Jake Bauers fouled off three pitches, then crushed an 11th-pitch fastball from Blake Snell into the right-field bleachers. That swing turned a one-run deficit into a one-run lead in the seventh inning Wednesday night. The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 6-2 at Dodger Stadium and lead the National League Championship Series three games to none.
Milwaukee can clinch its first World Series berth in 44 years with a win in Game 4 on Thursday.
The at-bat that decided it
The Dodgers led 2-1 when the seventh began. Snell had retired 14 batters in a row, but Andrew Vaughn opened the inning with a seven-pitch walk and Christian Yelich went in to run for him. Bauers, who is 31, then worked an 11-pitch at-bat. MLB.com’s pitch-by-pitch account has him taking a called strike, swinging through a changeup, and fouling off a four-seam fastball, a changeup and a slider before Snell threw another four-seamer. Statcast projected the home run at 412 feet. It put the Brewers ahead 3-2.
Two pitches later, Garrett Mitchell homered to right-center, a 428-foot solo shot that ended Snell’s night and made it 4-2.
After the game, Bauers said he had been hunting that pitch. “I was looking for a fastball on the inner lane the whole time,” he said, according to Sports Illustrated. He added that Snell “had been stuffing me in with fastballs” earlier in the night.
It was the second long plate appearance of the series for Bauers. In Game 2, he drew a 12-pitch walk against Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
How the game got there
Jackson Chourio hit the first pitch of the game over the fence for a 1-0 lead. It was his sixth home run of this postseason, a Brewers record, according to Yahoo Sports. Brewers rookie Robert Gasser then shut out the Dodgers for five innings.
The Dodgers broke through in the sixth. Reliever Abner Uribe walked three batters and loaded the bases, and Will Smith doubled to left-center for a 2-1 lead. The hit ended a long playoff slump for Smith, according to the Associated Press. DL Hall came in and stranded the runners, pitching 2⅓ scoreless innings by the Associated Press’s account.
Milwaukee added insurance late. Brice Turang scored on a Justin Wrobleski wild pitch to make it 5-2, and Joey Ortiz drove in a run with a two-strike single in the ninth. Trevor Megill recorded the final four outs for his second save of the series.
Dodgers out of answers
Snell finished with nine strikeouts but gave up four runs on four hits and two walks in six innings. Chourio, Bauers and Mitchell each homered off him. All four runs came on home runs.
Los Angeles has not hit a home run in the series. Shohei Ohtani, batting sixth, the lowest spot he has held since joining the Dodgers, went 1 for 2 with a walk, according to the Associated Press. Yahoo Sports also lists a hit by pitch.
The Dodgers have trailed a best-of-seven postseason series 3-0 just once before, in the 1966 World Series, which Baltimore swept. Only two teams have forced a Game 7 after falling behind 3-0, and only the 2004 Red Sox won it.
Milwaukee has also been here against the Dodgers before and lost. The Brewers dropped last year’s NLCS to Los Angeles in four games, and they have never beaten the Dodgers in three previous postseason series. The Brewers’ fifth comeback win this postseason ties the 1996 Yankees and 1980 Phillies for the most in a team’s first seven playoff games.
What’s next
Game 4 is Thursday, October 15, at 8 p.m. ET (5 p.m. PT) at Dodger Stadium on FS1. A Brewers win sweeps the series.
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