MILWAUKEE -- The Brewers had the best record in baseball. The Padres finished as the hottest team in baseball. Their National League Division Series was always likely to be decided by the slimmest of margins.
But seriously? A cable on the roof of American Family Field?
In the most bizarre fashion imaginable, the Brewers won Game 1 of the NLDS with a 3-2 victory over the Padres on Saturday night -- after Ty France’s deep drive to left field hit a cable on the roof of the ballpark. Where it would have landed had it not been obstructed is open for debate.
But ultimately the ball settled in the glove of left fielder Jackson Chourio.
“I haven’t really been able to fully process it,” France said. “But it was a game-changing swing.”
“I came in here and said, ‘Incredible home-field advantage,’” Brewers third-base coach Matt Erickson said. “That’s the advantage you get when you win 103 games.”
The game began like every Major League game does -- with the exchange of lineup cards and a brief discussion of the ground rules for American Family Field. Erickson represented the home team in that gathering, and said home-plate umpire Nick Mahrley concluded with a few words about the roof trusses and cables high above the playing field, describing how a fly ball that hits in fair territory and lands fair is a live ball. If it’s caught, the batter is out. He ran through every possible scenario.
“We joked about it at the umpire meeting today,” said Padres manager Craig Stammen.
“I looked at everybody,” said Erickson, “and said, I haven’t seen this in six years, but it’s definitely happening tonight. They all started laughing.”
And sure enough, it happened.
“It’s unbelievable,” Erickson said. “You can’t make this stuff up.”
The Brewers grabbed a 3-2 lead in the seventh inning on William Contreras’ home run. That’s where things stood in the ninth when France came to the plate with one on and one out in the ninth and launched a towering drive toward the left-field corner.
He stood at home plate and watched it -- absolutely convinced it was leaving the yard either way, and mostly convinced that it was going to be a home run.
“I guess the biggest question was whether it was going to stay fair or foul,” France said. “I thought I backspun it and thought it was going to stay fair. Knew it was going out.”
In France’s mind, he’d just given the Padres a one-run lead (with Mason Miller looming in the bullpen). Or, at worst, it was strike one. Instead, Chourio camped under the ball and made the play -- preserving the Brewers’ lead.
It’s obviously impossible to tell where the ball would’ve otherwise landed. But it was certainly an outlier type of swing. France’s blast had a 49-degree launch angle. Only 10 over-the-fence home runs in the Statcast era have had a launch angle at least that high. There's never been a home run with a launch angle above 46 degrees at American Family Field.
“I wasn’t all that sure that it even hit anything,” Chourio said. “I thought I had a chance on that ball the whole time off the bat, and the only thing I realized is that it kind of changed directions.”
The Brewers have more in-house camera angles than even the national television broadcast, and two coaches said they saw definitively that the ball would have stayed fair had it kept sailing, unobstructed. From behind the plate, Brewers catcher Contreras had a good vantage point to settle the other question: Would it have gone far enough to be a homer?
He had no doubt.
“If that ball doesn’t hit there, it might break the glass up there,” Contreras said, referring to the wall of windows of the indoor golf facility above left field.
Brewers manager Pat Murphy had another theory.
"I think the only thing that you could probably figure on the ball that everybody's going to be talking about is that [Bob Uecker] decided to put his hand on it and swat it down so Chourio could catch it," Murphy said. "So thanks, Ueck."