Milwaukee Pushes Dodgers To Brink With Game 3 Rally In LA
The Milwaukee Brewers took a commanding 3-0 lead in the National League Championship Series after beating the Los Angeles Dodgers 6-2 at Dodger Stadium on Wednesday night. Back-to-back home runs by Jake Bauers and Garrett Mitchell in the seventh inning erased a two-run deficit and put Milwaukee one win away from its first World Series appearance since 1982.
Jackson Chourio opened the scoring with a leadoff home run off Dodgers starter Blake Snell, driving a 97.6 mph first-pitch fastball 106.1 mph into the right-field seats. It marked the first home run Snell had allowed all season and gave Milwaukee an early 1-0 lead. Snell settled in afterward, retiring 14 consecutive batters at one stretch, but the Brewers broke through again in the seventh. Bauers worked an 11-pitch at-bat - fouling off five pitches before connecting on a fastball similar to the one Chourio hit in the first inning - for a go-ahead, two-run homer. Mitchell followed immediately with a solo shot, pushing Milwaukee's lead to 4-2 and prompting Snell's exit. bookmaker floorball
Los Angeles had briefly taken a 2-1 lead in the sixth inning on a two-run double from catcher Will Smith, who entered the night 1-for-23 this postseason and had been dropped to seventh in the batting order. The hit came after Brewers reliever Abner Uribe walked the first two batters of the inning and Dodgers manager Dave Roberts used a pinch-hitter for Andy Pages, part of a Los Angeles lineup that came in 2-for-26 with runners in scoring position in the playoffs. The Dodgers exhausted their bench during the rally, striking out twice more before the inning ended, and could not add to the lead. Milwaukee's bullpen, which entered the game with an ERA below 1.00 this October, closed out the win from there.
Chourio's homer was his second of the postseason and extended a pattern from last year's NLCS, when he also took Dodgers pitching deep in Game 2. At 21, he already holds the record for postseason RBI by a player before turning 23, a mark previously held by Andruw Jones. Milwaukee, seeking to avenge last season's NLCS loss to Los Angeles, can complete the series sweep-turned-rout with one more win. The Dodgers, who have won the last two World Series titles, now face elimination as the series shifts back to Dodger Stadium for Game 4.
