Brewers Notebook: Chourio’s Heroics Put Crew on Brink of Series Win
A thrilling walkoff win has Milwaukee one win away from a trip to the NLCS.
As many expected, the NLDS series between the Milwaukee Brewers and San Diego Padres has been a match of teams exchanging blows. With the Brewers up 1-0 following a Game 1 win on Saturday night, the teams jumped back into the ring on Sunday afternoon.
Similarly to Game 1, the Padres jumped in front first. A two-out walk to Manny Machado in the first allowed the inning to extend, then a wild pitch from Henderson and a single from Ty France drove Machado home for the first run of the game.
After the Padres extended their lead to 2-0 in the top of the fifth on errors by Brice Turang and Cooper Pratt, the Brewers gained the run right back in the bottom half of the frame on a Christian Yelich double that broke up San Diego starter Michael King‘s perfect game, followed by Sal Frelick‘s RBI single.
The Padres were able to add an insurance run in the top of the seventh, though once again the Brewers gained it right back a half inning later. With the score 3-2 going into the eighth, San Diego deployed star closer Mason Miller for a six-out save.
Miller breezed through the eighth, taking down Milwaukee’s 2-4 hitters in order. But in the ninth inning, he started losing control of the zone, allowing three batters to reach on walks. With the bases loaded and two outs, 22-year-old Jackson Chourio stepped to the plate.
Chourio came out swinging for the fences, quickly finding himself down 1-2. But after working a 2-2 count, he drove a 101.3 mph fastball to right, scoring Yelich and Frelick and giving the Brewers a 2-0 series lead while pushing the Padres to the brink of elimination.
Chourio Has Taken the Leap to Postseason Superstardom
Most players take years to blossom into postseason stars, if they ever even get that far. Brewers outfielder Jackson Chourio became a playoff star early on in his career and may have already officially reached superstar status.
Chourio had his first big moment of this year’s NLDS when he hit a two-run homer that tied Game 1 on Saturday night. But that was nothing compared to what he had in store for Sunday.
Hitting a two-out, two-run, walkoff single in the playoffs is one thing; it’s the thing that kids dream of while playing baseball in their backyard. Doing it off Miller, arguably MLB’s best closer for the last two years, takes things to an entirely different level.
“As a hitter, when he stays under control, it’s amazing. He’s, I think, turning into a bona fide, top-flight player,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said of Chourio. “Couldn’t be happier for him because he brings it every day.”
“When he comes up in that situation, just with everything that’s going on in that inning, you just feel good about it,” said Yelich of the budding star, “even though you know what’s going on, you know who he’s facing, but you still feel good about it.”
Following his Game 2 heroics, Chourio is now hitting .327 with a 1.030 OPS and three doubles, five homers, and 15 RBIs in 14 career postseason games. This one, however, ranks among the top moments of his pro tenure.
Said Chourio after the game, “I think it’s probably in the top three of the special moments I’ve had in my career.”
Brewers Hurt Themselves With Uncharacteristically Sloppy Defense
Milwaukee has built their squad on three main pillars: an unrelenting offense, smart and aggressive baserunning, and strong defense. Lapses in that third pillar almost resulted in a hole the Brewers couldn’t dig themselves out of.
San Diego’s run in the fifth came as a result of two Brewers errors. First, Turang committed a fielding error that could’ve resulted in an inning-ending double play but instead resulted in no outs. They had a chance at double-play redemption from the next batter, but Pratt threw the relay to first away, allowing Luis Campusano to score.
In the seventh, David Hamilton botched a relatively routine play at third, allowing Fernando Tatis Jr. to reach on the error. He’d come around to score three batters later.
The Brewers nearly shot themselves in the foot the next inning when Samad Taylor bunted to the pitcher and reached because neither Turang nor Jake Bauers were covering first, putting two men on base with no outs. This time, Milwaukee escaped with no damage.
“We didn’t play special,” Murphy said of the team’s defense. “When do you see us make four defensive miscues in a game in the infield, four defensive miscues?”
“We feel like we probably didn’t play like our best, cleanest game,” Yelich said afterward. “And it happens, though, and you just gotta flush it. You can’t dwell on it while the game’s happening.”
While some teams might, the Brewers didn’t, which allowed them to keep the game close and ultimately win. In a way, it makes the team’s win that much more impressive.
Henderson Continues Personal Run of Success
In the first postseason start of his young career, rookie starter Logan Henderson would be the first to tell you that it probably didn’t go exactly the way he planned it. Few things do when playing the Padres lately.
For the second game in a row, San Diego hitters made a Brewers starting pitcher work a ton early. It took Henderson 39 pitches to get through the first two innings, with nearly half of them, 19 to be specific, going for balls.
Unlike Misiorowski the night before, Henderson was able to settle down a little better and made it through five innings plus an additional batter in the sixth that reached via hit by pitch. The final line: five innings pitched, two hits, two runs (one earned), three walks, and four strikeouts.
“He pitched well enough, in my mind, he pitched well enough to win, but wasn’t at his best because he walked people. He doesn’t normally do that,” Murphy said of Henderson’s start. “But it’s good to get that over with. That’s his first postseason experience, and I’m proud of him.”
While it may not have been his smoothest outing, Henderson still has yet to have a start where he’s given up more than three earned runs, a stretch that now covers 34 regular season starts and one in the postseason. His level of consistency is just another thing that makes the Brewers so dangerous and has them close to another trip to the NLCS.
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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…