How Brewers Wade Miley Became a Bait for Craig Counsell's Turmoil

LOS ANGELES – Among all the possible ways to win this, win baseball games in the cauldron of October, the southpaw at the end of the dancing hook was definitely one of them .

A rare. Perhaps nothing like this has ever been, in fact, exploiting traffic in broad daylight, in front of tens of thousands of potential witnesses. Not even their lucky corner. But, yes, it was one of the ways.

Long before Wednesday's fifth game of the National League championship series, the Milwaukee Brewers announced that their starting pitcher was Wade Miley. In fact, asked Monday afternoon for the identity of its supporter, the manager of Brewers, Craig Counsell, refused to specify, but announced that his departing would be that of Miley, veteran southpaw, on short break . Looking back, this seemed like an unusual moment of frankness with regards to his pitching plans. In retrospect, this is called shoving.

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Miley was the bait. The pig in a poke. The queen of hearts who flashed and webbed.

The series was tied Wednesday at 2-2. The Los Angeles Dodgers have placed their interchangeable lineup on the gaming table, great with the men they loved against Miley, fresh as a new $ 20.

Miley threw five shots in what was the busiest session in the history of baseball. (He will begin the sixth part on Friday.) In good health, he returned the baseball to Counsell and moved away from the mound. Many of his teammates did not really know what they saw. Right-hander Brandon Woodruff came from the right-hander, warned of his obligation, said Wednesday morning to oppose the first right-handed batter of the Dodgers. Miley has been shown. Miley was webbed.

He knew "a few days ago," said Miley. Or maybe it was a few days, he said. "I did not say a lot of people," he said. "I kept the secret." And again, he says, "It was not fixed in stone, but …"

Counsell said, "Yes, that's what we were going to do from the beginning. Wade will play the sixth match. If we fell 3-1, we considered having Wade in this game. But other than that, that's what we decided to do. "

The masked starter – Woodruff – launched with authority for most of the next six rounds. The Dodgers won the match, 5-2. Maybe Miley in rest, and go as long as possible, followed by Woodruff, would have changed the result. Maybe not. But Woodruff followed a tired bullpen left him at 5-2.

Asked about the subterfuge, Counsell smiled and replied, "I do not know what" subterfuge "means.

"Look, they are trying to have clashes. We are trying to get meetings. It's a very difficult team to face. "

So, the Bullpen games are born out of nowhere, which is perhaps the game, and the Brewers are doing what they have to do to reach the World Series, and they've played pretty well and pretty well enough to do it also, outside of this suddenly bent over to hit .219 more than five games.

The fact is that while the Brewers were shaking the fog machine and removing Woodruffs from hats, the Dodgers were doing what they had to do to reach the World Series: it was giving the ball to Clayton Kershaw. During a Wednesday afternoon that started in the sun and ended in the shadows – it appeared even more shadows – it became clearer that the Brewers' attempts were quite virtuous. They do not have a Kershaw, not this Kershaw, not the man who pitched seven baseball heats to three shots, who watched as his teammates found their consciences two shots and batted and composed shots, which finished the seventh inning and had more in it.

"You can see the same look you always see," said Dave Roberts, manager of the Dodgers. "There is a determination and when a champion like him gets hit a little, he reacts. And that's what he did today.

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