The Milwaukee Brewers, thanks to a huge bullpen game led by rookie Jacob Misiorowski, are just a win away from their first trip to the NLCS in seven years.
The Brewers rolled to a commanding 7-3 win over the Chicago Cubs in Game 2 of their NLDS series on Monday night at American Family Field. That gave them a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five series as it heads to Wrigley Field later this week. Misiorowski, who was playing in his first career postseason game, was credited with the win after three huge scoreless innings midway through the game.
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The Cubs, who fell 9-3 in Game 1, erupted right away on Monday night and seemed ready to bounce back in the series. Seiya Suzuki drilled a three-run homer in the first inning after Nico Hoerner singled and Justin Turner walked ahead of him.
But their lead lasted just a matter of minutes. The Brewers responded with Shota Imanaga on the mound, and Andrew Vaughn hit a three-run shot of his own in the bottom of the inning to tie the game up instantly.
William Contreras then gave the Brewers their first lead of the night in the third with a solo homer, too, which resulted in Imanaga being pulled before the inning was up.
Jackson Chourio broke the game wide open in the next inning for Milwaukee. He hit the deepest shot of the night straight out through center field for a three-run home run of his own off of Drew Pomeranz. That put the Brewers up by four. At that point, remarkably, all seven of their runs came on home runs with two outs on the board.
Misiorowski came in to pitch three scoreless innings midway through the game for the Brewers, and ended up being the only Milwaukee pitcher to last longer than 1.2 innings on the mound. He helped carry them the rest of the way to the win without any issue. He had 31 of his pitches top 100 miles per hour — which is the most by a pitcher in a postseason game in the tracking era. His fastest was recorded at 104.3 mph.
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Though they got off to a hot start, the Cubs simply couldn’t get it to convert into a win. They finished with just four hits and an error as a group. The Cubs are the first team in MLB postseason history to hit a three-run home run in the first inning, but not score again after that and lose the game, according to OptaStats.
Though it’ll take a huge rally to even force a Game 5, the Cubs will attempt to get that started next on Wednesday at home (5:08 p.m. ET/TBS, TruTV). If they can’t stop the Brewers, though, Milwaukee could get out of here with a sweep and earn some extra rest before the NLCS.
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