Arms just couldn’t carry the team anymore
ATLANTA – Baseball can be cruelly ironic at times.
With the focus squarely on their underachieving offense entering Game 4 of the National League Division Series on Tuesday, the Milwaukee Brewers saw their season come to an end because the pitchers couldn't get outs when they needed them.
The last pitcher to fail was one who hardly ever did so during the regular season, Josh Hader. The Brewers' closer had not allowed a home run to a lefthanded hitter all season, but Atlanta's Freddie Freeman became the first, and in the biggest of situations.
Freeman's two-out, eighth-inning home run – on a first-pitch slider, of all things – gave the Braves their third consecutive victory, 5-4, ending the Brewers' hopes of a deep run into October in truly disappointing fashion.
The Brewers hoped to square the series and get it back home to Milwaukee for Game 5 before their home crowd. But, after getting shut out in the previous two games, it was the pitching that let them down.
Entering the game, incredibly, the question was: Would the Brewers score a run?
Seems silly to ask such a thing, but when you've been shut out in two consecutive games, it does make people wonder. And when the Brewers let a great scoring opportunity slip away in the first inning, the anxiety level only increased.
But runs eventually came, to the point they surpassed the Brewers' total for the previous three games. Of course, when you've only scored twice – both on a Game 1 homer by Rowdy Tellez – that isn't difficult to do.
The dam finally broke in the fourth on an RBI single by Omar Narváez, ending two long droughts. Before that hit off Charlie Morton, the Brewers had gone 22 consecutive innings without scoring. They also had gone 20 at-bats with runners in scoring position in the series without a hit.
As it turned out, that would be all for Morton, the 37-year-old Game 1 starter who was pitching on short rest. Much of the pregame chatter consisted of the Braves' decision to come back with Morton while the Brewers chose not to do so with their Game 1 starter, Corbin Burnes, who was deemed not ready to pitch on three days of rest after getting at least five throughout the season.
The short-rest debate proved to be the least of the Brewers' problems. The bigger issue became what to do when starter Eric Lauer ran into trouble in the bottom of the fourth after getting a 2-0 lead (Lorenzo Cain also had driven in a run against reliever Jesse Chavez).
Lauer got the benefit of a gift out on a foul pop carom from Narváez to third baseman Luis Urías that actually hit the ground but couldn't be reviewed. But with two down he walked and hit, respectively, the worst batters in Atlanta's lineup, Travis d'Arnaud and Guillermo Heredia.
That would be all for Lauer, and the game would go backwards on the Brewers' pitching plan when reliever Hunter Strickland allowed a two-run single on a 0-2 fastball to pinch-hitter Eddie Rosario. In that position, holding a 2-0 lead with the bases loaded, you cannot throw a 0-2 pitch that a hitter can handle to tie the game.
After Tellez restored the two-run lead with a monstrous home run in the fifth off Huascar Ynoa, the Brewers took the calculated risk of giving the ball to rookie lefty Aaron Ashby.
A tough assignment and a lot of pressure on a young man, but it showed you just how much the decision makers think of him.
Unfortunately, Ashby committed the same mistakes Lauer did the previous inning, walking and hitting a batter to load the bases with one down. You can't give away free bases in such instances, and they came back to haunt Ashby when a force-out grounder by Joc Pederson and opposite-field single by d'Arnaud delivered runs to allow the Braves to draw even again.
One noticeable difference between the Brewers and Braves was the former had trouble putting the ball in play with runners on and the latter did not. Even soft contact trumps no contact, much of the time.
While struggling to hold Atlanta's lineup in check, the Brewers' pitchers benefitted from a tremendous defensive performance at third by Urías. He speared a rocket off the bat of Dansby Swanson in the fourth to get the third out at second instead of allowing a bigger rally.
Beyond the carom play with Narváez, Urías made other inning-ending plays in the fifth and sixth innings on balls that were not easy plays. He might have had his throwing yips at shortstop earlier in the year, but he flashed big-time leather at the hot corner in this one.
In the final innings, the Brewers' offensive woes returned, with their final 11 batters retired in order. In that regard, they came full circle to their biggest issue, one that again haunted them at the end.