Brewers Notebook: Contreras Powers Crew to Game 1 NLDS Win
On Saturday night, the Milwaukee Brewers delivered the first blow in a battle of two of MLB's hottest teams down the stretch.
If you somehow had the roof playing a factor into Saturday night’s game between the Milwaukee Brewers and San Diego Padres, boy do I have news for you.
After umpires convened twice and awaited results of a replay review, a long drive off the bat of San Diego’s Ty France was ultimately ruled an out in the ninth inning per American Family Field’s ground rules and Brewers outfielder Jackson Chourio‘s catch. One more out later, it was a 3-2 Game 1 NLDS win for Milwaukee.
With Milwaukee ace Jacob Misiorowski on the mound, it was actually the Padres who drew first blood. Three straight singles by Xander Bogaerts, Ethan Salas, and Luis Campusano as well as a fielder’s choice on a Jake Cronenworth grounder to first put San Diego up 2-0 in the second.
The Brewers would tie things back up in the following inning. A Garrett Mitchell single followed by Chourio’s fifth career postseason homer two batters later knotted the score up at 2-2 in the third.
That’s where the score would stay until the seventh inning when Brewers catcher William Contreras drove a 3-2, two-out, 100.1 mph sinker from Padres reliever Adrian Morejon over the wall in right-center to give Milwaukee a 3-2 lead that they would not end up reliquishing.
Contreras Finds a Crack in the Padre Bullpen’s Armor
The Brewers were well aware that the San Diego bullpen was going to be a factor this series. At 3.53, the unit’s ERA ranked fifth in all of baseball and they just came off of 7.2 scoreless innings in their Wild Card series against the Cubs, who had the top offense in baseball this year.
“You’ve got to understand who we faced,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said after the game. “That bullpen is recognized as the best in the game, if not one of them.”
Padres relievers had retired of 12 of 15 batters before Contreras came to the plate in the seventh inning. And after fouling off a sinker right down the middle of the plate to push the count full, the 28-year-old hit the fourth sinker he’d seen in a row out of the park to drive the Brewers faithful into a frenzy.
“I was focused on putting the ball in play there,” Contreras said of his approach on the home run. “I think with two strikes, in my head I was thinking the ball was going to come in on the inner half a little more….but just happy that I was able to put the ball in play, I was able to go, and we were able to win the game.”
Contreras has a knack for hitting NLDS homers for the Brewers. He hit two of them in last year’s series against the Chicago Cubs, including one to open the scoring in the decisive Game 5 series-winning victory. All of his three career postseason homers have come in Brewers NLDS games.
Chourio Adds Himself to the Franchise’s Postseason Record Books
Of course, the Brewers wouldn’t have been in the position they were in without Chourio’s own slam earlier in the game. It came right as Milwaukee needed it to turn the momentum in their favor.
Prior to the bottom of the third inning, the Brewers had only collected one hit, a Christian Yelich single, in their first seven batters. Padres starter Robbie Ray was cruising while Misiorowski was already at 67 pitches through three innings.
But that goes to show how fast the Milwaukee offense can jump on you. With a man on and one out, Chourio crushed the very first pitch he saw in his second at bat against Ray 420 feet to left-center on a ball that left his bat at 113.3 miles per hour.
Of course, the home run wasn’t the big play Chourio had to lead the Brewers to a win. His ability to continue tracking the ball that deflected off the roof and secure it for the out impressed his manager just as much as the homer did.
“Chourio is somebody you’ve got to talk about all night tonight, the way he swang the bat, the way he played defense,” Murphy raved. “You think about it, he really set the tone for us once we got comfortable hitting the ball that he did.”
The young franchise cornerstone also etched his name into the history books on Saturday. His home run already gives him five for his postseason career, giving him sole possession of the franchise record in that category as he broke a tie with former Brewers Prince Fielder and Orlando Arcia.
“It makes me very happy to know that,” Chourio said when he learned of the record, “and I just hope that I hit a lot more.”
Padres Force an Early Exit for Misiorowski
In his sole start against San Diego earlier this year, Misiorowski stymied the Padres as he gave up just four hits and no walks over seven scoreless innings while striking out 10 at home in Milwaukee. Saturday’s outing didn’t go nearly as smoothly.
The Padres made Misiorowski work early, forcing the Brewers ace to throw 25 pitches in the first inning and another 33 in the second when they scored their only two runs of the night. It was clear they were planning to be aggressive with the two-time All-Star and likely NL Cy Young winner.
San Diego fouled off a whopping 30 of Misiorowski’s 88 total pitches, many of them timed up well and being fouled straight back to the screen. Overall, the Padres swung at 51 of those 88 pitches (58.0%).
Much of what the Padres ended up swinging at in the second inning in particular wasn’t Misiorowski’s patented four-seamed fastball, but his cutter and slider instead, pitches on which San Diego collected their first four hits of the game.
“That wasn’t the plan,” Murphy said of that inning’s pitch execution, “but his velo dropped five miles per hour almost in the second inning. He wasn’t in sync. And in the second inning his heater wasn’t a strike very often. He was missing his spots and they felt like they had to go off-speed.”
“Those guys had an approach and they stuck to it. They did their job and I had to find a way to battle back,” Misiorowski said of the outing. “Obviously not the way I wanted it to go, would’ve liked to go a little deeper for our bullpen. You know, job still got done. We still got a ‘W’ at the end of the day.”
It may not have been the smoothest outing of Misiorowski’s career, but like so many other games this year, he and the Brewers did what needed to be done to earn the win. They now head into Sunday’s game with a big win and momentum on their side.
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Written by
Matt Carroll is a writer for Just Baseball and former site expert at Reviewing the Brew. He studied journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and currently…