Look out! Chourio's HR breaks camera before A's break Brewers' hearts

LAS VEGAS – For Nick King, flying projectiles are part of the job.

He’s a Vegas local and freelance camera operator who was hired to man one of the center field cameras for this week’s Brewers-A’s series at Las Vegas Ballpark, the first Major League games in Sin City since the A’s played their first six games of the 1996 season at Cashman Field.

It was King and the large camera he was working from a lift behind the batter’s eye that were struck by Brewers outfielder Jackson Chourio’s third-inning home run in Wednesday’s 4-3 loss to the A's in the series finale. It hit the camera hard enough to break off a handle and send debris falling to the ground, but didn’t impact the broadcast other than to provide a fun talking point.

“It’s not a big deal,” King said between innings. “It just caught me off-guard.”

He’s followed the ball or puck while working professional baseball, the NHL, NBA and WNBA over the years, and being struck by Chourio’s homer wasn’t the worst thing that’s happened to him on the job. King’s foot was once run over by AJ Allmendinger’s race car while King worked a NASCAR event in 2017 or ‘18.

Fittingly for what transpired Wednesday, Allmendinger’s nickname is “The Dinger.”

King obviously saw Chourio’s home run coming and thought it would fall short. But if we’ve learned anything about this ballpark over the past three days, it’s that the ball flies.

Unfortunately, Brewers reliever Chad Patrick was reminded of that when he took over in the seventh with a 3-1 lead and saw it evaporate in the span of three hitters. A’s designated hitter Carlos Cortes led off the inning with a home run to make it a one-run game, and Lawrence Butler made it a one-run game the other way with a go-ahead, two-run shot that sailed a Statcast-projected 463 feet, clearing the other end of the batter’s eye from King.

Butler’s home run was the 15th of the series for the A’s, matching a franchise record for any three-game span in their history. It spoiled what had been a brilliant start for Brewers rookie Brandon Sproat, who carried a shutout through five innings and departed after the sixth with just one run allowed (via A’s shortstop Alika Williams’ first Major League homer) on four hits and one walk, with three strikeouts. It was his finest outing since he pitched into the seventh inning and allowed only one run against the Blue Jays on April 16.

Considering the ballpark, it was probably his finest start, period. He needed only 68 pitches for those six innings, and might have continued had the Brewers not had available all of their leverage relievers, including Patrick, who has been brilliant since shifting to the bullpen. Sproat asked pitching coach Chris Hook for the seventh, but manager Pat Murphy considered it an easy call to tap the bullpen.

“I’m very pleased with him to go as long as he did,” Murphy said. “That’s pretty good. Good start – a quality start. He deserved to win.”

Sproat finished May with a 6.24 ERA, but lowered it to 5.70 by limiting the Rockies and A’s to four runs over 11 innings during the Brewers’ high-altitude, 4-2 road trip through Denver and Las Vegas.

“Obviously, after watching the first few days, the ball flies here,” Sproat said of Las Vegas. “It’s like, ‘Hey, these are the conditions. It is what it is.’ For things to come out the best chance possible, I can’t change anything. I can’t pitch defensively. I just have to attack.”

Mission accomplished.

“I thought today went really well. Still got clipped,” Sproat said. “I guess I couldn’t leave here without joining everybody else.”

Two of the Brewers’ runs scored via home runs from Gary Sánchez and Chourio, but Milwaukee was 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position and stranded nine on base.

“I think we didn’t have the intensity offensively that we needed to have. Not that guys aren’t trying, don’t get me wrong,” Murphy said. “Just, you have to have more intensity than that. It’s been a long road trip, the altitude, the adversity of playing at a park that’s different than you’re used to. The lighting’s different, everything’s different. We did a lot of good things, but we left the zone a bunch, down."

According to Elias, the teams’ 22 combined home runs tied for the third most in any three-game series on record in MLB, two shy of a record that the Brewers participated in during a 24-homer series at Washington in 2019.

King followed them all from his perch in center field. But as a fan stopped by in the third inning to take a picture of the broken camera, there were parts of seven innings still to go.

“I have to go back to work now,” King said.

The A’s were coming to bat, and it was time to turn his focus back to flying baseballs.