The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 7-4 on Monday at American Family Field to take a 2-0 lead in the National League Championship Series, and they did it the way they have done nearly everything this October: by handing the game to the bullpen and letting it shut the door.
Four relievers — Dustin May, JoJo Romero, Abner Uribe and Aaron Ashby — retired the Dodgers' last 15 batters in order. Five perfect innings is the most a bullpen has thrown in a postseason game. Through six games this postseason, Milwaukee's relief corps has given up one earned run. Ashby took the final five outs for the save.
Game 1, on Sunday, had gone to Milwaukee 2-1.
Contreras, three times
Catcher William Contreras went 3 for 4 and drove in three. He tied the game at 4 with a 436-foot home run to centre field off Kris Bubic in the fifth, then singled home the go-ahead run in the sixth. By MLB.com's count, it made him the first player since 1997 to produce three separate game-tying or go-ahead hits in a single postseason game.
Milwaukee came back from three different Dodgers leads. Christian Yelich drove in two with a two-out single up the middle in the third — the hit that ended Yoshinobu Yamamoto's night, and one set up by a 12-pitch walk Jake Bauers had drawn an inning's worth of pitches earlier. In the eighth, run-scoring singles from Brice Turang and Bauers gave the Brewers their first cushion of the postseason.
The Dodgers' problem is at the plate
Los Angeles, the two-time defending champion, has now opened the series with Tarik Skubal and Yamamoto and lost both games. Yamamoto lasted 2 2/3 innings, eight outs, the shortest postseason start of his career; he had come in at 8-1 with a 2.14 ERA over 11 playoff appearances. "He just didn't have it tonight," manager Dave Roberts said.
The harder number is on offence. The Dodgers managed three hits, went 0 for 4 with runners in scoring position, and are 2 for 26 in those situations this postseason — a rate that explains a 2-0 deficit better than either starting pitcher does.
Milwaukee's own starter was not the reason it won. Logan Henderson allowed four runs, two of them earned, over four-plus innings, and made two throwing errors. Freddie Freeman's sacrifice fly in the fifth put Los Angeles back ahead before Contreras answered.
What is left
Teams that have taken a 2-0 lead in a best-of-seven postseason series have gone on to win it 79 times in 95 tries. Neither clubhouse was quoting the number. "We haven't accomplished anything yet," Yelich said. Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy put it the other way: "There's a lot of series left."
There is no NLCS game on Tuesday. Game 3 is Wednesday at 8 p.m. Eastern in Los Angeles, with Robert Gasser (5-5, 3.87 ERA) expected to start for Milwaukee; the Dodgers had not named a starter.
In the American League, the Cleveland Guardians beat the Tampa Bay Rays 7-3 in Game 1 on Monday and lead that series 1-0. Game 2 is Tuesday at 8 p.m. Eastern in Tampa Bay.
Reporting from MLB.com, the Associated Press and CBS Sports.
