NL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: DODGERS VS BREWERS

October 15, 2026

Pat Murphy

Jake Bauers

Dodger Stadium

Milwaukee Brewers

Postgame 4 Press Conference

Brewers - 6, Dodgers - 4

Q. Murph, how do you kind of put into context, sum up what this moment means for the team and for all the Brewers fans?

PAT MURPHY: First for the team, those guys that -- again, there's a lot of people that picked them to be 82 wins, 83 wins, and I think we're at 110 and counting. It just goes to show you the group that's in the room. They bought into each other. They bought into team. It wasn't like we got hot all of a sudden. We had a very average April, a lot of guys injured, a lot of guys uncertain, and we lost Woody, and that was huge. We lost Priester before the season. So we had a bunch of rookie pitchers.

To see those guys come along and see a guy like Jake Bauers come into his own, come up here drinking alcohol on the stage. Listen, he's got to develop --

JAKE BAUERS: You can have a whole celebration, but you can't have a beer on stage.

PAT MURPHY: He's got a ways to grow. That just proved it, MVP and all.

Anyway, just to see what they did and defy all the odds, they come in here against -- this is an incredible team. You think of the pitching staff they have -- Yamamoto, Skubal, Snell, Glasnow, and the relief staff. Diaz throwing the ball as good as he ever has.

For these guys to come back from a 4-0 deficit, I think the Dodgers figured out that we came in here with a little different attitude this year. I don't even know if I answered your question.

Q. The way the series played out, though, did you think kind of the comebacks in every game, specifically tonight, falling behind four runs and coming back, does that kind of embody your group?

PAT MURPHY: It does. They respond. We've talked about it all year long, and we keep responding. You have a bad week, you have a bad game, you have a bad at-bat, you bounce back.

I couldn't be happier for a group. Just you guys talk to me all the time and hear my nonsense, but the truth is these guys are a special group. They're together. They care about each other, and it just proves -- I love the Dodgers. I love their players. They've got legendary players. But we came in with a group that would not be denied. They were hungry, very hungry.

To do it this way, I said it earlier, it couldn't be any other way. You've got to go through the Dodgers. They're the greatest team, put together two World Series in a row in this climate. Nobody has a tougher job than Dave Roberts. Nobody has a tougher job. It's win the whole thing or bust. That's a very tough thing to live with.

And our game isn't a game where you can -- that every time because a guy's got a better swing than another one doesn't mean that guy's getting on base. So just super proud of our guys, and I'm really happy for our fans. Really happy for the city, the state.

Yeah, I'm very, very lucky to be a part of it.

Q. Coach, what does that resiliency come from?

PAT MURPHY: You dropped a coach on me. I like that.

JAKE BAUERS: Coach Murph, I like that. Coach Murph.

PAT MURPHY: He doesn't know I'll drop him to seventh in a heartbeat. You know what I mean?

JAKE BAUERS: You've done it before.

PAT MURPHY: I have.

Q. Where does that resiliency come from?

PAT MURPHY: The makeup of the player. They talk about it with each other. They're hard on each other. It's hard to come into this team -- poor Cooper Pratt, Luis Lara. You should be on the bus once in a while and hear the ribbing they take. It's hard to break in.

Once they know what kind of person you are -- there's no real hazing or anything like that. But once they know that you understand the standards and they understand what kind of person you are, then they embrace you, but you're going to have to take some razzing.

But it just shows the standards that they've built.

Q. Murph, I talked to you before Game 4 last year, right before the game, and you couldn't have been looser, you couldn't have been more calm about the whole thing. Come in here before Game 4 this year, same thing. Has anything changed?

PAT MURPHY: I was loose?

Q. You were loose last year, you were loose this year.

JAKE BAUERS: Hey, no chance.

PAT MURPHY: I was tighter than a drum. That's an act.

Q. You're one helluva an actor, and you're in the right town right now. But my question is has anything changed with this team and the way you approached this series and the way you look at going into the World Series?

PAT MURPHY: If you get in the ring and you fight a guy and you lose, you remember it, and you understand that maybe, hey, what attitude did I come with? What could have been different? I don't know that we could have beat them as good as they played last year in the state we were in, I don't know. I'm not sure.

But I know this year when we came in, we weren't coming in to play patty cake. We were coming in to try to do everything we could. Again, this is totally out of respect. I respect Dave. I respect Andrew. I respect the whole organization, from top to bottom, and their history. But we were hungry, and as long as it's an even playing field, we're going to come in and give it our best shot to win. That's exactly what we did.

Q. Obviously you don't win a series like this 4-0 without contributions from everybody, but what can you say about William Contreras contributing, not just at the plate, but calling games --

PAT MURPHY: Incredible.

Q. With the ABS challenges?

PAT MURPHY: Incredible. It's been going on all year. He's a fierce competitor. He's not the easiest guy to get along with. He's not warm and fuzzy. You're not going to invite him to your kid's birthday party, but he's an intense -- he was committed to one thing, going to the World Series. Now he's going to be committed to winning it.

This guy, he's never going to have to work for a living after this, but yeah, he's a fierce competitor, and the guys, they learned to accept him and love him because you can't win it without him. You talk about him, you talk about this guy to my right, you talk about Ashby, a guy named DL Hall out of the cooler, he didn't even pitch for us this year, David Hamilton -- so many guys contributed. So many guys. JoJo. It's just incredible.

Q. Following the line of the Contreras and John, Lara and Chourio, like key for this series and an important piece of that. Especially for Lara, it's just a couple months with the team. For you, what would be the key contribution with Chourio and Lara and the special moment for them?

PAT MURPHY: Chourio isn't like any other 22-year-old. This guy, he's so special. His expectations and standards for himself are so high, but for Lara and Pratt to come in -- yesterday we had -- whenever we played last -- did we play yesterday?

JAKE BAUERS: We played yesterday, yes.

PAT MURPHY: We've got three guys 22 and under in our lineup going against Hall of Famers. For them to keep their poise -- Cooper Pratt, he's 22. He has no idea what he's doing, you know what I mean? It's so beautiful. Lara didn't know whether he was in the game or out of the game. It's a beautiful thing. But these guys take care of that. They take care of those young guys. That's what makes it beautiful.

Q. Jake, how did that ending last season -- Murph's touched on it already. How did that ending kind of drive you this season, you and the group, to get to where you are now?

JAKE BAUERS: I can't speak on anybody else, but for me, watching the way they carried themselves on the field after sweeping us last year was a little bit eye-opening. We won the DS against the Cubs, and I think we kind of celebrated like that was something.

Those guys swept us, they sent us home, and you would have thought it was a handshake line at a Spring Training game. That's something that I carried with me. That's something that I remembered. Yeah, it was a little bit of motivation to just say, we've got to keep going until there's not another game left to play.

Q. Now the next round, what's coming next, you've been in Milwaukee for the Division Series, the LCS. Can you imagine what it will be like there hosting Game 1 of the World Series?

JAKE BAUERS: No, I have no idea, but I do know the city is ready. I know that the fans are ready, and I know that we'll be ready.

Q. Same question to you, Murph. What is that moment going to be like in Milwaukee?

PAT MURPHY: Yeah, it will be -- those fans, they're passionate. They wanted this, and our players sensed how bad they wanted it. That gives them energy and motivation. It makes a difference. We won the most games in baseball again this year, and it gives us a home-field advantage. That does matter.

Just because we came out here and won two, that speaks to our group and their resiliency, but the home field does matter. This place was loud tonight even without a full house. It was loud tonight when Ohtani hit the homer, and I thought we woke up a giant. I'm like, oh, God, here we go. You wake up the giant.

But we had a little JoJo Romero for them and Aaron Ashby for them later on. That did the trick.

Q. That was kind of the question I wanted to ask, but when Shohei hit the three-run home run, what did you think? Like, oh, this guy beat us again? And then after that, you get two strikeouts from him.

PAT MURPHY: Ohtani is arguably the best player in the world, and he's proven that to us. He had the greatest game I've ever seen played by an individual player last year against us. That's what's beautiful about our game is that you can't guarantee anything. You shouldn't bet on games if you're in this business because it's too risky to think who's going to win a baseball game.

I think people learn that when they see -- I don't know what the odds were. I don't follow it. I like horse racing. I don't think many people had us coming in here sweeping the Dodgers.

Again, I'm really thankful. I respect the hell out of the Dodgers. Ohtani is arguably -- I know he's injured. I know he's playing through injuries. Ask these guys that do it for a living, if you're banged up, it's hard to play. Jake played with a broken toe. He's had shin splints all year, and he's soft.

(Laughter).

Those are three things to try to overcome.