Justin Turner forgets his night from 0 to 5 to bring victory to Game 2 of the Dodgers

MILWAUKEE – It was the worst game of his career and one of the worst in baseball history. Justin Turner – among the best hitters in the sport since the beginning of August, including in a first-round playoff series in early October – scored a 0-to-5 with four strikeouts and a mistake at the first game of the National League Series championship, becoming the second player to achieve such a playoff performance.

Less than 24 hours later, Turner inflamed his team, as he often did, by launching the two-race circuit that gave the Dodgers the 4-3 lead and won Saturday night this weekend against the best series. Milwaukee brewers at one game each.

"It takes a special athlete to spend a night like he had yesterday and to show up the next day in a well-filled place and want to hold the baton in his hand," said Dave Roberts. coach of the Dodgers. "Justin is this guy, and those are hard to find."

The Dodgers narrowed the gap to three points to a seventh, getting a Cody Bellinger's RBI single – his first success in 16 playoff games – and a walk filled with basics by Austin Barnes. Jeremy Jeffress returned to the game for the Brewers to start eighth and saw striker Chris Taylor reach the goal with an infield single.

Three laps later, Jeffress attempted to throw a 2-0 splitter in the hands of Turner, who quickly fired it to give a shot to the center of the second Miller Park Bridge in the left field, his ball pointing right. in the sky like a magic wand.

"It feels good," said Turner.

Before this momentum, Jeffress had never allowed a house to escape from his division. He had thrown 363.

"I was just trying to get something and as soon as I touched it, it did me good," Turner said. "I knew it was a circuit, and it's cool to run around the basics and see all his teammates go crazy, jump up and down and wait." really cool."

Turner then recorded the final of the match, after Kenley Jansen forced Christian Yelich to roll slowly with a tying goal. Turner also recorded the final on Friday, but it was his own attacking the team, where he represented training with Chris Taylor in third base and two outs in the ninth inning.

This was Turner's first performance on four outs in a career that lasted 975 games. He joined former Cincinnati Reds player Reggie Sanders – from the third game of the 1995 NL Division series against the Dodgers – as the only player to score 0-5 with four strikeouts and an error in the playoffs.

Roberts sensed Turner's anger but had not spoken to him before the second game. He did not feel like he needed them.

"It was probably the worst game of my career in attack," Turner said. "But I think you're done with baseball, we have to fall asleep and come back to see it and do it again today, obviously I did not feel good about myself last night and I'm not sure." 39, was not happy with the results, but today was a new day.

Turner has long been a spark for these Dodgers. He has four home homeruns since coming to the club in 2014, tied with Daniel Murphy for the most in this period. He is the only player to have scored several goals on the fly in the eighth inning or later in the last four seasons. His other goal was a draw in the second game of the previous season of the NLCS against the Chicago Cubs.

In the final two months of the regular season, with the Dodgers battling for a sixth straight division title, Turner was down 0.357 / 0.49 / 0.618.

In the NL series, while his team quickly sent the young Atlanta Braves, Turner scored 5 goals for 14 points with four draws and no goals.

When the Dodgers desperately needed a win to stay tied with the dangerous Brewers, Turner came back again.

"If you're talking about the reason, the difficult conversations, the identity of our ball club – it's probably the face," Roberts said. "He personifies everything I believe in as a baseball player, as a professional, he is the cement of our club."