Brewers clinch first 2025 playoff berth as Mets' skid seals spot
Milwaukee becomes first team to clinch postseason as it extends late-season surge and chases top seed
MILWAUKEE — The Milwaukee Brewers became the first team to clinch a 2025 playoff berth on Saturday after the New York Mets dropped their eighth straight game, according to Major League Baseball.
The Mets' 3-2 loss to the Texas Rangers ensured Milwaukee would finish the regular season no worse than a National League wild-card team, extending the Brewers' run of postseason appearances to seven times in the last eight seasons. Milwaukee entered Saturday with the majors' best record and was preparing to play the St. Louis Cardinals that night.
The clinch caps a dramatic turnaround for a club that was 25-28 and 6 1/2 games behind the Chicago Cubs on May 24. Milwaukee has gone 65-30 since that point, a run fueled by balanced offense and pitching: the team entered Saturday ranked second in the majors in both runs scored and earned-run average. The Brewers also set a franchise mark with a 14-game winning streak earlier this summer.
Milwaukee now is positioned to pursue a third straight National League Central title and the top overall playoff seed. The Cubs' 5-4 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays on Saturday expanded the Brewers' lead in the division to six games, though Chicago holds the season series tiebreaker. Milwaukee held a two-game lead over the NL East-leading Philadelphia Phillies for the best record in baseball entering Saturday and owns the head-to-head tiebreaker with Philadelphia.
Several midseason moves and internal breakouts powered the run. The Brewers traded left-hander Quinn Priester from Boston's Triple-A affiliate early in the year; Priester, who was 6-9 in his career before coming to Milwaukee, improved to 13-2 with a 3.25 ERA and won his 12th straight decision Friday. According to Sportradar, no pitcher had won at least 12 consecutive decisions in a single season since Gerrit Cole won 16 with the Houston Astros in 2019. Milwaukee has won each of the last 18 games in which Priester has appeared.
A mid-June trade that sent Aaron Civale to the Chicago White Sox brought first baseman Andrew Vaughn to Milwaukee. Vaughn had been hitting .189 in 48 games for the White Sox but entered Saturday with an .860 OPS in 54 games with the Brewers. Other contributors include Brice Turang, who was the National League player of the month in August; 28-year-old rookie Isaac Collins, who had a .372 on-base percentage entering Saturday; and William Contreras, who has surged since the All-Star break and remains among the game's top-hitting catchers.
The pitching staff has supplied timely performances as well. Freddy Peralta compiled a stretch of 30 straight scoreless innings. Brandon Woodruff made a successful return after missing the entire 2024 season with a shoulder injury. Jacob Misiorowski, called up in mid-June, earned an All-Star Game nod and has been one of the hardest throwers in the majors. Closer Trevor Megill and setup man Abner Uribe form one of the league's more reliable late-inning duos.
Rosters were reshaped this season amid departures and payroll adjustments. Milwaukee traded two-time NL reliever of the year Devin Williams to the New York Yankees and lost shortstop Willy Adames in free agency when he signed a seven-year, $182 million contract with the San Francisco Giants. Despite those moves and preseason expectations that the club might fade, manager Pat Murphy credited a team culture that emphasizes short-term focus.
"It's kind of the culture that we've developed here," slugger Christian Yelich said Friday after Milwaukee's 8-2 victory over St. Louis. "It's taken a lot of people to do that, a lot of consistency kind of at the top, guys that care about winning and winning players that have come up." Murphy reiterated the team's "win tonight" mantra and said Milwaukee is not constructed like some of the league's highest-spending clubs, but rather built around depth and a collective mentality.
The Brewers' postseason history remains limited: the franchise has made only one World Series appearance, in 1982 when the team was still in the American League, and last won a postseason series in 2018 when they reached Game 7 of the National League Championship Series. Still, the current roster's combination of offensive balance and pitching depth has Milwaukee poised to challenge for the best regular-season record in franchise history; the club's top finish to date is 96-66 in 2011.
Milwaukee's focus now turns to maintaining its standing in the division and competing for home-field advantage in the playoffs. With the wild-card spot secured by the Mets' loss, the Brewers will aim to sustain their late-season momentum as they chase both the NL Central crown and the major-league best record in the remaining weeks of the regular season.