LOS ANGELES – A season to remember, in every sense, ended in the most jarring of ways for the Milwaukee Brewers.
A team that prided itself on its scrappy, never-say-die attitude, that shocked everyone by finishing with the best record in baseball in the regular season, that exorcised its demons by finally winning a series and advancing in the postseason for the first time in seven years, saw whatever hopes it had for a miraculous National League Championship Series comeback dashed just six pitches into Game 4 on Friday night, Oct. 17.
Shohei Ohtani crushed a 446-foot home run out to right field off José Quintana, and with that swing seemed to go the spirit of the Brewers along with it. The Los Angeles Dodgers scored twice more in that opening frame, Ohtani went on to homer twice more while also throwing six shutout innings in furthering his reputation as the best player on the planet and Milwaukee went on to be swept, 5-1, at Dodger Stadium.
GAME 4 BOX SCORE: Dodgers 5, Brewers 1
Manager Pat Murphy spent much of his pre-game news conference answering questions about how the Brewers needed to do the little things and keep things simple in order to carve into the Dodgers’ 3-0 lead, telling reporters he was taking to heart words spoken to him earlier in the day by none other than legendary manager Joe Torre.
Murphy concluded his gathering with a simple phrase.
“See you tomorrow,” he said with a smile.
True belief or wishful thinking, we’ll never know as only the 2004 Boston Red Sox had ever successfully come all the way back from an 0-3 deficit to win a seven-game series. But one had to admire the cheekiness with absolutely nothing to lose.
Pitching in tatters, it was Quintana who was called upon to start.
It had been hoped his veteran experience in win-or-go-home games – he beat the Brewers as part of the New York Mets just last year at American Family Field with six scoreless innings in Game 3 of the teams’ NL wild-card series – and the fact he’s left-handed certainly seemed to play in Milwaukee’s favor with Ohtani struggling badly against southpaws.
“You think about it, going to José is an easy decision,” said Murphy. “Like, he’s the guy with the experience. He threw the ball really good in the Cubs series. I look forward to it today. I’m very confident that he understands the situation and can handle it.”
Quintana’s career postseason numbers against the Dodgers told a different story, however: 0-2, 11.32 ERA in three starts, and it was that line that proved more accurate in how this one turned out.
Ohtani started his night off by issuing a leadoff walk to Brice Turang only to follow up with consecutive strikeouts of Jackson Chourio, Christian Yelich and William Contreras.
The crowd already pumped, Ohtani then came to the plate and on Quintana’s sixth offering obliterated a slurve down and in but still over the plate enough that traveled out of the ballpark at 116.5 mph and fell just short of landing on the roof of the iconic awning covering the right-field bleachers.
And it was on-brand for Ohtani, as he became the first pitcher to ever hit a leadoff homer, in either the regular season or the playoffs.
The onslaught didn’t stop there, either, as Mookie Betts, Will Smith and Tommy Edman all followed with singles and then a groundout by Teoscar Hernández left Quintana and the Brewers to deal with a 3-0 deficit entering the second.
Quintana lasted only six more batters before being replaced by Chad Patrick.
But truly, it wasn’t the pitching that cost the Brewers in the series, as they had allowed only 10 runs to the Dodgers with the 10 tied for fourth-fewest scored by a team that took a 3-0 advantage in a best-of-seven postseason series.
The gigantic hole that Milwaukee eventually fell into to cap the series was almost squarely on the shoulder of its offense, which was shut down in succession by Los Angeles starters Blake Snell (eight innings, 10 strikeouts), Yoshinobu Yamamoto (complete game, seven strikeouts) and Tyler Glasnow (5 ⅔ innings, eight strikeouts).
The Dodgers’ first inning probably illustrated it best, with their four hits off Quintana matching the Brewers’ total in Game 3. In Games 1 and 2, Milwaukee managed five hits combined.
While Ohtani continued to deal – Jackson Chourio, who managed to return from the hamstring cramp that knocked him out of Game 3, hit a ground-rule double to lead off the fourth to scuttle thoughts of a no-hitter – he remained a thorn in the Brewers’ side at the plate by walking in the second and then once again homering with two outs in the fourth.
That one, off Patrick, was an even more titanic blast than his first, measuring in at 469 feet with an exit velocity of 116.5 mph on a cutter down, in and out of the strike zone and further demonstrating why Ohtani should be the runaway favorite to win his fourth career most valuable player award.
Ohtani retired nine straight batters after Chourio’s double, then saw his night end to a standing ovation from the sellout crowd after walking Yelich and allowing a single to Contreras to begin the seventh.
He was replaced by Alex Vesia, who got pinch-hitter Andrew Vaughn to pop out and then Sal Frelick to ground into a double play – a sequence that perfectly encapsulated Milwaukee’s struggles all series.
In six shutout innings, Ohtani allowed just the two hits and two walks while striking out 10 – his first double-digit total of the year after returning to pitching in mid-June. He also threw the five fastest pitches of the game, with the top two registering 100.3 and 100.2 mph.
Then, right on cue in the seventh, Ohtani made it a homer hat trick as he belted a 98.9-mph Trevor Megill fastball that was down, in and over the plate 427 feet out to straightaway center. That one traveled out at 113.6 mph, also giving him the game’s three hardest-hit balls of the game.
The Brewers did prevent the shutout in the eighth when Caleb Durbin doubled to lead off, stole third and scored on a Turang grounder.
Milwaukee had two on with two out and Yelich at the plate after that but he tapped out to Anthony Banda, leaving him 1 for 14 with two walks and seven strikeouts in the NLCS.
Contreras had a leadoff single in the ninth but the next three batters went down in order as Los Angeles celebrated another NL pennant.
The Brewers finish the season with an even 100 victories and a third consecutive Central Division title but also plenty of regret stemming from their inability to even compete when it mattered most with a Dodgers team that they swept in six games in the regular season.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Dodgers 5, Brewers 1: Milwaukee swept away as Shohei Ohtani dominates
