The Brewers came within a swing or two of finishing off the Padres, but Tuesday’s 4-3 loss in San Diego sent the National League Division Series back to the clubhouse with work still waiting. Milwaukee leads the best-of-five set, 2-1, and will have another chance to close it out in Game 4 on Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET, 9 p.m. CT and 7 p.m. PT on FS1, FOX Deportes and FOX One.
Christian Yelich and Brice Turang were at the center of Milwaukee’s best late chances. Yelich continued to square up the baseball, while Turang finally found grass after a difficult start to the series. Neither moment, however, produced the decisive hit the Brewers needed to complete a sweep.
Yelich’s hard contact brings little reward
Yelich, Milwaukee’s newly named captain and longest-serving cornerstone, delivered an RBI single in the fifth inning on a liner to left-center that left his bat at 107.2 mph. It was his first postseason run batted in since his first-inning homer against the Dodgers in Game 7 of the 2018 NL Championship Series.
The hit helped Milwaukee even the game and created an opening for a bigger inning. The Brewers loaded the bases with two outs, but Turang’s soft ground ball went to shortstop Xander Bogaerts for a force play, leaving the extra runs on the table.
Yelich had one more crack in the ninth. After Turang drew a one-out walk against Michael King to put runners at first and second, Yelich jumped on King’s first-pitch slider. The ball came off the bat at 107.1 mph, but it skipped directly to Bogaerts, who started the game-ending double play.
“If that’s a step either way, it’s probably a good result,” Yelich said. “I hit it hard, but it was right at them. It’s unfortunate, and that’s baseball. You have to keep fighting. It is frustrating when the breaks do not go your way, but that happens sometimes.”
Yelich has only one RBI in the NLDS, yet his at-bats have offered little concern. He is 4-for-10 with a double, has delivered Milwaukee’s first hit in each of the three games, and drew the one-out walk in Game 2 that preceded Jackson Chourio’s walk-off two-run single.
“He has looked really good,” hitting coach Eric Theisen said. “He’s been on time and made hard contact. As a club, we have hit plenty of balls hard that turned into loud outs.”
Turang gets a hit, then turns toward Wednesday
Turang entered the seventh inning 0-for-10 in the series and 2-for-40 over his past 11 postseason games, with 14 strikeouts in that stretch. His two-out flare to left finally fell beyond the reach of a diving Jase Bowen, ending the skid.
“Some balls have gone right at people, and I have had some good at-bats,” Turang said. “I just have to keep working and moving forward. You want to improve every day.”
Manager Pat Murphy shifted Turang from second to fourth in Tuesday’s lineup, with Jake Bauers batting behind Chourio in the second spot. The adjustment came after Turang’s October downturn, a sharp contrast to the close of his regular season: he led the Majors in September with a .361 average and a .475 on-base percentage.
Theisen said the single itself mattered less than the way Turang has continued to work through his plate appearances.
“It is good when a ball drops and you get on base,” Theisen said. “But what matters is the pitch-by-pitch plan and how he is handling each at-bat. The process is the important part.”
Turang’s walk in the ninth gave Milwaukee its final opportunity, and he said the Brewers’ attention has already turned to the next game.
“I was trying to get a pitch I could handle, and it just did not happen,” Turang said of the fifth-inning grounder. “That’s fine. We have to move on and win tomorrow.”
Eleven left aboard in a missed clinching chance
Milwaukee left 11 runners on base and could not convert several promising innings into the one defining hit. Chourio went 0-for-4, though he drove in a run with a sacrifice fly in the fifth. Padres center fielder Jackson Merrill also took away a potential Chourio hit with a strong warning-track catch to begin the game.
Bauers finished 0-for-4 with a walk and four strikeouts.
“We put together some really good at-bats, hit the ball hard and gave ourselves a chance,” Turang said. “Sometimes you need that one big hit. We have to focus on winning tomorrow. The quality of the at-bats has been encouraging, and I trust everyone in this room.”
Theisen pointed to the length of a Milwaukee lineup that has found different contributors throughout the season.
“Nobody stays hot every day of the year,” Theisen said. “This lineup is deep. When one or two players go through a couple of games without producing the way they usually do, somebody else has stepped up. That has been one of the strengths of this offense all year.”
The Brewers have another night in San Diego to show it.
