MILWAUKEE – Certainly no one faults Brewers second baseman Brice Turang for getting out of the way of the breaking ball sweeping toward his back knee in the ninth inning of the Brewers’ 2-1 loss to the Dodgers in Game 1 of the NLCS on Monday. Only afterward, in the silence that fell over American Family Field following Turang’s game-ending strikeout on the next pitch, was it clear that his close call was among the “what ifs” in the ninth inning of a game that nearly swung the other way.
Turang knew it right away.
“Well, if you see me look in the dugout, I’m thinking, ‘Damn,’” he said. “I know it. Everybody knows it. I couldn’t tell you why I did it, I just got out of the way. That’s just how it is. You see me look in the dugout and I’m thinking to myself, ‘I could have turned into that.’
“There’s nothing I can do. I have to move on to the next pitch.”
Now the Brewers, down 1-0 in the best-of-seven series and trailing in this postseason for the first time, have to do the same.
The good news is they won’t have to see Blake Snell again until a potential Game 5 after the Dodgers left-hander delivered what Milwaukee manager Pat Murphy described as the most dominant performance he’s seen from an opposing starter in Murphy’s 10 years with the team, an eight-inning masterpiece in which Snell struck out 10, faced the minimum and picked off the only baserunner he allowed after Brewers rookie Caleb Durbin led off the bottom of the third with a single.
It wasn’t until the ninth inning that the Brewers had their chance against the Dodgers’ weakest link, a bullpen recently fortified by rookie Roki Sasaki but nevertheless vulnerable, as Milwaukee would show. Unfortunately, it was a 2-0 deficit going into the bottom of the last inning after Freddie Freeman’s moonshot home run off Chad Patrick in the sixth inning and Mookie Betts’ bases-loaded walk against Abner Uribe in the decisive ninth, two more of the big what-ifs on the night.
What if Freeman’s home run – which tied for the second-highest launch angle (45 degrees) for a postseason homer since Statcast began tracking in 2015 – had hung up in the night air?
And what if the Brewers hadn’t intentionally walked Shohei Ohtani for a second time – coming off a 1-for-18, nine-strikeout NLDS against the Phillies – with one out in the ninth to load the bases for Betts with the excellent and occasionally emotional Uribe on the mound?
Uribe delivered a 1.67 ERA in 75 appearances during the regular season and two scoreless appearances in the postseason, including a two-inning save two days earlier in the Brewers’ 3-1 triumph over the Cubs in Game 5 of the NLDS, but he has twice walked in a run in 12 career regular-season plate appearances with the bases loaded.
“It wasn’t as hard a decision as you think, because when a bag’s open and you can turn it into a double-play situation [and] you’ve got a right-hander on the mound, you kind of have to go for that,” Murphy said. “Shohei is at least dangerous enough – struggling or not, he’s dangerous enough to hit a fly ball. And you can’t give up the run there. With the way we were swinging against Snell, we couldn’t give up a run.”
Uribe, however, did give up what proved a backbreaking run when he missed wildly with his first three pitches to Betts before walking him on the sixth to make it a 2-0 Dodgers lead.
“I really don’t think it makes it any more complicated or any harder because it’s the same game,” Uribe said via interpreter Daniel de Mondesert. “It’s about throwing strikes and executing pitches.”
After watching Game 1 turn into a one-run loss, what does Uribe tell himself to be ready for Game 2?
“I’ve got to stay calm myself,” he said, “because the more you want to change things – that’s over with. Credit to the team for fighting back in the ninth and giving us a chance to tie it.”
The ninth began with the bottom of the order against Sasaki, who, like Brewers rookie Jacob Misiorowski, has found a fresh start in the bullpen in October. But the Brewers were in business when Isaac Collins worked a one-out walk and pinch-hitter Jake Bauers put the trying runner in scoring position when he smacked a ground-rule double to center field.
Jackson Chourio’s sacrifice fly made it a 2-1 game, and Christian Yelich walked to chase Sasaki in favor of veteran reliever Blake Treinen. He walked William Contreras to load the bases for Turang, who had to gather himself after nearly absorbing that hit-by-pitch.
“Your natural thing is to [get out of the way],” Murphy said. “I know he was thinking the same thing after the ball passed. He’ll learn from that situation. But it’s hard. Even if you try to maneuver yourself, it’s hard to get hit by the pitch because it’s so reactionary.”
Treinen’s next pitch was a 95.4 mph fastball way above the strike zone. Turang swung under it, finishing an 0-for-4 night and leaving him 3-for-24 with 10 strikeouts in the first six games of this postseason after finishing .001 behind Christian Yelich’s team-leading .795 OPS during the regular season.
“Out of hand, I was a little bit frustrated,” Treinen said. “But when he swung, I was a little more happy. We’re all competing out there. He’s probably trying to see me up, and sometimes it’s hard to lay off that stuff.”
“I know the pitch was way up there,” Turang said, “but every other pitch except for his four-seam is going down. I tried to see him ‘up,’ but he threw a four-seam instead of a sinker. You swing and miss sometimes.”
It left the Brewers wondering “what if?”
“All those ‘what ifs’ stack, but at the end of the day, what’s happened has happened,” said Brewers right-hander Quinn Priester. “It’s just a lot easier when we still have 100 more games to look forward to.”
