The Clubhouse DJ: Garrett Mitchell's Homer Caps Comeback, Sends Brewers to World Series
By Nate Mercer ·
Garrett Mitchell fell behind Tanner Scott 0-2 to open the sixth inning Thursday night at Dodger Stadium, with the game tied 4-4. Scott threw three straight balls. On the full count he came with a 97 mph fastball, and Mitchell hit it 409 feet to center. It was Milwaukee's first lead of the night, the bullpen kept it, and the Brewers beat Los Angeles 6-4 to finish a four-game sweep of the National League Championship Series.
The Brewers are going to the World Series for the first time since 1982. It is also the franchise's first National League pennant. Milwaukee was still an American League club in 1982, and it lost that World Series to the Cardinals in seven games. Per ESPN, the Brewers had been the only one of the 15 current NL franchises without a pennant. That list is empty now.
A year ago the Dodgers swept Milwaukee out of the NLCS on this same field. This time the Brewers swept the two-time defending champions, and per AP they are the first major league club to sweep a postseason opponent that swept them the year before. They had to come back from four runs down to close it.
All four Los Angeles runs came in the second. Shane Drohan started for Milwaukee, walked Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman in the first, and got out of it when Will Smith grounded into a double play. Kyle Tucker singled to open the second, and Pat Murphy went to Dustin May. Teoscar Hernández singled Tucker to third, and after Max Muncy struck out, Andy Pages singled him home. With two outs, Shohei Ohtani hit a 1-1 cutter 428 feet to right-center for a three-run homer, his first home run of this postseason. It was 4-0.
Tyler Glasnow was making that look like plenty. He retired the first 10 Brewers, six on strikeouts. Then Brice Turang walked with one out in the fourth, William Contreras hit a ground-rule double to left, and Jake Bauers hit a ground-rule double to right on a full-count knuckle curve. Two runs scored, and it was 4-2.
The fifth was pure Milwaukee: four walks, two stolen bases and one hit. Sal Frelick walked with one out and stole second. David Hamilton, batting ninth, singled him home to make it 4-3, and that ended Glasnow's night at 4 1/3 innings, three hits, four runs, two walks and six strikeouts on 79 pitches. Hamilton stole second off Evan Phillips. Jackson Chourio lined out to center, Phillips intentionally walked Turang, then walked Contreras to load the bases. Alex Vesia came in and threw Bauers four straight balls. Tie game. Bauers finished with one hit and three RBIs, and AP reported he was named NLCS MVP.
"We got down early tonight and we were like, it's going to be a great story," Brewers captain Christian Yelich said afterward, according to The Associated Press. "We're going to come back and win this. Like, stay together, start chipping away."
JoJo Romero struck out Ohtani and Freeman in a 1-2-3 fifth. Then came Mitchell's homer, a day after he homered in Game 3. Per AP, it was the first of his career on an 0-2 count. "I've always dreamt of moments like these as a kid," Mitchell said, per AP. Mitchell played 28 games for the Timber Rattlers in 2021, so a fair number of people around here saw that swing first, about half an hour down Highway 41 from Green Bay.
The Dodgers kept putting the tying run on base and kept leaving it there. Tucker doubled with one out in the sixth and took third on a groundout, and Romero struck out Muncy. Aaron Ashby took over in the seventh. Pages led off with a double, Enrique Hernández bunted him to third, and Ashby struck out Ohtani swinging and got Betts to ground out to short. In the eighth, Smith doubled to right and reached third when the ball got away from Frelick for an error. Ashby got Tucker on a fly ball to center and struck out Teoscar Hernández on a curveball. Los Angeles went 2-for-11 with runners in scoring position.
Edwin Díaz had retired the first eight Brewers he faced. With two outs in the ninth, Hamilton took a fastball for ball one and hit a slider 402 feet to right-center for a 6-4 lead. Hamilton hit four home runs in the regular season. From the ninth spot he went 2-for-4 with two runs, two RBIs and a stolen base.
Ashby finished it. Tommy Edman, pinch-hitting for Muncy, grounded out hard to short. Pages was called out on strikes. Enrique Hernández lined an 0-2 curveball hard to left, and Chourio caught it at 10:07 p.m. Central. Ashby went three innings, allowed two hits and no runs, struck out three and threw 39 pitches for the save. Romero (two innings, one hit, three strikeouts) got the win. Scott took the loss.
"Playing with that chip on our shoulder," Ashby said, per AP. "You don't ever know what to expect going into a series like that last year. You don't know how bad it can be, and then it was as bad as it was. And we came out and we survived, and we came back this year, and those guys played their tails off."
Before the game, Murphy was asked about being one win from the World Series. "Keep your head down, be in the moment, win tonight, tap us on the shoulder when it's over," he said at his pregame news conference. Consider this the tap.
First pitch was at 7:08 p.m. Central, it was 90 degrees and clear, 49,104 were there, and the game took 2 hours and 59 minutes. Milwaukee is 7-1 this October. The World Series opens Friday, Oct. 23, at American Family Field against the American League champion. Cleveland leads Tampa Bay 2-1 in the ALCS.
I was not born for the last one. The Replacements have a song called "Can't Hardly Wait." Forty-four years in, the Brewers have eight more days.
Beer of the Week
Cold October nights in Wisconsin are dark lager weather, so this week it's Lakefront Eastside Dark from Lakefront Brewery in Milwaukee. It's a year-round dark lager, first brewed in 1987, 5.6% ABV and 21 IBU, built on two-row pale, Munich, caramel, dehusked dark and chocolate malts with Mt. Hood hops. Lakefront calls it "a rich, smooth, dark beer that anyone can enjoy" and "our most award-winning beer of all time," a list that includes European Beer Star gold for Bohemian-style schwarzbier in 2014 and 2016.
It comes in six-packs of 12-oz cans, and Lakefront's beer finder is the practical path to a store near you. The brewery's pairing advice is beef, since the roasted malt stands up to a rich plate. Pot roast and a night game sounds about right to me.