By STEVE MEGARGEE and MATT CARLSON AP Sports Writers
MILWAUKEE — Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Quinn Priester has experienced postseason baseball at Wrigley Field before, only from a much different perspective than the one he’s about to have.
Priester grew up in the Chicago area and was in the Wrigley Field stands for Game 5 of the 2016 World Series. The 25-year-old right-hander will be back at Wrigley on Wednesday as he continues his breakthrough season by trying to pitch the Brewers into the National League Championship Series.
“I was in the last row in the nosebleeds,” Priester said about that 2016 experience. “My mom and I had our backs against the chain-link fence up there drinking hot chocolate because it was late October in Chicago and it was freezing.”
Priester watched the Cubs beat the then-Cleveland Indians, 3-2, that night to begin their rally from a 3-1 series deficit that earned them their first World Series title since 1908. Now he wants to make sure the Cubs don’t start a similar comeback.
Milwaukee carries a 2-0 lead into Game 3 of this best-of-5 NL Division Series.
This start will mark Priester’s postseason debut. Jameson Taillon is starting for the Cubs.
Priester went 13-3 with a 3.32 ERA during the regular season while winning 12 straight decisions at one point. According to Sportradar, that was the longest streak within a single year by any pitcher since Gerrit Cole won 16 consecutive decisions for Houston in 2019.
Until the Cincinnati Reds beat Priester, 3-1, on Sept. 26, the Brewers had won 19 straight games in which Priester had pitched. That stretch included 16 starts and three appearances in which he had followed an opener.
“He’s been sensational for us,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said.
The Brewers needed starting pitching due to multiple injuries on April 7 when they acquired Priester from the Boston Red Sox for minor league outfielder Yophery Rodriguez, the 33rd pick in the 2025 draft and minor league pitcher John Holobetz.
Priester, the 18th overall selection in the 2018 MLB Draft, had a 6-9 record and 6.23 ERA in 21 career appearances with the Pittsburgh Pirates and Red Sox at the time of the trade.
“I had followed him for years,” Brewers president of baseball operations Matt Arnold said. “Obviously when guys come up to the big leagues, especially as pitchers, they don’t always have success immediately, but we thought there were some really good ingredients there.”
Priester quickly warmed up to the idea of pitching in Milwaukee.
“I was really surprised,” Priester said. “I felt like I was kind of in the mix for the rotation in Boston. I certainly felt like I had a shot at it. When I did get traded, I was super excited for the opportunity. Being close to home was super exciting for me and my fiancée, being able to see family. And obviously, being in Pittsburgh, every year, you’d see how well the Brewers seemed to play.”
Priester wasn’t as familiar at the time with the Brewers’ reputation for getting the best out of pitchers who hadn’t encountered much success before arriving in Milwaukee. He has developed into the latest example.
The turning point came against the team he faces Wednesday.
Priester gave up seven runs over 4⅓ innings in a 10-0 loss to the Cubs on May 2, raising his ERA to 5.79. That immediately followed a start in which he allowed five runs over five innings in a 6-5 loss at St. Louis.
“That was the kind of the moment when I felt things needed to change,” Priester said. “What I was doing, it’s not like I wasn’t trying, but what I was trying just wasn’t working. And so I started to write some things down every day, came in with some goals, talked to all of our guys, started to go about the lineups a little bit differently.”
Priester pitched 24 more times the rest of the regular season and allowed more than three runs in just two of those appearances.
“The Cubs blistered this guy, and he wanted to continue pitching and his competitive nature came out, and actually the last couple innings of that outing he was pretty darned effective,” Murphy said. “I think that failure, if you will, for him, like, launched him into open ears, ‘OK, how do I figure this out?’ And we got the best version of him because of his competitive nature, and we got the best version of him going forward, and it’s been miraculous.”
Priester added a cutter this year that he now throws about 20% of the time to complement his sinker and slider, while he abandoned his four-seam fastball. Priester averages less than one strikeout per inning, but he has a knack for inducing ground balls and weak contact while working quickly.
He understands the raucous atmosphere he’s going to encounter Wednesday. When Priester was in the stands for that 2016 World Series game, Priester recalled how “Kris Bryant hit a homer and I thought the stadium was going to collapse.”
But he also enters this game with the confidence that comes from spending the last few months living up to all the expectations that accompanied his draft selection.
“I think it was just kind of a ticking time bomb waiting for a year like this to happen for him,” Brewers outfielder Sal Frelick said. “I’m super happy we got him when we did because I just kind of knew it was coming for him.”
CUBS AGAIN TURN TO TAILLON
For the second time in a week, the Cubs play a win-or-go-home game, and once again they will turn to Taillon.
Taillon tossed four scoreless, two-hit innings against the San Diego Padres last Thursday and Chicago went on to take the deciding Game 3 of their Wild Card Series, 3-1. The right-hander was focused, striking out four and walking none before five relievers wrapped it up.
This time, the Cubs need to prevail in three straight elimination contests to keep their season alive. The Brewers have a 2-0 series lead after 9-3 and 7-3 wins in Milwaukee when they ambushed Chicago’s thinned pitching staff and limited the Cubs to 10 total hits.
“I mean, look, we’ve had experience with it,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said on Tuesday. “We just did it on Thursday. And now we’re going to have to do it three times.”
Teams falling behind 2-0 in a best-of-five postseason series have won just 10 out of 90 times. Any Cubs recovery starts with the 6-foot-5, 230-pound Taillon.
“It starts tomorrow, and obviously being a starting pitcher, hopefully I can do my job and set the tone and see where that can take us,” Taillon said.
“So how that pertains to me is just doing my job, going out there and setting the tone, preparing the right way, taking notes, watching video, going about my process the right way, and making sure I’m buttoned up and ready to go.”
Taillon was 11-7 with a 3.68 ERA in the regular season, his ninth in the majors. He was on the injured list twice, in July with a right calf strain and in August with a groin strain.
On Wednesday, the 33-year-old must hold Milwaukee in check early. The Brewers scored nine runs the first two innings on Saturday and seven on three homers in the first four innings on Monday.
Taillon hopes to channel energy from Wrigley Field fans, even if he won’t show it on the mound.
“I think it’s a good lesson to myself when the crowd is that electric and the moment is that big and the pressure is that big and important, an executed pitch is still the best pitch,” he said. “I don’t need to be out there pounding my chest.
“If I gain a mile an hour from adrenaline, that is not really going to matter. What is going to matter is whether I sequence right and execute pitches the right way. I kind of plan on just doubling down with that again.”
Counsell is banking on it.
“I think what you want from all your players is just the best version of themselves and to, as much as you can, be yourself and kind of let the moment elevate you,” Counsell said. “I think that’s what (Taillon) did. He pitched like he pitches, didn’t try to do something different than he’s good at.
“I think he did let, kind of, the moment take him to another place and that’s exactly what you want.”
Meanwhile, Cubs hitters have to bust out of their funk.
At the All-Star break, Chicago was 57-39 and second in the majors in runs scored with 512. In the second half, the Cubs went 35-31 and scored 281 times as marquee players – most notably All-Stars Pete Crow-Armstrong and Kyle Tucker – slumped for long stretches. Tucker still seems to be dealing with a left calf strain that sidelined him most of September.
But Chicago has no more room for error.
“But part of being great at this is responding to the bad stuff and running towards it, man,” Counsell said. “That’s part of this. You can’t be afraid of it. We put ourselves in a hole this series; no question about it. We get to decide how the story ends.”
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