MILWAUKEE –– The Dodgers were hoping to hit the reset switch on Monday.
Instead, all they did was slam down on the panic button.
Losing Game 1 of this National League Championship Series rematch against the Milwaukee Brewers was one thing. Dropping Game 2 on Monday, however, threatened to put their season in suddenly dire straits.
This time, after all, they weren’t facing a presumptive Cy Young Award winner like Jacob Misiorowski. This time, more importantly, they had their own postseason stalwart, reigning World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto, on the hill to calm the waters.
But in a 7-4 defeat at American Family Field, an unexpected thing happened.
Yamamoto, despite entering with a five-game playoff win streak and the second-lowest postseason ERA in the last 100 years, couldn’t steady the two-time defending champions.
The Brewers, who allowed Yamamoto to throw a complete game against them on the very same mound in Game 2 of last year’s NLCS sweep, turned the tables decisively with long, relentless, unforgiving offensive rallies.
“They had much better at-bats than we did across the board, top to bottom, and then they put the ball in play, created havoc,” manager Dave Roberts said. “That’s what they do, and we didn’t do that. That’s the difference in the game … They did what needed to do tonight.”
Indeed, Yamamoto would last only 2 ⅔ innings in a 75-pitch grind against Milwaukee’s pesky, opportunistic offense. Despite being handed a pair of early one-run leads, he would depart the mound with the Dodgers behind.
It was a demoralizing turn of events –– keyed by a couple missed ABS challenge opportunities for Will Smith, an epic 12-pitch battle by Brewers slugger Jake Bauers, and a go-ahead two-run single from former MVP Christian Yelich that ultimately chased Yamamoto from the game.
While the contest would go back-and-forth from there, Yamamoto’s early exit gave the Dodgers’ bullpen too tall a task to withstand, sending the team back to Los Angeles for Game 3 on Wednesday desperately needing a response to a stunning two-games-to-none deficit.
“We got a lot of experience, we’ve been through everything before,” first baseman Freddie Freeman said. “So we’ll regroup tomorrow and go get ’em on Wednesday.”
The Dodgers did open the scoring Monday, manufacturing a first-inning run after Mookie Betts drew a leadoff walk, took second on a grounder, advanced to third on a wild pitch, then scored on a Teoscar Hernández sacrifice fly.
However, the Brewers responded with a rally of their own in the bottom of the first –– one that set the tone for their plan of attack against Yamamoto on Sunday.
With one out in the inning, Yamamoto seemed to freeze Brice Turang for a called third strike. But, home plate umpire Chris Segal inaccurately ruled it a ball, and Smith declined to use an ABS challenge behind the plate. Three pitches later, it would prove costly, with Turang getting a full-count fastball in the zone and slicing into left for a double. In the next at-bat, William Contreras came up and somehow stayed on a 2-2 slider less than a foot off the dirt, lofting a line drive just over Max Muncy’s head at third for an RBI single.
“It was kind of early in the game,” Smith said of the ABS decision. “We kind of had him on the ropes where we could just [try to] get him out there [even without the challenge].”
A similar story would play out in the third, as the Brewers erased a 2-1 lead the Dodgers took on an errant pickoff throw from Brewers starter Logan Henderson in the top half of the frame.
That inning began with a David Hamilton single. Then, after he stole second, Turang would again benefit from a missed ABS challenge opportunity –– with Smith declining to appeal another potential third strike in a full count, even as Yamamoto seemingly suggested he do so by pointing at his head himself on the mound.
“In that spot, Will didn’t feel like it was a strike,” Roberts said, trying not to secong-guess his catcher. “But obviously if you look back, [if] that’s a called third strike … that changes the outing.”
Once again, it set a disaster in motion. With an extra out to get, Yamamoto failed to complete the inning.
Instead, Bauers stepped up with two outs and forced Yamamoto into the longest plate appearance of his MLB career, drawing a walk from a grueling dozen-pitch battle.
After working a full-count, Bauers fouled off the next seven pitches he saw, chopping balls off the plate, to the backstop, into the seats, and –– twice –– just out of the reach of Dodgers fielders in foul territory.
The seven-minute duel went on so long, the battery in Yamamoto’s PitchCom device died after his 11th pitch, causing a delay while he was brought a replacement from the dugout.
“It just got to a certain point where it was straight compete mode,” Bauers said. “A little bit of a blackout, just kind of in the flow a little bit competing.”
Finally, on pitch No. 12, Bauers took a curveball in the dirt, loading the bases.
In the next at-bat, a clearly fatigued Yamamoto hung a curveball to Yelich, who lined his two-run single to center to give the Brewers a 3-2 lead.
That would be the end of Yamamoto’s day, marking the shortest outing of his playoff career. It would also leave too many innings for the Dodgers’ bullpen to cover –– even after the team retook the lead with a two-run rally in the fifth that was keyed by another throwing error from Henderson.
In the bottom of the fifth, Contreras greeted left-hander Kris Bubic with a towering game-tying home run that clanged off the bottom of the center-field scoreboard.
In the sixth, it would be Contreras again to push the Brewers back in front, lining a first-pitch single to left against Brock Stewart –– who had made his own mess by hitting a batter and firing an errant pickoff throw to first –– that gave the Brewers’ star catcher his third RBI of the day.
This time, the Dodgers wouldn’t have an answer, nor be gifted another pathway back into the game.
Rather, for a second-straight night, they were completely shut down by the Brewers’ bullpen, going 15 up, 15 down without a single baserunner after Henderson’s exit to finish the game with just three hits.
The Brewers, meanwhile, tacked on two insurance runs in the eighth, removing any pretense of late-game drama before a jubilant sell-out crowd.
Now, the Dodgers face a two-game hole they would have never imagined. Alarm bells are ringing. Their season, and World Series three-peat hopes, are dangerously close to being dashed.
