NL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: DODGERS VS BREWERS

October 15, 2026

Pat Murphy

Dodger Stadium

Milwaukee Brewers

Pregame 4 Press Conference

Q. What can you tell us about the decision to start Shane? You had many fresh options to go with. Without giving away the game plan, what made him the choice?

PAT MURPHY: He's done it for us a lot this year. He had a little bout with tendinitis in his elbow. We feel like that's the good start with him first and see how far it goes and go from there. As opposed to you're talking about May or --

Q. Harrison.

PAT MURPHY: Obviously you've watched Harrison throw lately. That hasn't been great, right? Hopefully he can return to form at some point. You certainly wouldn't -- he hasn't made a start in a while. I think Drohan is the best option.

Q. This is a position really almost no one on your team has been in -- a game away from the World Series. Do you feel like this is something that in other ways they've trained for mentally throughout the course of the season, or is it just such a different beast that there's no preparation?

PAT MURPHY: I think you can think way too far into it, and I think you need to have your mind on where we talked about at the end of the regular season, we put ourselves in a position, there's 11 more wins to be had.

I think -- I don't know, where are we at here? We're at 6, right? So I think it's more about thinking about that and not letting your mind get on, oh, what if? What if? How is that serving you by thinking that way.

I can't tell you what every individual guy is thinking, but hopefully, like we always say, keep your head down, be in the moment, win tonight, tap us on the shoulder when it's over.

We have incredible respect for the Dodgers. What they've amassed over the last few years and what kind of players they have is remarkable. So we're just thinking about let's get it done today if we can.

Q. How have you seen the value of playoff experience benefit Brice and William and even Jackson with some of the playoff experience? How do you see it game manifest itself for those guys and that experience?

PAT MURPHY: I can see they're themselves. In the postseason, you're facing great arms every night. You're facing -- in our case, we're facing how many Cy Young winners or MVPs or whatever, I don't know. You're facing the great arms of the game, and it seems like they understand that and they've accepted that. They therefore can conduct -- they don't let two poor ABs affect the next AB. So I think that experience is helping them.

Q. In these seven games of the postseason, has there been one pleasant surprise to you that's jumped out to you?

PAT MURPHY: One player?

Q. Just one surprise, player or in general.

PAT MURPHY: I can think of a number of players I'm just so pleased with the way they've -- DL Hall, for instance, the way he's really just emerged. Not that Ashby hasn't been unbelievably valuable, it's just the emergence of DL Hall in that situation yesterday kind of jumps on you.

Other things that surprise me -- I'm not sure anything really surprised me that much, to be honest with you.

Q. I'm sorry to ask you about the Dodgers lineup again, but they now bring up Ohtani to the leadoff and Smith to the cleanup. Is it anything --

PAT MURPHY: They both did good yesterday. Yeah, I think every time you make a lineup and you make lineup changes, you're trying your best to put people in the best possible position.

Those are the two -- two of the best of their positions. Ohtani arguably the best player in the world, and Smith arguably one of the top catchers, especially offensive catchers in the world. So not a surprise to me at all. They've both been there in the past.

Surprise wouldn't be the thing I would say. Ohtani's led off a lot in his career.

Q. Do you feel he's more dangerous at the top?

PAT MURPHY: He'll hit more, so he'll have more opportunities. Sometimes managers put their guys first because they know they're going to hit the most, and the chances are they could get that fifth at-bat. First, second, and third usually gets the benefit of that.

Q. When you look at your team's stats during the year, it was really only Misiorowski who made 30 starts and even had 125 innings. When did you realize that you were going to have to patch this or build this pitching staff the way you have with a lot of guys who are good rather than just the old, traditional way of three or four horses?

PAT MURPHY: We lost Woody. He was our veteran. Everyone else is basically a rookie or got one year of service time because of injury. Gasser doesn't have that many starts in the Big Leagues.

We lost Quinn Priester. We lost Woody. So now we've got all rookies. Miz doesn't have that many starts in the Big Leagues before this year, Drohan zero. Harrison, a couple together throughout the years, a little more than a rookie.

So we had basically all first-year pitchers, and they just kind of band together and helped each other out. But we knew we were going to have to acquire some starting pitching or get these young guys to mix and match and do whatever is asked of them. They've continued to get together and really proud of them.

It's been an underlying story of our team is how young the pitching staff is.

Q. Talking to some of your players last night, it didn't seem like they knew a whole lot about the 1982 Brewers. I'm wondering what you remember about the '82 Brewers and maybe what could these guys -- what should these guys know?

PAT MURPHY: Harvey Kuenn, did he have one leg? Did he have a prosthetic leg?

Q. He did.

PAT MURPHY: I feel like I need one with my hip. I mean, Yount, what a ballplayer, Molitor, what a ballplayer. I think of it that way. I don't go back and study that. I know the people of Milwaukee and all over the state love referring to it, and I'm sure it was an incredibly exciting time for them.

I don't let my mind go there. I just don't let my mind go there right now. I'm sorry about that, but I just don't.

Q. Do you feel like Abner could benefit from a day off, or you got him available tonight?

PAT MURPHY: Abner's available, yeah. He's available tonight. I don't know what you mean by benefit from a day off. He's thrown the ball -- his stuff is as hard as it's been. It's just that he hasn't thrown the ball particularly well. He just hasn't -- he's so competitive and so important to us. He just hasn't been sharp. Even though the numbers say different, I know the difference.

Q. Perhaps more importantly, have you seen the viral Milwaukee Brewers song video? Have your kids seen it?

PAT MURPHY: This is the kind of shit that makes me not want to give him the mic, you know what I'm saying?

Q. I know your kids have seen it.

PAT MURPHY: He's a nice man. He really is.

Q. I'm not going to ask you about the song, but a theme throughout the season and throughout this postseason has been your team's ability to respond. When I asked the players about it, they talk about how they're playing for each other and want to pick each other up. What do you observe, whether it be in the dugout during a game or just about your team, that allows you guys to continually respond?

PAT MURPHY: These guys came together early, and they got in that division race. I just love the way, when you least expect it, they just -- again, they know they weren't picked to win the division. They know they weren't -- they know they've done it, but I think they feel a little like we're way better as a group, and I think they picked up on that, and they see different people helping us win.

They don't get enough credit. That group in there doesn't get enough credit because they're pulled in a million different directions. They're tired. They're run down. They're beat up, and they just keep going. I'm just proud as heck of them.

Q. At this time of year in your mind, what percentage of your job as manager is the in-game, strategic element, making a lineup, bullpen decisions, et cetera? And what percentage of your job is sort of the more nebulous keeping the clubhouse together, setting the tone, pushing everybody in the correct direction?

PAT MURPHY: I can't give you that exact percentage. I was thinking something about like 46.46.

Q. That sounds right.

PAT MURPHY: But you also want to stay out of the way, you really do. The soup that they're cooking has tasted pretty good. I can sit back and critique and say, well, we've got to do more of this. Sometimes they've got it. The mix of stuff is pretty good. They're really holding each other accountable. Sometimes your best move is to stay out of the way.

The other parts are -- that's inherent in every day of the job -- the bullpen, the strategy, the what if. Some of it, quite frankly, guys, you can second-guess every decision.

What I started doing is, after the game's over, with these local yokels, I go in and tell them the great things I did every night.

Q. Did you always believe that about leadership, coaching, managing, kind of taking your hands off the wheel was a good thing for a clubhouse, for a team? Or earlier in your career, were you more hands-on than you are now, do you think, either here or in college?

PAT MURPHY: I made every mistake three times, and sometimes way more than that. And most of it is well-intended, but a lot of it is ego, a lot of is feeling like you have to have control, a lot of it is insecurity so you want to make sure, double down, tell them three times.

It's like the parent that tells their kids, remember, stay on the left side, remember, look both ways, you know what I mean? It's like uncle. I know that, mom and dad.

I think you learn as you get older and you learn that you're not that important and be careful of that thing you have, which is authority. Don't use it as power. That's the danger. It's authority. Really learn how important it is, and how you deploy it is -- you know, takes a little bit of a touch. I think over time when you've made all the mistakes I've made, you get a little bit better at it.

I'm under construction. I'm still trying to -- for what it's worth, I'm still trying to figure it out.

Q. Do you have a favorite mistake that you made that you look back on?

PAT MURPHY: Favorite mistake?

Q. Yeah, that you learned from?

PAT MURPHY: Counsell was an infielder -- trying to be an infielder at Notre Dame, and I would make him during the indoor workouts in the winter -- when he was taking ground balls, I'd make him yell, "Mine!" Because he didn't speak much.

And this guy was such a worker and such a diligent, smart baseball player, but he wouldn't express himself. He was very shy and very quiet, and I wanted him to stick his chest out and be a leader. I wanted him to scream, "Mine, mine!"

The whole football team is waiting to get on to practice. Holtz is like, Murphy, you don't have a game for two months. Let's get this in.

I'm like, Coach, you don't have a game for seven months.

But he needed that indoor practice time. We'd make him wait, by the way.

But there would be this shortstop out there yelling "Mine!" for every ground ball, and people would be like, What the hell was that? But I was trying to bring it out of him, and he wanted to kill me.

That was a mistake. He did just fine without yelling "Mine!" for ground balls. Had a pretty nice Big League career.

Q. You're one of the few people in uniform -- or in a Brewers logo who was in a Brewers logo the last time the team played a game with what's at stake tonight potentially. What do you remember about that time? How often do you think about Chris Taylor's catch and just what might have been?

PAT MURPHY: I nicknamed Chris Taylor.

Q. Can you share?

PAT MURPHY: No, I cannot share.

(Laughter.)

I think about that. That particular game -- games, you can bring back my memory. I remember little things. Sometimes I remember them wrong. But I'm trying not even to -- you get me thinking outside the box here. I'm trying to just like shoop (gesturing). I'm probably a bad interview today, but I do remember that game.