Offense forces deciding game
A return to Miller Park proved to be exactly what the Milwaukee Brewers’ stagnant offense needed to return to life.
Jesús Aguilar broke the seal with a two-run, first-inning double, the Brewers tacked on three more runs from there and a strong effort from Wade Miley and a trio of relievers made the lead hold up the rest of the way as Milwaukee downed the Los Angeles Dodgers, 7-2, on Friday night.
Aguilar finished with a postseasonbest three hits, including two doubles, and three runs batted in as the Brewers advanced to a winner-take-all Game 7 for a shot at their first World Series since 1982.
Staked to that early lead, Miley turned in a solid 41⁄3-inning start, and Corey Knebel, Jeremy Jeffress and Corbin Burnes combined for 42⁄3 innings of shutout, hitless relief behind the lefthander.
Longtime Brewer killer David Freese got the Dodgers out to a quick 1-0 lead when, five pitches into the game, he homered to right-center off Miley.
Freese was starting as the leadoff hitter for just the fifth time in his 10-year major-league career.
And, in a case of serendipity, it was his three-run, first-inning homer off Shaun Marcum in Game 6 of the NLCS in 2011 that knocked the wind out of the Brewers’ sails when he was a member of the St. Louis Cardinals.
It was the first long ball off Miley since Aug. 18, when he surrendered one to Marcell Ozuna in St. Louis. But the homer proved to be not that big a deal because for the first time since Game 1 at Miller Park, the Brewers’ bats finally came alive.
Lorenzo Cain greeted the Dodgers’ left-hander Hyun-Jin Ryu with an infield single and Ryan Braun drew a oneout walk. After Travis Shaw struck out, the floodgates opened.
Aguilar lined a two-run double to right field, and then on consecutive pitches Mike Moustakas doubled and Erik Kratz singled to right to up Milwaukee’s lead to 4-1 as the sellout crowd of 43,619 went crazy.
Orlando Arcia singled, giving the Brewers four consecutive hits and five in the inning off Ryu before Cody Bellinger ran down Miley’s drive to straightaway center to finally retire the side.
The four runs were one more than the Brewers had managed in their Games 4 and 5 losses at Dodger Stadium, when they scored three in a total of 22 innings.
Miley worked around a pair of second-inning singles, then saw the offense give him even more breathing room when Christian Yelich – hitting just .179 in the postseason – and Braun doubled to right-center in consecutive at-bats to make it a 5-1 game.
Yelich’s double was his first extrabase hit since his two-run homer in Game 1 of the National League Division Series against the Colorado Rockies on Oct. 4.
Ryu (1-1) retired the side in order in the third and then gave way to Julio Urías, who matched that effort in the fourth.
Miley saw his night end in the bottom of the fourth, when he sandwiched a pair of four-pitch walks around a Freese RBI double to center that pulled the Dodgers within 5-2.
Knebel (1-0) entered and retired Justin Turner on a fly ball to center and struck out Machado with a 97-mph fastball to limit the damage to a run.
Miley departed having allowed five hits, two runs and two walks with four strikeouts over 87 pitches two days after his one-batter, five-pitch “start” caused a stir in Milwaukee’s Game 5 loss in Los Angeles.
The bullpenning continued from there, with the Dodgers getting more stellar work from their relievers while Knebel successfully navigated a second scoreless inning in the sixth.
Jeffress got the nod for the Brewers in the seventh, and after having not pitched since his high-wire escape act in the ninth inning of Game 3 he retired the Dodgers in order. It was his first 1-2-3 inning of the postseason.
The Brewers got a gift run in the seventh when Kenta Maeda uncorked a wild pitch with two on and runners in scoring position. Aguilar doubled to right to lead off the frame, moved to third on an Arcia groundout and scored easily on Maeda’s errant throw.
Burnes, up next, matched Jeffress’ perfect frame and Aguilar’s third hit – an opposite-field single, continuing the theme for the night – drove in Cain to up the Brewers’ lead to 7-2.
That allowed Burnes to come in and finish the game off, giving Josh Hader another vital day of rest for Game 7. He again set the Dodgers down in order, with Matt Kemp fouling out to Aguilar at first cap the game.
FIVE TAKEAWAYS
BEEN A WHILE: Milwaukee entered Friday not having lost three consecutive games since Aug. 15-18, when the team dropped the second game of a twogame series against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field and the first two games of a three-game series against the Cardinals at Busch Stadium.
EVENLY MATCHED: Coming into Game 6, the Brewers and Dodgers had each scored 16 runs on 39 and 38 hits, respectively.
IT’S A FIRST: With the bases loaded and two outs in the fifth, manager Craig Counsell allowed Knebel to bat in order to get another inning out of him on the mound. It was the first professional plate appearance for the reliever, and it ended predictably – with a strikeout against Dodgers lefty Alex Wood.
NOT LEFT OUT: For the fifth time in this NLCS, left-handers were matched against each other as starters. No other series in LCS history has featured more than three lefty-vs.-lefty matchups. The 10 combined starts by lefties ties the LCS record, set in the 1991 NLCS by Atlanta and Pittsburgh.
POWER OUTAGE: The Brewers (five) and Dodgers (two) entered Friday having combined to hit seven homers in the NLCS, which was the fewest since the Dodgers (four) and Cardinals (two) combined for six over six games in 2013.