MILWAUKEE — The Brewers finally got the better of the Dodgers in the postseason. After scoring just one run total in last year’s four-game NLCS sweep by Los Angeles, Milwaukee managed to beat Dodgers ace Tarik Skubal 2-1 in Game 1 on Sunday, snapping a seven-game postseason skid against the two-time defending champions.
The box score makes it look easy, but October baseball is never easy. Brice Turang homered off Skubal in the fourth, and Luis Lara drove in the go-ahead run in the fifth, while Jacob Misiorowski and the bullpen held on tight.
Turang led off the fourth with the painful memory of an inside sinker that he fouled off his knee in the first inning, leaving him hopping around the plate. Three pitches into his second shot at Skubal, he got another inside sinker and somehow turned it into an opposite-field solo shot to left. According to TruMedia, it was the first opposite-field homer Turang has hit against a lefty in the big leagues, regular season or playoffs, and the first opposite-field homer to a lefty that Skubal has ever allowed.
“I didn’t want to foul a ball off my knee again, so I was like ‘I’m going to stay inside of this one,'” Turang said. “I just got it. Sometimes less is more.”
The go-ahead run was just as surprising. After Garrett Mitchell walked to lead off the fifth, rookie Cooper Pratt laid down a successful sacrifice bunt. That brought up 21-year-old switch-hitting rookie Luis Lara, who had struck out looking lost against Skubal in his first at-bat. But Lara was ready this time. When Skubal started him with a changeup, Lara bounced it sharply into center field to drive in Mitchell.
“I was just looking to push the runner across,” Lara said via an interpreter.
Manager Pat Murphy’s decision to set up the go-ahead run with a sacrifice bunt with Lara on deck showed exactly what he thinks of his rookie outfielder. “He didn’t come into this thing thinking he was playing in the big leagues this year, and he didn’t come into this thing knowing who Skubal was,” Murphy said. “That’s kind of a beautiful innocence.”
Game 1 was supposed to be a showdown between Skubal, the two-time Cy Young winner the Dodgers acquired at the trade deadline, and fireballer Misiorowski. Neither starter made it deep into the game. Instead, the bullpens combined to throw seven and two-thirds scoreless innings, leaving the Brewers’ improbable runs as the only ones that mattered. Milwaukee now has a real shot at ending L.A.’s two-year championship run and reaching the World Series for the first time since 1982.
“These are the games we live for,” Turang said. “We love doing this. This is why we play the game, just to go out there and compete.”
