Brice Turang stayed late in the batting cages on Friday evening, reworking a swing that had gone 1-for-15 against Los Angeles in last year’s NLCS. “I just didn’t want to foul off my knee again,” the Milwaukee second baseman said. “That’s one way to help you stay inside of a ball is hit a ball off your leg or your foot.”
Two nights later the swing paid off. Leading off the fourth inning of a 1-0 game, Turang caught a 96 mph Tarik Skubal sinker on the inside edge and carried it over the left-center fence and into the Milwaukee bullpen. The Brewers went on to win, 2-1, taking the opener of the National League Championship Series at American Family Field on Sunday evening.
Skubal tipped his cap to the swing rather than fault his pitch, a 2-0 sinker aimed at the hands of a left-handed hitter. “A 2-0 sinker in, I mean, I’m going to live with that left on left.”
The moment he could not forgive came in the fifth, and it was not a pitch at all. Skubal walked Garrett Mitchell on five pitches, rookie Cooper Pratt bunted him up, and Luis Lara grounded a single through the middle to put Milwaukee in front. “The leadoff walk just can’t happen,” Skubal said. “It gives them an opportunity to create something, and ultimately that’s all they needed today.”
Made to sweat
The Dodgers had at least made Milwaukee’s starter earn his evening. Jacob Misiorowski’s fastball touched 104 mph, but Los Angeles forced 35 pitches from him in the second inning alone, 10 of them in a single walk to Kyle Tucker, and he was gone one out into the fifth at 94 pitches, five strikeouts and one earned run beside his name.
The visitors then found ways to lose their own threads. Shohei Ohtani opened the second with a four-pitch walk, Teoscar Hernandez and Andy Pages followed with opposite-field singles, and it was 1-0 Los Angeles. After that, nothing. Three rally-killing double plays in five innings. Nine men left on base. One hit in six tries with runners in scoring position.
The home crowd saved its loudest outrage, short of the final out, for a balk call against Misiorowski that awarded Hernandez second base in the fourth. When Dodgers lefty Alex Vesia picked Jake Bauers off first later on, the cry came back from the stands: “balk!”
Milwaukee’s bullpen shut the door from there, barely. Closer Trevor Megill walked two in the ninth before Mookie Betts drove a ball to the warning track, where Garrett Mitchell closed his glove around it.
Dave Roberts asked for perspective, not panic. “You can’t go into a long series against a team that has the best record in baseball and expect to just win four,” the Dodgers manager said. His reset starts Monday, with Yoshinobu Yamamoto on the mound against Logan Henderson. Yamamoto pitched a complete game in this same ballpark during last year’s NLCS.
Sources
- Brewers get just enough off Tarik Skubal, beat Dodgers in NLCS Game 1 – Los Angeles Times (Maddie Lee)
- What Dodgers' Tarik Skubal said about Brice Turang's improbable home run in NLCS Game 1 – Yahoo Sports / ClutchPoints
- Dodgers Notes: Why LA Lost NLCS Game 1, Andrew Friedman's Request, Dodgers Can't Overlook Brewers – Dodgers On SI
