MLB WORLD SERIES: RAYS VS BREWERS

October 23, 2026

Pat Murphy

American Family Field

Milwaukee Brewers

Pregame 1 Press Conference

Q. Murph, can you just talk us through all the factors you were weighing with Woodruff, putting him on the roster, and just telling him and informing him of your decision?

PAT MURPHY: It's something that he had kind of marked off when he came back from making the decision he's not going to have surgery, and he said here's my throwing program, here's how it plays out. There's a shot, if we're in the World Series, that's right about the time I can be ready. I feel confident.

So with that, we didn't think anything of it at the time. We had a job to do. We had our head down, and we watched him progress. Then we watched him throw, and we watched him go out on lives and the way he threw the baseball. We were like, whoa, it's better than it was earlier in the season as far as stuff.

We know who the kid is. We know his -- that it's not going to be too much for him. This is what this kid's all about. He's been around here for ten years or whatever, and we've understood it. We feel like there's a window where he can help us.

That was the whole decision. This isn't a, wow, we love Woody, he's great for the organization -- because he already said to us, I don't want to be a sympathy pick. I want to be a pick because I can help the team. Then you go through all the things and say, can he help us? The answer is yes, he can definitely help us.

Q. Do you know if it will be at the beginning of games or out of the bullpen where he'll be able to help you?

PAT MURPHY: Yeah, one or the other. I'm confident in that.

Q. My question is sort of the same. Given his long history as a starter and given he's not pitched in a game in a couple of months, he really could come in late in a game? Would you have worries about him warming up and coming in in the middle of a game?

PAT MURPHY: Yeah, all the things that would go into having him come into a game, we've taken care of, in terms of the warmup and the preparation for him doing that. There's a lot that goes into it, and he's confident in it. I'm confident in it. Matt Arnold is confident in it.

We're looking at it as, okay, there's a possibility we can bring him in the game, and there's a possibility that he could start a game.

Q. I know you and Woody have said this isn't a sympathy pick, but just how good -- having seen what he'd been through these last few postseasons, how good did it feel to be able to tell him yesterday you are on the World Series roster?

PAT MURPHY: That's a great part of the story. He took it like any other player getting told, hey, you're starting tomorrow or you're doing whatever. He didn't take it like, "Ahhh." He just like, "Got it." It's what he expected, and it's kind of cool how he did it.

Q. In Misiorowski's starts so far, we've seen a lot of foul balls, teams getting the pitch count up. What does he have to do to avoid all those foul balls and to be more efficient in these starts?

PAT MURPHY: He could throw worse, and then the foul balls would turn into line drives (laughter). It's kind of comical that you think they're fouling them off on purpose, like we're just doing this. Why wouldn't everyone do that on every at-bat and every pitcher? It's not like it's easy, they just have a plan that they're just going to foul pitches off. That's not realistic.

They're trying to get there. That's why they're swinging. They're trying to barrel that ball, and they miss it a little bit. So with that, that means the ball is not hopping past them or the ball is coming out a little more visible. So they're getting to part of it, you know what I mean?

It's still a strike. It's not ideal, but that's part of the competitive part of baseball. You do that if you can, just hang in there. It's like Jake Bauers, just hang in there and have long ABs.

But there isn't something in place like, yeah, we're just going to foul off pitches. They can't get to them. That's why they foul them off.

Q. Anything he can do?

PAT MURPHY: You can throw the ball better, throw it to a better location. Seriously. That ball's fouled off because it's over here. When the one is up here sinking back from your neck into the top of the zone, it's really tough to foul off. He's going to work on that.

Q. Obviously it was a great story to hear that Woody made the lineup, the roster, but then on the other side you had Chad Patrick who was left off, a difficult decision I'm assuming. How did that go, and what was the conversation with Chad Patrick?

PAT MURPHY: Yeah, very difficult. Very difficult. He's been a big part of our team this year. He was a huge part of our team last year and the postseason last year. Very difficult.

How did it go? Probably not great on his end. That's not a great conversation.

Q. Tampa's Game 2 starter Rasmussen obviously cut his teeth in this organization. He wasn't in the majors long for the Brewers, but I was just wondering what you kind of remember when he was up, if anything, and how you think he's developed here over the years?

PAT MURPHY: Yeah, I have history just because I know his college coach. His college coach is on our staff, Pat Casey, and he's raved about him. When Pat was still the head coach, he was raving about this kid. Matt Arnold will tell you the story where I brought his name to Matt Arnold. They already had him on the list, but I brought his name and said, look, this college coach is really good, and he knows this kid, and he's the right kid.

Whether that helped or not us taking him, but then having him in the organization knowing what kind of kid he is, I mean, nobody's surprised this kid is super successful. Nobody's surprised.

Q. Yesterday we asked your players to use one word to describe you, and now I'm going to ask you to use one word to describe the guys.

PAT MURPHY: Describe our guys? One word. Relentless. I'm not going to ask you what they said because I'm going to tell you something, young people, what others say about you is none of your business. So people can talk smack about you, they can say nice things.

I had a great friend tell me, disregard all good and bad opinions of others and know your own truth.

Q. They said a lot of nice things about you.

(Laughter.)

PAT MURPHY: Did they? I'm going to disregard all that.

(Laughter.)

Q. As much as you practiced defense, PFP, for 7 1/2 months, is there a chance on stages like this with all the adrenaline pumping, the ball starts bouncing around on your infielders?

PAT MURPHY: There's no question. Watch it. Especially the pitchers because pitchers have all this adrenaline, they're focused on their thing, and you ask them to do something different, hold a runner or field a bunt or whatever it might be, that can freak people out. Then you ask them to make an intermediate throw. While they practice it every day, they don't practice it in front of 40,000-plus people screaming and you can't hear yourself think. Difficult.

Q. Would you be more reluctant to put on a wheel play on a stage like this than on June 10?

PAT MURPHY: Try to explain to everybody what a wheel play is. Did you coach for a while? You've got your own wheel play? Our wheel play is very different than your wheel play. You're talking about send everybody on a bunt, crash everybody on a bunt, and do that?

Q. Yeah.

PAT MURPHY: Have we done that all year?

Q. I don't know.

PAT MURPHY: So what do you want me to tell you? Are we going to do it, or aren't we going to do it?

Q. Murph, leading into the last two series, because you had faced both the Dodgers --

PAT MURPHY: Stand up. Let me see your suit. Nice. It's pretty well done.

Q. Leading into the series against the Padres and the Dodgers, because you faced both teams in August, there was a lot of talk about familiarity between the two teams in the series. Knowing you haven't played this Rays team since late March or early April, how do you anticipate the lack of familiarity impacting this series?

PAT MURPHY: I don't know that it will impact the series, but it makes it very different. Just going through it now for the number of days that we've known we're playing the Rays, you feel like you know them, but seeing them out there and getting that -- it takes a minute. It's going to take a minute.

Q. This is a Tampa Bay pitching staff that didn't issue a lot of free bases during the early season. Martinez and Rasmussen were both at the top of the league for being efficient and not issuing walks. Approach-wise, how do you handle those two guys and try to stay disciplined while knowing you're probably going to see a lot of strikes?

PAT MURPHY: That's the cat and mouse of the whole game. That's baseball 101. It's not early takes, noncompetitive pitches. It's being ready every single pitch and then really discerning between balls and strikes and discerning between strikes to hit and strikes to be okay with.

Now, that brings us to the next point where if they don't have pitches leaving the zone -- now, Rasmussen has that split change, whatever it is, that's leaving the zone. If you can lay off those pitches, then there's a good chance you put balls in play. Then if you're putting balls in play the right way -- you don't have to hit it 110 every time, but if you put it in play the right way, you've got a chance to acquire some bases.

That becomes more of a contact approach, and that's okay. Now you can't try to do too much with those pitches because they use so many change-ups and so many off-speed pitches. It's a tough challenge, very tough challenge. I respect this team a ton.

Q. You spent hundreds of nights managing in this ballpark, coaching in this ballpark. How do you describe what makes it different, what makes it unique, what makes it special, and especially on nights like this one, the World Series in town?

PAT MURPHY: Yeah, it's people for sure. You think about people in this community and how proud they are to say they're Brewer fans and how supportive they've been and how they've come out to support the stars and the people that we have here.

Kind of the relationship between the team, the organization, and the community, it's very easy. It's very blended.

It starts with our owner. When you think about stadiums, you just end up loving it because it just -- it's just really consistent. It's comfortable. These atmospheres, postseason atmospheres, it's super loud, and guys love it here. Everybody says it, they love it here. The stadium makes a huge difference, but the people in the stadium make it even better.

Q. You spoke to it just a little bit there, but there's a Sports Illustrated cover from 1982 that's got Lonnie Smith sliding into Robin Yount, and the caption just says "The World Series." That was the cover. That was the World Series for this organization for forever.

PAT MURPHY: If you can name the only Ohio University basketball player ever on the cover of Sports Illustrated right now, I will buy your flight home.

Q. I have good news for you, I drove here, and there's no shot that's happening.

PAT MURPHY: Anybody have that answer? Walt Luckett. Look it up.

Q. That cover says "The World Series," and for this organization, it was the World Series. That changes here in a couple of hours. How have you sort of processed the feeling of that over the last week or so, and what do you have to do, if anything, to shut that off once the competing starts?

PAT MURPHY: It's interesting, I don't know if I'm just getting old or what this is, but I haven't thought in those terms at all. I'm thinking about those 26 guys that are eligible to play. I'm thinking of the attack, taking the field, the attack of how to stay relentless and resilient and play the game after a long layoff. I'm thinking of -- that's it.

I'm not thinking of what this means. I sense what it means to the city and the community and all that, and that's awesome, but I can't get involved mentally in just all that because it comes and goes.

I want those players to enjoy it, but I want them to play good. You prepare to play good, you play good, and you treat yourself good. We'll have plenty of time to look back and tell stories and point fingers and do whatever we want to do at how great this was and laugh at this guy for what he did. We'll have plenty of time for that.

Right now it's about preparing to play a game, and whenever they tell us we need to play again, we play again. Like I've always said, when they tap us on the shoulder and say, hey, hey, Murph, there's no more games, then you assess where you're at, be grateful, and move on.