLDS and settle on a rotation order for the best-of-seven series.

For a Brewers roster built on a tight budget relative to the rest of the league's contenders, another shot at the Dodgers represents the clearest test yet of whether last October's sweep was an aberration or a pattern. For the Dodgers, it is the next step toward a third straight championship, a feat no National League franchise has ever achieved and one no team in either league has managed since the Yankees' dynasty of 1998 through 2000.