MILWAUKEE — It was one thing for Cubs manager Craig Counsell to return to American Family Field for regular-season games the last two seasons.
It was quite another to go back to his longtime stomping grounds for Games 1 and 2 of a National League Division Series against the Brewers.
But a winner-take-all Game 5? One more ride up I-94 to face all that pressure, all those boos, all-out jubilation or all-encompassing despair? It had to hit different whether or not Counsell felt like playing along with the narrative.
“I’ve been thinking about this,” he said Friday. “I’m just thinking about: How do we advance? It’s almost like the opponent doesn’t matter right now. How do we advance? Like, who you play and all the stories around that, that doesn’t matter. How do we advance? So that’s really been my focus. The color of the uniform, it doesn’t matter.”
But the opponent always matters. Uniforms matter. Relationships matter. Fans matter. History matters.
There was such irony in Counsell returning for Game 5 to try to pile onto the Brewers’ painful postseason losing streak — six “series” in a row, including a one-off wild-card game in 2019 — because so many of those bitter endings came on Counsell’s watch and tore at his heart, too.
Fans here aren’t disappointed in Counsell merely because he left his hometown team for the Brewers’ biggest rival. It’s also because of all the highs and lows they feel as though they experienced together with him.
And Saturday night against the Cubs was sure to be such a pressure-cooker, the resulting high or low would be extreme.
No one here will forget 2018, when the Brewers won their last eight regular-season games to force a divisional tiebreaker at Wrigley Field, which they won, before sweeping the Rockies in the NLDS, their first postseason series under Counsell. Alas, the NL Championship Series against the Dodgers ended cruelly, with a Game 7 loss at home despite a Christian Yelich first-inning home run that gave the Brewers the lead and sent locals’ spirits into orbit.
In the 2019 wild-card game at Nationals Park, the Brewers raced to a 3-0 lead on a pair of homers off the great Max Scherzer. They still led by two runs when Counsell turned to dominant lefty reliever Josh Hader, who, with only four outs to go, found trouble, loading the bases for Juan Soto. Base hit to right. Ball skips under Trent Grisham’s glove. Three runs in. Nats go on to win the World Series.
The 2020 Brewers were swept out of the wild-card round by the Dodgers. In 2021, after winning the division, they were eliminated in Game 4 of the NLDS after blowing another late lead, with Atlanta’s Freddie Freeman homering off Hader for the final, winning run as the Braves marched to a championship.
By 2023, there was a knock on Counsell — who’d won two World Series as a player — that he didn’t win in October. And then it got worse, the division-winning Brewers getting swept at home by the wild-card Diamondbacks. Even with Corbin Burnes and Freddy Peralta starting those games — and despite taking leads of 3-0 in Game 1 and 2-0 in Game 2 — it still fell apart. Counsell stayed with Peralta until the pitcher imploded in the sixth inning, perhaps informing some of Counsell’s quick hooks with the Cubs this postseason.
Two years ago, having lost again — and privately determined to seek a new managerial challenge — Counsell lamented, “The playoffs are a tough animal to conquer. They are. Unfortunately, we have not.”
About his future, he said, “That ain’t for tonight, man.”
But the future matters, too. And winning in October damn sure does, wherever someone calls home.