[ad_1]
If you've always wanted to feel the full weight of the drama, the tension and the plot that the playoffs can bring, the third game of the SNSL was a great way to live it.
The final score was Brewers 4, Dodgers 0. It was as tense as a four-run match, with lean margins as a decisive choice Monday night, while paving the way for all sorts of developments in the rest. from the Serie.
No player has done more with these meager margins of success than Milwaukee Game 3 coach Jhoulys Chacin.
The 30-year-old right-hander has turned out to be a free rider for the Brewers this season, making a total of 35 team starts, 15 wins and an average of 3.50. But these results have denied some more troubling indicators. Chacin had some difficulties this year with the control. He enjoyed a batting average of .250 allowed on the balls in play, one of the lowest ratings in the league and also his lowest since he became a starter at full-time.
Chacin also had one of the most extreme platoon divisions in the league: his heavy repertoire limited the right-handed batters to one line against .178 / .244 / .284, but the left-handers hit him at .261 /. 351 / .430. Faced with a formation of left-handed players able to hit the slider, Chacin seemed destined for a quick exit, the Brewers' best hope based on another superhuman performance by Josh Hader.
Instead, Chacin was forced into the Dodgers' formation, performing 5 ⅓ of laundering, allowing only three hits, two walks and out six. Chacin's performance brought all the necessary ingredients to a right-hander with some not-so-good stuff (his average fastball speed is just 90 mph, one of the slowest brands in the league) to succeed: a little bit of skill, a bit of luck and a clear defense behind him.
Chacin began his evening by sneaking into the top three hitters in the Los Angeles squad, setting the tone by hitting left-handed Jock Pederson and Max Muncy. Then, in the second run, he was bailed out by favorable circumstances and at the right time. Manny Machado and Yasiel Puig placed a single and a double around the starting round by central defender Cody Bellinger, putting the runners in second and third place with a draw. That brought Yasmani Grandal to the plate.
Grandal's first game was a nightmare: the Dodgers catcher made two mistakes and left two balls squirted by him. These defensive difficulties have exacerbated a series of offensive futilities in the playoffs. By the time Grandal arrived at the plate in the second inning with a chance to cash in two points and give the Dodgers ahead, his career playoff line was 6-to-64, with 27 draws on holds.
Score 6 for 65 with 28 strikeouts, as Chacin freaked out Grandal with four sliders. This allowed the Brewers starter to intentionally wander Enrique Hernandez, staging an attack from the end of the inning by oversized launcher Walker Buehler.
The third set gave Chacin a new set of happy circumstances and good luck. Pederson led by striking a striking ball to first base but just in front of the deceptive Brewers stop, Orlando Arcia, who had completely tipped over the pitch right field to get away from the Dodgers' head. . Bet for the course of a team of brewers who ranked second in the National League this year in total number of recorded defensive innings and in number of team-saved innings. Chacin then slotted a slider into the area that had just sat down and made a tempting top while waiting for Muncy to send it to the bleachers. The Dodgers' first baseman connected, sending a balloon to the left that drifted … and drifted … and died on the alert trail.
The fourth inning could also have caused trouble, while Manny Machado opened the frame with a walk. But after falling behind Bellinger 1 to 0, Chacin delivered a Houdini at 78 mph from a slider, a pitch that disappeared under Bellinger's baton, sending his corkscrew to the ground. Bellinger then hit Jesus Aguilar on the ground, prompting the first baseman to shoot in second for a forced recovery.
This also prompted Machado to win duncecap-of-the-game honors. Seeking to break a potential double play but apparently forgetting both the new rules of baseball and the rules of physics, Machado reached out to try to cut Arcia's leg and disrupt throwing first. It was illegal. This also happened after Arcia threw the ball. Result: the revision of the referees, then a double game, without valid reason. When Mike Moustakas followed with a brilliant dive game in third place to end the heat, it was obvious that it would be the night of Chacin – a night filled to cut the turns and a little luck on the rare grounds in which he missed his places.
If Chacin's success often depends on cunning and kismet, Buehler discharges his task with absolute and glaring dominance. Armed with a dazzling array of terrain starting with a fastball that can reach the peak of the '90s, Buehler's formidable rookie season has shown how much he can trample on opposing lines. If we ignore everything, except for the number of points in the last line of Buehler, you will conclude that he had whitewashed another unfortunate opponent on Monday, considering the eight strikeouts that took him out. Made it sound in seven innings, against just five hits and one goal.
The problem is that Buehler made two big mistakes in the third match. And the Brewers have missed none of them.
The first of these misunderstandings came in the first. While MVP leader Christian Yelich struggled to translate his regular season magic into ALCS, the Brewers' number two hitter continued his march. With the 1-1 account against Ryan Braun, Grandal set his goal on the outside and on the downside, but Buehler did not miss it. He crushed a wounded duck at 140 km / h who was standing, halfway and squashed left for a scoring double That gave Milwaukee a quick 1-0 lead.
So … silence. Buehler beat the Brewers hitters, scoring six strikeouts in three innings, eight out of five hits, and now the game close to 1-0. The last of the fifth round was the first decision of the Dodgers player, Dave Roberts: another tiny moment that had the chance to give the coup de grace. With a pullout, a runner second and the pitcher's spot on the rise, Roberts chose to let Buehler hit the bat rather than turn to a claw hitter. This decision reflected confidence in Buehler's abilities, but also showed that Roberts still did not have full confidence in a paddock that had flourished in the first two games of the NLCS, but had shown many leaks to … well, these last years. After a Buehler attack and a Pederson roster, the Dodgers had missed one of their best chances of the match.
In the next round, Buehler made his second mistake. After falling behind right-handed Travis Shaw, Buehler got the sign of a fast ball, climb and climb. Instead, his 97 mph heater dragged over the plate, thigh high. Shaw crushed him.
Of course, Bellinger might have played balloon though he had not lost a second to the light. But Buehler missed the target of his one kilometer receiver, which always resulted in a hard and deep contact with a Brewers batter, in this case a triple. A little later, Milwaukee opened a 2-0 lead.
Chacin crowned her stellar evening with her best night tone, a 1-2 slider that drew nothing but Muncy's looks. This brought the Brewers pen to the game.
Despite all the ink that Josh Hader, the lean, long – haired, dark – haired left – handed, has deserved this season and the playoffs (all the merit!), Corey Knebel has written a real story. The right-handed left-hander won the tightest job last season for the Brewers. He was so brilliant that he was chosen for the All-Star team. All this went to hell this summer, with Knebel totaling eight points on a 3-run run in August, which resulted in a demotion of the miners. A pitcher ranging from the Summer Classic to the Bush League in the space of 13 months could be forgiven for not being taken off. Knebel did not do anything of the sort. When he returned in September, he played 16 games until the end. His figures on this period? 16 innings, 33 strikeouts, 3 walks, 5 hits and a deserved point average of 0.00. So, by the time Counsell was ready to send Chacin to the third match showers, he had a viable alternative to Hader.
And come on, Knebel did it. The right-hander removed five of the six batters he faced, the only baserunner having made a mistake. He eliminated the last four batters he faced, all swaying. His 1-2-3 effort at the seventh should be hung in a museum.
If you had asked the Brewers fans to name an offensive star to raise the team in October, they would start with Yelich. If the winner of the quasi-Triple Crown was not conceivable, they might have chosen the sluggers Aguilar or Shaw, perhaps the leader Lorenzo Cain or the venerable veteran Braun. Arcia would have placed itself just above the Brewers pitchers. The Milwaukee stoppage turned out to be an automatic exit in October, but you lived with its .236 / .268 / .307 punch-free line in the defense interest in a pivot position. But then, Arcia dominated Rockies opponent Wade Davis in the third game of the NHLDS, and again against Hyun-Jin Ryu in the second game of the NLCS. After scoring just three home runs in 119 regular season games, he had two in five in the playoffs.
Then he made three. After a brace in the seventh game with Erik Kratz, Arcia jumped on a difficult field of Buehler, a fastball that dated back to the mid-90s. In a series filled with big players on both sides, the 165 Milwaukee's books kicked off the only circuit of this match.
The latter has not only added two insurance deals in Milwaukee. He set up brewers to take a potential hold on the series.
Consider that Counsell chose to use the invaluable Hader for only two batters in the eighth inning, believing that his team's four-point lead could hold without Hader needing a lot of energy. The arrival of Jeremy Jeffress for the ninth caused moments of nervousness. The Dodgers put the runners in second and third places without anyone starting the heat, then they brought the race back after a walk by Yasiel Puig. But when Jeffress' quick shot pointed to Brian Dozier in the outside corner, the Brewers won their 4-0 win, as well as the promise to find their best pitcher in Match 4, after Hader did not win. needed only eight low-pressure throws two crossed out before its release.
Think of all that could have gone wrong for the Brewers in this game. If the Dodgers had hit some rare mistakes of Chacin. If the Brewers had not jumped on two of Buehler's rare mistakes. If Arcia had not continued her extravagant feats, Babe Ruth would behave in the playoffs. If Counsell did not have the confidence to shoot Hader and give the match to a player more closely, he had a 7.71 ERA and a 1.106 OPS allowed until this stage of the playoffs. If Jeffress's quick two-shot ball had found only a few inches more plate, drifting into the happy Dozier area.
It is the microscopic margins that decide the games in October. They are what makes the playoffs great. And they now have the Brewers only two wins from their first world series trip in 36 years, with their nuclear memory weapon ready for the fourth game.
[ad_2]
Source link
