Los Angeles sent its two aces to Milwaukee and is heading home with nothing. Milwaukee won Monday’s second game of the NL pennant series 7-4 and is two wins up in the best-of-seven, putting the two-time reigning champions in a deep hole.
Three times the Dodgers went in front at American Family Field, and three times Milwaukee struck back before the inning was over. The constant in every comeback was catcher William Contreras. He singled in the tying run in the first, crushed a 436-foot solo homer to dead center in the fifth and lined the go-ahead single in the sixth. Only three men before him had ever produced three different hits that either levelled a playoff game or put their team ahead; Cleveland’s Sandy Alomar was the most recent, back in 1997. His three hits equalled the entire Dodgers lineup’s output.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto lasted just eight outs, his shortest playoff outing ever. Milwaukee wore him down with patience. In the third, Jake Bauers fouled off and took pitch after pitch for more than seven minutes until ball four on the 12th offering, and Christian Yelich then slapped a two-run single. According to Roberts, the right-hander “just didn’t have it tonight,” a rare sight.
From there, the Brewers’ relief corps took over. Four arms retired all 15 batters they faced, the longest flawless stretch any relief staff has produced in a playoff game. Brice Turang and Bauers added insurance runs in the eighth, and Aaron Ashby closed it out with a five-out save. Milwaukee’s bullpen has now allowed only one earned run in six playoff games.
History favours the Brewers: of 95 clubs that opened a seven-game set with a pair of wins, 79 went on to take the series. The Dodgers, batting under .200 this postseason, host Game 3 on Wednesday.
