The Milwaukee Brewers are hosting a San Diego Padres team that is absolutely rolling right now, having crushed the Chicago Cubs in the wildcard round. If the Brewers want to make it to the National League Championship Series, they have got to control the top of the San Diego lineup. That means finding a way to silence Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado when the bright lights are on.
To pull that off, they are going to need a huge outing from Abner Uribe. The hard-throwing reliever is going to get most of the tough matchups against the Padres’ biggest stars, especially late in the game. Tatis and Machado crushed the Cubs, combining for seven hits and two homers, so Milwaukee needs someone to put a lid on them.
Brewers manager Pat Murphy knows this, and he will have the top of the Padres order circled all series. Uribe is the guy to pitch to those righties late in the game. The 26-year-old righty relies on a heavy sinker that sits just under 99 miles per hour with a ton of run, plus a slider that breaks the other way. He has been flat-out dominant against right-handers this year, holding them to a minuscule .136 average, and the Brewers are hoping that dominance carries over into the postseason.
There isn’t a long history between Uribe and the Padres stars, but he has held them to a combined 2-for-6 with a walk over the years. Still, nothing compares to the pressure of October. The big question is how Padres manager Craig Stammen will counter. He only has a handful of lefties on the NLDS roster, so he might try to slip a left-handed bat like Gavin Sheets, Jackson Merrill, or Dustin Harris in between Tatis and Machado to break up the righty-righty matchup. But with only five lefties overall, Stammen’s bullets are limited.
Murphy will likely try to use Uribe right after a right-handed starter like Jacob Misiorowski or Logan Henderson goes, keeping those lefties in the dugout. The tricky part comes if Shane Drohan or Robert Gasser starts, as the Brewers might have to bring in their righty bullpen arms a lot earlier. If Uribe can pitch like he did during the regular season, the Brewers have a legit shot at booking their ticket to the next round.
