WASHINGTON -- Drew Pomeranz told the story the other day of joining the Brewers at Oakland on Aug. 1. A recent convert to the bullpen, he’d been traded from San Francisco to Milwaukee and was being introduced to his new club’s philosophy of pitching.

Just be ready for anything was the gist of it.

Reporters love anecdotes like that, so Pomeranz was pressed for details. He was asked who shared those words of wisdom.

“Every single person I talked to,” Pomeranz said with a laugh.

He knew he was in for something different.

The National League Wild Card Game is a study in getting to the same place in different ways. The Nationals’ strength is their starting pitching, and they could deploy all three of their $100 million aces -- Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg and Patrick Corbin -- against the Brewers on Tuesday night. The Brewers, meanwhile, didn’t have a single qualifier for the league ERA title for the first time in their 50-year history. Milwaukee’s Wild Card starter is minimum-salaried Brandon Woodruff, who is a pair of two-inning starts removed from two months on the injured list. He could go once through Washington’s order before being followed by a parade of arms, including Pomeranz and fellow multi-inning left-hander Josh Hader.

“From the first day I got there in Oakland, the phone was ringing pretty early,” Pomeranz said. “Pretty early on, I was like, ‘OK, I believe you guys now.”

Contrast that to the Nationals, whose general manager, Mike Rizzo, began the winter by proclaiming that “starting pitching is king.” He followed up on that promise by outbidding the market to sign Corbin to the largest free-agent contract for any starting pitcher, adding to a rotation that already included a pair of perennial NL Cy Young Award candidates in Scherzer and Strasburg. With that addition, the Nationals have committed more than half a billion dollars to the top of their rotation.

And the investment paid off this season. Nationals starting pitchers led the NL in strikeouts and fWAR, while placing second in innings pitched, ERA and FIP.

“It's really no secret why we're here,” Nationals manager Dave Martinez said. “I mean, our starting pitchers have pitched well all year long. We counted on them to pitch well and keep us in ballgames. I think nothing changes right now.”

What better way to lessen the impact of a leaky bullpen than with strong starting pitching? No team in the NL required fewer innings from their relievers than the Nationals, whose bullpen ERA of 5.66 was worst in the Majors. For Tuesday’s winner-take-all contest, the Nationals could bypass using anyone but their most trusted relievers (Daniel Hudson and Sean Doolittle) with both Strasburg and Corbin available in the bullpen if Scherzer falters at all.

That will give Martinez a trio of pitchers at his disposal who will garner attention for the NL Cy Young Award. Scherzer, Strasburg and Corbin ranked second, third and sixth, respectively, in the NL in pitcher’s WAR. They became the first trio of teammates to each strike out more than 230 batters in a single season, finishing second (Strasburg’s 251), third (Scherzer’s 243) and fourth (Corbin’s 238) in the NL in that category. They were first (Scherzer), fifth (Strasburg) and 10th (Corbin) in FIP.

“They’re starting a guy tomorrow night that’s probably going to the Hall of Fame,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. “So, by nature, they’re going to handle the situation a little differently.”

Said Doolittle: “We wouldn’t be where we are without our starting pitching. In my very biased opinion, we have the best rotation in the game right now. A game like tomorrow, you put roles aside, you put egos aside, and you go with your best guys. Those are our best guys.”

The Brewers’ strength, meanwhile, lies in an all-hands-on-deck approach to pitching, which has carried them to back-to-back postseason appearances for the first time since 1981-82.

Through the end of August, the 2019 Brewers were 12th of 15 NL teams with a 4.68 ERA. Opening Day starter Jhoulys Chacin had just been released, leaving Zach Davies as the only member of Milwaukee’s rotation at the start of the season still standing. Davies led the team with 159 2/3 innings this year, just shy of the one inning per team game needed to qualify for the ERA title.

He was scheduled to start the Brewers’ Aug. 31 game against the Cubs at Wrigley Field, in the middle of a three-game series that began with a 7-1 loss. The Brewers were two games over .500 and five games behind the Cubs in the chase for the second NL Wild Card spot, with Philadelphia and Arizona ahead of them in the standings. Counsell sensed it was now or never, so he approached Davies 15 minutes before Davies took the field to warm up and said he intended to manage like it was a playoff game.

“He told me, ‘Don’t leave anything out there. Don’t save anything,’” Davies said. “I was out there to live and die with my best pitches and my best strategy for as long as they would leave me.”

Davies was lifted that day after 4 2/3 scoreless innings and 77 pitches of a 2-0 win. Reinforcements arrived the next day, and the Brewers began a 20-7 September fueled by a pitching staff that went from 12th in the NL over the first five months of the season to best in baseball in September with a 3.01 ERA.

In only three of the 27 games during the final month did Milwaukee’s starter throw a pitch past the fifth inning. In none of those games did a starter throw 100 pitches.

“I think we’re in a really good position to maximize everybody’s skills,” Brewers pitching coach Chris Hook said. “That’s what September did for us, and I think Counsell did a really nice job of that. I think we did it all year long. But in September we had more resources to lock it in even more.”

Said Woodruff: “You saw it last year, too. It was all hands on deck. We’re ready for anything. There’s no egos. You put it aside and do what’s right for the team to win a championship.”

So, Tuesday night has the potential to be a clash of styles if Scherzer is on his game. Only the Dodgers and Yankees have won more games than the Nationals since the start of 2012, and during that span, there’s almost a direct correlation to their starters ERA and their postseason fate. If the Nationals are going to make a deep postseason run, they are going to lean on their rotation.

“That's the key to our formula here,” Rizzo said. “It’s won us a lot of games over the last eight years. It’s the way we've constructed our roster. We put a guy on the mound that gives us a chance to win each and every day, and tomorrow will be no different with Max on the mound.”

And the Brewers? Expect a little bit of Woodruff, then perhaps some Jordan Lyles and Brent Suter before Pomeranz and Hader -- if the flow of the game cooperates.

“We’re different,” Counsell said. “And playoff teams should be different. I think that’s cool.”