LOS ANGELES -- Budding Brewers superstar Jackson Chourio wasted no time stunning the Dodger Stadium crowd.
Chourio crushed the first pitch of Game 3 of the National League Championship Series -- a center-cut 97.6 mph four-seamer from Dodgers left-hander Blake Snell -- for a homer to right-center on Wednesday.
It marked the 17th first-pitch leadoff homer in the postseason since pitch counts started being tracked (1988). Chourio, who also did this in last year’s NLCS Game 2 -- which was one year to the day before Wednesday’s long ball -- joined George Springer as the only players with two of those.
Snell, who served up a first-pitch home run to Davis Schneider in last year’s World Series, is the only pitcher to give up two such homers.
With the long ball, Chourio entered into a four-way tie with Shohei Ohtani, Derek Jeter and Jimmy Rollins for the second most postseason leadoff home runs with three. Kyle Schwarber has five. All other players in postseason history have combined for just one leadoff homer before turning 23 (Ronald Acuña Jr.). Chourio also moved ahead of teammate William Contreras for the most career postseason home runs (six) by a Brewer; two of those have come this October.
Chourio's leadoff homer is also the sixth first-pitch long ball in the top of the first in a postseason game since pitch counts started being tracked (1988), joining Davis Schneider ('25 WS Game 5), Chris Young ('07 NLDS Game 3), Marcus Giles ('01 NLCS Game 2), Derek Jeter ('00 WS Game 4) and Marquis Grissom (1995 NLDS G2).
Chourio’s swing made even more history. He surpassed Schwarber and Hall of Famer Andruw Jones for the most postseason home runs and RBIs, respectively, before turning 23. Chourio has 18 RBIs in 19 games, while Jones collected 17 RBIs in 45 contests.
In last year’s NLCS Game 1 matchup against Snell, Chourio went hitless in three at-bats with two strikeouts.