Priester's homecoming dream dashed after 1st inning of NLDS G3 goes awry

CHICAGO -- Quinn Priester said he was relaxed and ready for a dream opportunity to pitch in the postseason at Wrigley Field, where he once cheered for the Cubs in the 2016 World Series. After a breakthrough season in which the Brewers salvaged him from Boston’s Triple-A outpost, Priester pitched against his boyhood team with a chance to help his new team snap a streak of October one-and-done's.

It was set up to be something magical. It turned into something else entirely.

Priester’s start lasted 39 pitches and only two outs in the Brewers’ 4-3 loss in Game 3 of the National League Division Series, when a four-run Chicago first inning and a collection of missed opportunities for Milwaukee to answer denied a sweep and left the Brewers with a 2-1 lead in the best-of-five series with Game 4 set for Thursday night.

“I’m very frustrated with that first inning -- [my] only inning,” Priester said. “Command wasn’t good. Stuff wasn’t coming out the way I wanted it to. Ultimately, it falls onto me to make an adjustment … to give us a chance. I didn’t do that today.

“I didn’t give us a chance. Everyone else played real well with the exception of myself. I definitely feel like that’s entirely on me.”

But it isn’t over. After missing their first chance to close out the Cubs, the Brewers will get (at most) two more.

“Obviously our goal is to play in a Game 5,” said Cubs outfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong. “I think anytime you get to make the bullpen work a little bit harder, it's really good as you move forward.”

“Nobody expected them to go down easy,” said Brewers first baseman Jake Bauers. “This is fun, man. This is playoff baseball. This is what you play for.”

Bauers, drawing his first start of the series at first base, helped make it a ballgame with an RBI single in the fourth inning that made it 4-2 and an opposite-field solo homer in the seventh that made it 4-3, while Brewers relievers including Jose Quintana (three-plus scoreless innings) kept the Cubs at bay. The Brewers, however, rued their other missed chances to score, including in the top of the first inning when a William Contreras popup was lost in the sun and loaded the bases with only one out, but ultimately produced only one run.

In the fourth, Bauers’ run-scoring hit left runners at first and third with one out and a chance for more, but Brandon Lockridge, the surprise Game 3 starter in center field and “the best bunter we have,” according to Milwaukee manager Pat Murphy, got too much bat on the ball on a squeeze bunt. Caleb Durbin, running from third, stayed in a rundown long enough to let the runners behind him reach second and third, but wondered whether he might have had a chance to dive home and score.

Murphy wondered the same.

“I wish Caleb would have kept going,” Murphy said. “I think if he would have just accelerated and believed and dove in there, it would have taken a great throw.”

“I actually just watched it,” Durbin said. “In real-time, I thought I was going to be out if I did keep going. Looking back at it, I still think I’m out, but it’s maybe a little closer of a play.”

Said Lockridge: “I would have liked to have deadened it more. It was unfortunate. I wish I could have come out and helped the guys get the tying run there.”

The biggest chance of all came in the eighth, when Milwaukee loaded the bases with two outs for, of all hitters, Bauers, with a chance to make it an epic night.

Cubs closer Brad Keller walked Durbin on four pitches to load the bases before missing again with his first pitch to Bauers, who looked for the fastball the rest of the way. Keller threw fastballs the rest of the way, the third and last of them at 97.1 mph to strike out Bauers on a foul tip while the Wrigley Field crowd roared.

It would prove the Brewers’ last gasp. Keller slammed the door in the ninth and Milwaukee’s bid to come back from the first-inning deficit fell one run short.

“Going down three in the first is not good, but no one in there lost confidence,” Bauers said. “It seems like every time we are in that situation, we end up with a chance to win the game. Sometimes you get it done, sometimes you don’t.”

The Brewers have not got much done in the late innings of this series. In innings 1-4 of the first three games, they are slashing .390/.431/.610 with four doubles, three home runs and 18 runs scored. In innings 5-9, they are hitting .182/.280/.295 with two doubles and only one run scored -- on Bauers’ homer.

Priester, though, shouldered the blame himself after being spotted a 1-0 lead and then letting it get away in his first inning of game action in 12 days.

He grooved his sixth pitch to Cubs leadoff man Michael Busch, who deposited it into the basket beyond the right-field ivy for his second leadoff home run of this series. It was a sign of the long at-bats to come. Nico Hoerner also singled on the sixth pitch, Kyle Tucker walked on five pitches, Seiya Suzuki flew out on six pitches (with Sal Frelick making a terrific sliding catch in the right-field corner), Ian Happ walked on six pitches and Carson Kelly struck out on six pitches.

After all that -- Priester’s first out on pitch No. 23, his second out on pitch No. 35 -- the Brewers still had a chance to escape with the score tied. But he once again threw a pitch down the middle to the wrong hitter, in this case a slider to Crow-Armstrong, who smashed a single to right field for two runs and a 3-1 Cubs lead, knocking Priester from the game. Milwaukee’s deficit grew to 4-1 when reliever Nick Mears yanked a 1-0 fastball for a run-scoring wild pitch.

After winning 19 consecutive games in which Priester pitched from his final outing of May through the middle of September, the Brewers have now lost two in a row.

“I think the moment got to him a little bit,” Murphy said. "He's not technically a rookie, but it's his first postseason appearance. Had a long layoff. It's in his hometown. I feel for him because that's not typically how he's done this year. It gave [the Cubs] a jump start and was the difference in the game.”

Priester, though, said he felt in control warming up, with family and friends among the 40,737 fans crowded into the stands. He was asked whether he would make an effort to forget about it and move on, but proposed the opposite.

“Let’s go out there and not forget about it, but use it to be better,” Priester said.

To that end, as Priester walked off the mound, Murphy stopped him.

“‘Be ready to pitch again,’” was the manager’s message, Priester said. “And I am.”