The Brewers Are On The Verge Of Something Huge...

The Brewers are on the verge of something huge. Not only did they take game one, but also game two of the NLCS as they'll head to L.A. with a 2-0 series lead. And how about some young stars showing up in this series as well? The Milwaukee Brewers are absolutely clicking all at the right time. And we're going to talk about all that and more on today's episode of Brewers Digest. I'm your host, Taylor Brettel, and I got you covered on everything you need to know about the Milwaukee Brewers. I apologize for the absence the past couple of days. but as you can hear from maybe a little bit of a lower voice and the absence over the past two days I may or may not have had to take that trip to Milwaukee to be in attendance for this NLCS so I'm happy to be back home but man what an electric atmosphere uh if you guys have a chance to go to American Family Field for any game especially a postseason game I mean that was the best live sporting event I have been at in my life we're going to talk about game one first obviously this was a two-to-one win for the Milwaukee Brewers a game where the hits they came by a Scoring the runners was hard to come by. A 2-1 win for the Brewers in a game where it felt like, I shouldn't say they shouldn't have won it, but there's a lot of opportunities for the Dodgers to get into that game that they didn't capitalize on. We'll take a look at the box score on the big screen right here, and a shout-out to Bryce Turang, a guy that has been struggling a lot in the postseason for the Milwaukee Brewers. He had those couple of off days between the end of the NLDS and the start of Game 1 of the NLCS. He said he was working on his swing up until midnight, working with his dad, and it clearly was true here. My player of the game was Bryce Turang. He had that solo home run, a lefty lefty inside fastball that he took to left field. Watching that in person, I was kind of stunned at Carey, but I saw Pahez running back and speeding up as much as he could, and it didn't matter because there was a wall in the way. So huge shout out to Bryce Turang. And then Luis Lara as well, the game-winning blow. A lot of people were questioning Pat Murphy, saying, hey, kind of, you know, what are you doing? I know a lefty's on the mound, but you have Sal Frelick, who's been playing hot playoff baseball you have Christian Yelich who's been hot playing hot playoff baseball why are you taking them out despite a lefty well Andrew Vaughn was in there for Yelich he had a double and Luis Lara was in there for Frelick and he had the game decider that second run driven in on a base hit up the middle Pat Murphy knows what he's doing and the reality is so many Brewers bats are playing so well that someone has to go to the bench and that is the perfect problem to have but what I want to talk about we talked about the bats Lara and Turang but the Brewers only gave up one run This was a game that Jacob Misiorowski started that, again, wasn't too pretty pitch count-wise and how deep he could go into an outing. He was only able to go a touch over four innings, but it was the Brewers' bullpen, as people are calling it. That bullpen was absolutely unreal. Let's start it off with Aaron Ashby. In this contest, he went two innings out of the bullpen, had a strikeout, allowed no hits, no runs, only one walk. Half of his pitches were for strikes, half were for balls, but he was still able to give up nothing. Two innings from Ashby is absolutely huge. We saw Uribe come in earlier as well, who I will flash up right here. I'm going to Uribe. One inning, he struck out two batters. Did allow two hits, but still didn't allow any of them to cross. He was throwing a lot in the zone, daring the Dodgers to hit him. 13 strikes among 15 pitches. The duo of these two guys is absolutely unreal in the postseason. You have the lefty with Ashby that can go multiple innings. You have the righty with Rebay that can be a setup guy, or now kind of being a middle relief guy in this NLCS. Able to go more than one inning, possibly. We saw in game two, he kind of wanted to stay in there, which I'll get into later in this episode. But having those two guys is absolutely incredible. I mean, I do have to tip the cap so much to Aaron Ashby as well. This is a guy that looked like the best reliever in baseball outside of a setup man and closer, you know, kind of the best middle reliever. Then he got into that big funk where a lot of people were saying you can't even pitch Ashby in a game. And now Ashby is looking like the best relief pitcher in the entire major leagues out of all the teams that remain with the final four. Aaron Ashby has been able to put it together. Abner Rebay has been able to have his back whether that's being in there before Ashby or after Ashby that duo is electric and then Trevor McGill a little bit of a scary way to get the close there definitely in person you could feel the the air sucked out of the stadium or I should say the tenseness but made for a better crowd pop when Garrett Mitchell was able to track down that fly ball let's swing on over to game two in that box score where the Milwaukee Brewers won seven to four way more dominant performance offensively out hit them 12 to three and just absolutely huge for the brewers a game where offense was easier to come by from milwaukee defense a little bit sloppy some hiccups logan henderson had a couple of hiccups not able to make some throws but the brewers they're the comeback crew they didn't let that phase them at all i'll flash this box score on the big screen as well so you can take a look at all of it right here player of the game William Contreras really hard to ignore having a three for four afternoon where you had three rbi and one of them was a home run that was crushed what 436 feet to left field Contreras was the reason that this game got tied back up at one he's the reason the game got tied back up at four piece and why the Brewers got the lead at five to four that they never gave back i mean he had arguably the three most impactful swings of this game but you can't shy away from the rest of the crew Bryce Turang had multiple hits he some he seems to be back after fixing that swing Christian Yelich multiple hits Jake Bowers only one hit but probably the best at bat of his career with what was a 12 pitch walk you even go to the bottom of the order i mean you got Cooper Pratt who was coming through a young star there David Hamilton two hits got on base what four times still two bases I mean David Hamilton was absolutely unreal in his own Milwaukee Brewers really really really looked good in that one and that was just so great to see a two-to-one game a lot of low scoring offense hard to come by Brewers can't get more than like a one run lead this one three run lead you were able to save Miguel I know the Brewers have an off day today we were able to save Miguel who's been getting pitched a lot because it is the postseason just a perfect ending to this one But the biggest thing about this, getting Yoshinobu Yamamoto out of this game, that's what the Milwaukee Brewers did right here. Yamamoto was only able to go two and two-thirds innings, only struck out one batter. I think looking at this matchup, if you're the national media, if you're a Brewers outlet, if you're a Dodgers outlet, I think most people would expect Yamamoto to probably go like at least five or six innings. We saw him go seven innings of, what, no-run baseball with 10 strikeouts against the Atlanta Braves. Yamamoto in this one only able to go two and two-thirds, one strikeout, gave up three earned runs four hits two walks 75 pitches only 46 of them finding the zone the Brewers were so disciplined at the plate and it rattled Yamamoto he wasn't even able to go through three innings I know he only had 75 pitches he could go deeper but when Dave Roberts pulled him he had to do it and I talk about the Jake Powers at bat what really started this off I mean Yamamoto was pitching all right I mean like he wasn't giving up many runs but then he had this big walk to Jake Powers and got Christian Yelich up to the dish who then drove in two runs to give the Brewers a three to two lead we take a look at this at bat right here what was probably the at bat of the year there are all the pitches for Jake Powers that we saw in this one started it off with a ball then back in the zone for a strike then to two and one then to two and two and then Jake Powers just had to stay alive there's actually three and two after the fifth pitch and then all of those red ones all foul balls except for pitch number 12 which was green that he took low and in for ball four the at bat of the year probably outside of Jackson Chirino honestly because it's that bat set up Christian Yelich, who's able to be so dominant for the Brewers and get a two-run single, hit to center field to give the Brewers that lead. I mean, this was truly a ping-pong type of game, back and forth and back and forth, but man, there's so much to cover. I mean, and now let's go to Contreras. We talked about his stat line. I want to pick a player of the game for this. Like I said, it's Contreras, but honestly, you could probably point to any Brewer and call him a player of the game. I just had an alarm that went off. I think it was telling me to warn me to not pick a player of the game because there literally are too many. But Contreras, I mean, he is my player of the game three hits every single hit he had drove in a run in different fashion uh he had two bat flips you could say because one of them was on that single for a five to four lead what he's done has been unreal we're seeing some historic numbers from Contreras in the postseason especially among the franchise and among catchers I'll pull this one up right here from Just Baseball Media on X it says catchers with nine or more hits and three or more home runs in the first six games of a single postseason Contreras is only the second player to ever do that the only other instance was in 2005 so it's saying Milwaukee's backstop is putting on a show he's the best catcher in Major League Baseball he was always in those top five top three arguments but this year he had a great year and this postseason i think is only making that case for him being the top catcher in the game more and more and more Contreras i mean we talk about the homers as well he ties a franchise record five career postseason homers and he's tying Jackson Chourio so if that if something shows how dominant the Brewers are right now in the in this part of their franchise's history it's that Contreras is tying records that a current player that's only been there for three years is setting you love that records are being broken by each other which because that just shows that this team is playing complete they are playing whole but that's what we saw in game two do want to also give a tip of the cap I mentioned him earlier David Hamilton underrated star of this game so the Fox broadcast kind of we're talking about was a surprise start for Hamilton David Hamilton started a good amount this season I don't really think it's a surprise start you had a righty on the mound uh joey o hasn't been too hot in the playoffs maybe give him that day off when a righty's on the mound so you can get that lefty matchup david hamilton great on the base path and got multiple hits uh you know he was able to just find ways to get on base and we absolutely love to see it so shout out to him then again christian Yelich i touched on earlier i'm going back and forth because there's so much to cover he had two hits himself um with two RBI so the Brewers were showing up they were looking absolutely great a 2-0 series lead for Milwaukee now they go on the road against LA but I don't want to feel too too worried about that because the vibes are high especially with that bullpen this is what has really carried the Brewers through the playoffs we see it right here a neat graphic that the Brewers put out on social media it says an MLB record Brewers bullpen through five perfect innings in game two that's the most perfect relief innings in a game in postseason history and again more from Aaron Ashby in that one that led to it we see that right here one and two thirds two strikeouts no runs we go to even more that we can see from Adam Uribe in that game two who wanted to stay in they had him for one and a third innings two strikeouts no hits no walks I only needed 13 pitches to do it the duo of those two and then Trevor McGill in the ninth if you need him which the Brewers did not because Ashby was the one that was able to close the door and some of the best bullpen that you'll see in MLB history with how they're playing in the postseason that's exactly what you need you're not a team that hits many homers maybe runs are tough to come by well that wasn't the case in this recent one but that's sometimes what you need and the Brewers are able to find ways to get it done just like they did to get a 7-4 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers again the Brewers will head to LA for game three they have an off day today I kind of wish they played every game at home back to back to back to back to back because it doesn't feel like they can lose at home feels like the vibes are high there we saw in the DS the Brewers got off to a 2-0 lead an exciting 2-0 lead then they dropped the first one on the road then they're able to bounce back We know the Brewers on the road in the postseason, not the strongest of combinations, but when you have a 2-0 lead and you're two games away from the first World Series in your franchise's history since 1982, which was the only World Series in your franchise's history, a chance for the first National League pennant in your franchise's history because you were in the American League when they made that World Series. That's how long ago it was. I think the Brewers are going to show up, and I'm absolutely excited. Seems like Robert Gasser will be the one to get the start. It'll be interesting to see how the bullpen is evaluated. There are still names like Kyle Harrison and Shane Rowan in there, Chad Patrick, that we haven't seen at all in this postseason because those guys like Uribe and Ashby and McGill and D.L. Hall have all been able to show up for the crew. But there's tons to talk about. There's tons to cover. So make sure to subscribe to the channel to follow it on the socials as well. I mean, there's just so much to talk about the Brewers. I feel like I'm throwing up information and I know I'm probably missing so much about this game. But the voice is a little strained because that's how fun Brewers baseball is, especially going in person. Happy to be back. We'll have a Game 3 preview as well before the Brewers have that Game 3 in Los Angeles. Hoping for a commanding 3-0 lead. Hoping for a 4-0 series sweep. We're not going to get ahead of ourselves, but just so huge that the Brewers are up 2-0. Not even and not down. Getting those two wins at home is absolutely massive. Make sure to talk to you guys later, and let's go Brew Crew. Two wins away from a World Series.