MILWAUKEE -- It was center fielder Garrett Mitchell who said it last week, during a discussion about what makes this Brewers team believe it can be different than all of Milwaukee’s other seven postseason qualifiers in the preceding eight years. They all finished short of the World Series. Why should this club believe it is special?
“What feels different,” Mitchell answered, “is that we’re in it until the 27th out. This year, even down to the last out, we still have a chance. That feels different.”
Which brings us to the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 2 of the National League Division Series on Sunday at American Family Field, a dud until it wasn’t. The Brewers earned a 4-3 walk-off win over elite closer Mason Miller and the Padres on Jackson Chourio’s two-out, two-strike single to cap the greatest postseason comeback in franchise history and put Milwaukee in charge of the best-of-five series, 2-0, as it heads to San Diego.
Christian Yelich and Sal Frelick came around to score while a sellout crowd of 41,683 shook the stadium with the joy of the Brewers’ third postseason walk-off win. File the highlight of Chourio’s six-pitch single alongside Mike Moustakas’ 10th-inning base hit in Game 1 of the 2018 NLDS against the Rockies and Nyjer Morgan’s dribbler up the middle in the 10th inning of 2011 NLDS Game 5 against the D-backs, which gave Milwaukee its first postseason series victory in 29 years.
(Side note: In an incredible twist of fate, Morgan threw one of Game 2's ceremonial first pitches. Talk about good timing.)
Those were epic moments for the franchise, but the game was tied going into the final inning of those games. Sunday’s was the first last-inning comeback in the postseason that began with the Brewers trailing.
And naturally, it was Chourio at the plate.
"We’re a team that never backs down," Chourio said. "We’re never going to back down from a challenge, and we like these moments. We’re going to keep going, and we’re going to battle for every opportunity that we get."
The Brewers didn’t look like their 103-win selves all afternoon -- 104 wins, if you count their stirring victory in Game 1 the night before. Postseason newbie Logan Henderson threw a costly wild pitch that led to a run in the first inning and the Brewers committed three errors, tying their season high and contributing to two more runs. They faced a 3-2 deficit going to the bottom of the ninth against Miller, who’d breezed through a 1-2-3 eighth, and was back on the mound for a second inning of work.
Then the Brewers did the thing Mitchell had talked about. After Mitchell grounded out to open the inning, Milwaukee’s newly anointed captain, Yelich, worked a walk. He stole second base. Frelick came back from a 1-2 count to walk, as well, putting the winning run on base.
When pinch-hitter Andrew Vaughn flew out to center field, the Brewers were, indeed, down to the 27th out. Another pinch-hitter coming in cold off the bench, Gary Sánchez, kept the game alive with two strikes by laying off a 103.3 mph fastball just a hair below the zone, followed by a dastardly slider in on the hands for a walk that loaded the bases. That brought up Chourio, one day removed from becoming, at 22 years of age, Milwaukee’s all-time leader in postseason home runs, and two innings removed from grounding out with the bases loaded in the seventh as Miller began to stir.
Given a second opportunity, Milwaukee’s Mr. October got the job done.
“Watching those at-bats beforehand, I knew that [Miller] was a little bit erratic,” Chourio said. “I knew that he was going to come at me with the fastball at some point, so mentally I was just making sure that I was prepared for that.”
In the dugout, Henderson waited for something special. After working five-plus innings in his career postseason debut, he’d done his arm care in the training room and made it back to the dugout by the seventh inning to see Chourio ground out in a big spot. When Chourio got another chance in the ninth, Henderson said he felt like he was watching “the best player on the planet right now.”
Aaron Ashby, one of three Brewers relievers (along with Abner Uribe and Trevor Megill) who pitched in each of the first two games of this series, had a similarly good feeling.
“He’s got that X factor,” Ashby said. “He’s literally just smiling, nodding his head.”
“You really don’t know what to say about it,” said Brewers veteran pitcher Brandon Woodruff. “Seriously, you’re running out of words. I guess he could have hit a homer there and that would have made it better. But that was pretty cool right there.”
Mitchell, too, was out of words. He just stood and watched with hitting coach Eric Theisen and rookie outfielder Luis Lara.
“I felt like I could see it in his eyes, like the dial turned a little bit,” Mitchell said. “His swings were getting just a little more aggressive.”
Out on the basepaths, Yelich and Frelick surveyed the situation. Yelich knew they had the right hitter at the plate, after Chourio set career highs in all three slash line categories (.291/.351/.487) during the regular season and authored his third straight 20-20 campaign to begin his career. The only other players to do that in the first three years of their career are Julio Rodríguez and Bobby Witt Jr.
Until Sunday, Chourio’s biggest hit of the year might have been his tying two-run homer in the ninth inning of a comeback win over the Cubs on Sept. 8, another night the Brewers were down to their final strike. That comeback was part of the three-game sweep that all but locked up the Brewers’ fourth straight division title.
“We’ve watched it all season in big spots, just how much he’s grown and matured as a player,” Yelich said. “You still forget how young he is because he’s been here for three years now, just learning himself.
“He loves those moments. And he knows how talented he is and what he can do on a baseball field. He can do anything.”
Three pitches into the at-bat, Chourio had seen three triple-digit fastballs and was down to his final strike. Miller went fastball again, this time at 103.5 mph on the low outside corner, and Chourio fouled it off.
Then came the key pitch. Miller threw one of his signature sliders that started in the strike zone before darting down towards the dirt. Chourio laid off it for ball two.
“This isn’t necessarily a sport where you just put on a cape and go out and dominate or go hit someone or check someone,” said Frelick, who grew up in Boston playing hockey. “You just have to take what the game gives you and be ready to execute.”
In a 2-2 count, the game came to Chourio. Miller fired another fastball, 101.3 mph in a hittable spot. It was his 40th pitch.
“At that point, I was just trying to be in the strike zone,” he said.
Chourio lined it past second baseman Jake Cronenworth for his 14th and 15th postseason RBIs, leaving him behind only Ryan Braun (16) for the most in franchise history. More importantly, he put the Brewers in commanding position in the series. In all best-of-five postseason series, teams with a 2-0 lead have gone on to win the series 83 of 93 times (89%). Teams that have won the first two games at home in Division Series with the current 2-2-1 format have gone on to win the series 33 of 36 times (92%).
“Terrible. I didn’t do my job today,” Miller said. “Instead of being here with a win and the series tied, we’re in a hole.”
Chourio has said he believes he was born for moments like this, staring down the best closer in baseball with the Brewers down to their last strike on a day they only faintly resembled the team that won 103 games during the regular season. And he’s been thinking lately about when he began to feel that way. Chourio thinks he knows the answer.
It was April 6, 2024, a Saturday night against the Mariners at American Family Field, and Chourio’s seventh game in the big leagues. He was 19 years old, the youngest player in the Majors, batting ninth on a night he hit his second career home run. But when he had another chance to bat with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning against Seattle closer Andrés Muñoz with the bases empty and the Brewers down two runs, Chourio struck out swinging for a 5-3 loss.
“At that point, everything turned for me,” Chourio said. “I told myself I was never going to make the last out. I’d dedicate myself to fighting and doing whatever I could for the team and not having that feeling ever again.”
The Brewers are thankful he had that little chat with himself.
“It’s belief,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “They have a belief.”