MILWAUKEE — The well-rested Milwaukee Brewers will turn to ace Freddy Peralta and the Chicago Cubs will hand the ball to Matthew Boyd on a short turnaround when the archrivals square off Saturday in the opener of the National League Division Series.
Former Brewers manager Craig Counsell led the Cubs to a 3-1 victory over San Diego on Thursday in the decisive third game of the wild-card round. It marked Chicago’s first playoff series win since 2017.
Late Friday, the Cubs tabbed Boyd as their Game 1 starter, and the left-hander will pitch on three days’ rest after starting Game 1 of the San Diego series. Counsell had multiple options to choose from, including right-handers Javier Assad and Colin Rea, an ex-Brewer.
Boyd (14-8, 3.21 ERA in the regular season) will oppose the right-handed Peralta (17-6, 2.70 ERA), who led the National League in victories, in the first playoff meeting between the Central Division rivals separated by about 90 miles.
“At least from my perspective, kind of being on both sides of it, I think the regular-season matchups are awesome,” Counsell said of the rivalry Friday. “It’s a lot of fun. A lot of times there’s extra energy from fans, and there’s fans from both teams in the building. That’s always made it a lot of fun.”
With a first-round bye, the Brewers have been idle since Sunday after securing the No. 1 overall seed and home-field advantage for the entire postseason with a franchise-record 97 victories. Milwaukee is in the playoffs for the seventh time in eight seasons, but has lost in the wild card each of the last two seasons and has not won a playoff series since the NLDS in 2018.
“They’ve had the best team in baseball this year,” Counsell said Thursday of the Brewers. “They feel like they have a chance to play in the World Series with this team. … That’s going to be as good as it gets.”
The Cubs won the regular-season series 7-6, including three of five in the last meeting in Aug. 18-21. Milwaukee was 6 1/2 games behind the Cubs on June 17, but surged to a nine-game lead by Aug. 15.
Peralta has not pitched since Sunday in Milwaukee’s 4-2 win over the Cincinnati Reds, when he allowed one run in a two-inning tune-up start.
Peralta is 9-3 with a 3.21 ERA in 22 career appearances vs. the Cubs, including 17 starts. He was 3-1 with 3.43 ERA in four starts this against them this season, with 22 strikeouts and 10 walks.
“They know me really well, and I know them, too. I know how special they are,” Peralta said Friday. “… I think I just need to go out there and compete.”
Peralta, who made a career-high 33 starts this season, was 1-1 with a 3.52 ERA in five starts in September, but pitched past five innings just once.
Boyd went 4 1/3 innings on Tuesday against the Padres, allowing one run on four hits and one walk while making just 58 pitches in a no-decision.
Boyd went 1-1 with a 7.84 ERA in two starts against Milwaukee this season and is 2-2 with a 9.00 ERA in five career starts against the Brewers.
Counsell, who managed the Brewers for nine seasons before joining the Cubs in 2024, is Milwaukee’s winningest manager with 707 victories. Murphy was the Brewers’ bench coach under Counsell, but also was Counsell’s college coach at Notre Dame.
“I think he probably feels the same way: This isn’t about us,” Murphy said Friday. “We’ll compete, the teams will compete. I don’t think it will change us.”
Murphy also said that injured right-hander Brandon Woodruff, out with a right lat strain, would not pitch in the NLDS. Woodruff, who missed all of 2024 recovering from shoulder surgery, was 7-2 with 3.20 ERA in 12 starts since coming off the injured list in early July.
–Jim Hoehn, Field Level Media
