NL DIVISION SERIES: PADRES VS BREWERS

October 4, 2026

Pat Murphy

American Family Field

Milwaukee Brewers

Pregame 2 Press Conference

Q. What do you like about Chourio in the lead-off spot against the righty?

PAT MURPHY: Get Chourio up there as many times as you can. I think the bottom line is just to get him up there as many times as you can. And it's kind of where I think everybody's comfortable.

Q. I know you talked about it a little bit last night, but have you ever seen anything like that that roof shot during all your years here, either at home or in a road situation?

PAT MURPHY: I haven't. Eleven years here, I've never had a ricochet ball. I have never even see anybody hit, like batting practice, anything. Pretty incredible. Now I'm hearing all the stuff coming in about it, whatever.

You just read and react, just respond. I was thinking rules check. First thing I thought is rules check because I wanted to refresh what I thought the rule was. I think they got it right. Never seen anything like it.

Q. You had talked about how some of the guys were pretty amped for Game 1 yesterday. Do you think that changes dramatically just with that one game experience and it will be different for Game 2, or it doesn't take a while?

PAT MURPHY: I think these guys are Major League Baseball players for a reason. I think they understand this kind of ebb and flow of emotion, you know what I mean, that happens, and I think they'll get back into it.

But I think the great thing about going through it, I think of a guy like Cooper Pratt, you know, the great thing about going through it, or Lara, they went through it and they come out and they go, look, I did pretty good, man. I just focused on the thing.

And they can kind of assess, like, maybe I wasn't thinking right there. Maybe I was too amped or too emotional. I think that experience helps everybody. And I think once you're in it, you don't notice it.

Q. When did you realize that you might have something special in Logan Henderson? How did he show that to you?

PAT MURPHY: Last year, he made some starts last year. And you're like, wow, this guy can pitch. And he's just such a tremendous human, like, the way he accepted getting sent down after he pitched, like, a two-hitter here or something, we sent him down the next day. Just the way he handled himself all the way through it.

And then just to see his progression, you just realize, this guy's a pitcher and very consistent. It's just kind of who he is as a person.

Q. You've each got a look at a lot of bullpen arms yesterday. These might be the two best bullpens in baseball. In a series like this you're probably going to see a lot of guys in consecutive days. Can that make a difference for either offense to be able to get fresh eyes on them?

PAT MURPHY: Yeah, I think there's something to familiarity. When you see a guy over and over, there's something to it. The good ones just keep making adjustments.

But the Padre bullpen is so electric and they have good secondary pitches, all of them. They rely on chase, and they've proven it. They're in this position -- a lot of the reason they're in this position, I'm sure -- I can't speak for their team, but their bullpen's just really exceptional. But familiarity, I think, makes a difference.

And we have to use so much bullpen when you have a four-inning starter. We've had that all year. The guys that cover us, they'll tell you that all year, we've had these type of using five relievers in a game types of thing, and that's taxing over time. Thus, we used 58 players.

How much pitchers out of that 58, anybody know? I'd ask Mike but there's --

Q. Thirty-four.

PAT MURPHY: Nice. Say it, Adam. It's the first time he's had an answer to a question I've had.

(Laughter).

Great job, Mike.

Q. Do you think yesterday was kind of a good illustration -- we always hear these stats about in the postseason more runs come by a homer than during the regular season? Do you think last night was kind of an illustration of that, with all the guys left on base and sort of the limited runs scored in those two longer innings?

PAT MURPHY: Yeah, I think -- I want to say this the right way. You hit the ball hard enough, you know what I mean, at the right trajectory, the ball is going to go out of the yard. But in a regular season game, you don't have the match-up, the bullpen movement, the win-at-all-costs because you have seven more games coming in a row, or one time this year we're on a 19-game streak, and fans are, like, why is he not putting Uribe in? Well, he's pitched four out of five.

And that doesn't happen here. So therefore it's tougher to string together hits. And sometimes the homer, that's definitive. Like, the homer, you're going to score runs.

It's a little bit of a crapshoot. It really is a little bit of a crapshoot. And homers are the ones that end up defining the game, usually.

If not, it's still a way we play. We just load up on base runners if we can. We don't have that home run threat out of too many guys.

Q. Does going up in this series allow you to be any more judicious with the bullpen usage for guys that maybe pitched more than they're used to in one game?

PAT MURPHY: Yeah, you're talking about, like, who would have pitched more than they're used to?

Q. Megill got four outs for you.

PAT MURPHY: Megill, yeah. But four outs in 17 pitches, you know what I'm saying? Four outs in 17 pitches. I get it, it's another up, and it does make a difference. But I don't think anybody else really --

But to answer your question, of course, there's the strategy involved in all this. In some ways, now I'm hearing about the France potential homer, like, again, from where I stand, it was foul. But now I'm hearing it wasn't foul. And I've been wrong -- was that my first time this year I've been wrong? Mike will have the number.

But if I'm wrong, then we're damn lucky that Ueck put his hand up there. You know what I mean? It's like it's pretty lucky. We could be down in this series.

You just kind of operate pitch to pitch and game to game. But you're always -- the fact that you ended up winning, and you're aware of now, hey, maybe this is a day we don't bring Hall back. He hasn't done back-to-backs on 20 pitches. Sometimes that's considered.

Q. You guys faced King all the way back in May. Knowing how much can change over the course of a season, how much can you really draw from that method?

PAT MURPHY: Well, we've watched them a ton. We watched him last week dominate. He's one of the most underrated pitchers in the game. You know, I think when you mention the best pitchers in the game, you don't always put his name in there. But when you've watched what he's done and how he's done it -- at least the games that I've watched and what he's done against us, he's been really, really good.

Q. When you look back to the last time that Logan faced this Padres team and how that outing ended for him, what's changed for him since then, in your eyes?

PAT MURPHY: Not much. I feel like Logan gives you a consistent outing almost every time out. I'm hoping that the bigness of this situation -- this will be his first time, you know what I mean -- so the bigness of the situation, hopefully, doesn't rattle him any more than it would anyone else. I think he's a level-headed guy. But you never know how that's going to go.

But I know the kid is gaining in confidence throughout the year. He's another guy that's -- he's been super consistent Major League pitcher with incredible numbers. I don't know how much pitchers would rate ahead of him. You guys would have all of that. But he's been really, really good.

Q. Pitching is in this era of deeper mixes and guys developing bigger arsenals. Is there something that stands out about the way that Logan does it where it's mostly fastball, change-up?

PAT MURPHY: Yeah, I mean the cutter's been a pitch for him, too, and the slurve. And so he's got other things, and learning to mix that in is the trick. When do you mix that in and when can you do it confidently? And when you can develop those third and fourth pitches to be effective, more than just two.

But when you have two exceptional pitches it's just realizing to execute. He's an old-fashioned executer. His heater is a good pitch.

Q. When we think about Misiorowski, sometimes it gets lost how young he is. How much do you think an outing like that yesterday might be able to help him in the long run?

PAT MURPHY: I think he's learning himself. He's learning himself as a pitcher.

I said it this morning to one of the groups I met with this morning. Like, Jacob's a work in progress. He's special. But he's a work in progress. There's a lot he's going to develop in that arsenal. There's a lot to it. And he himself is interested in doing that.

I think having the stuff he did in the first inning and then kind of getting clipped in the second inning -- although there's an infield hit in there, there's a blooper in there, there's a bad defensive play -- but I think that high pitch count and the way that they were able to foul off pitches, I think he'll learn from that and how he can help himself. And it comes back to being a pitcher and locating and doing some things.

I remember Bobby Bonilla told me one time, I played against him in 1983; he was in Alexandria, Virginia. And Bonilla said -- we were talking about hitting or something, and he said, hey, bro, I can time up a jet plane if you tell me it's coming. And I've always thought about that.

So velocity doesn't matter if you know it's coming. If he's gonna predominantly throw heaters, and you don't feel confident he can do something else in zone that guys can get to it, or at least foul it off, as we say.

Q. Would you be willing to tell us your Game 3 starting pitching plan?

PAT MURPHY: Yeah, Dustin May. Is that his first name?

Q. Can I follow up and say your level of confidence from the wobbly outings at the end?

PAT MURPHY: He's pitched fantastic against the Padres. He's got experience and we brought him in to do that. So, yeah.