Brice Turang’s night began with a foul ball off his kneecap and ended with the kind of all-around October performance that can change the shape of a series. Milwaukee’s second baseman tied the game with a fourth-inning homer, helped turn three crucial double plays and added a sacrifice bunt as the Brewers opened the NLCS with a 2-1 win over the Dodgers at American Family Field.
The adjustment was uncomplicated: stay inside the baseball. Turang had fouled off a pitch from Dodgers left-hander Tarik Skubal in his first trip to the plate, and when he returned in the fourth inning, he was looking to keep his hands tighter and drive the ball through the middle of the field. Instead, he caught a 2-0 inside sinker and sent it into the left-center seats to erase Los Angeles’ 1-0 lead.
“I wasn’t trying to hit a homer,” Turang said. “I was trying to hit a nice line drive back up the middle.”
That swing had been waiting on him in the cage. After going 2-for-16 in the Division Series against San Diego, Turang remained at the ballpark late Friday to work with hitting coach Daniel Vogelbach. The focus was on a cleaner path to the ball: no dropping the hands, no cutting across the zone, just getting the barrel directly to the pitch and letting his athleticism do the rest.
Manager Pat Murphy was around the ballpark with his children that night and watched Turang’s extra work unfold. On Sunday, Murphy said the game swing was precisely what the Brewers had been trying to restore.
“That’s what he was working on, exactly,” Murphy said. “Instead of his hands dropping and cutting across, to just get straight to the baseball.”
Vogelbach sees a player who can be exacting about his mechanics and knows when his feel has wandered over the course of a long season. Jake Bauers offered much the same read: Turang understands his own swing and is willing to stay late until it returns. The home run was only Turang’s second in postseason play and his seventh against a left-handed pitcher across the regular season and playoffs.
Skubal did not regret challenging him with the sinker.
“I’m gonna tip my hat on a pitch like that,” Skubal said.
Bauers admired the compact violence of the swing. “He kept his hands tight, and just put a barrel on it,” Bauers said. “He’s not that big when you look at him, but the whip he can generate is second to none.”
Turang’s glove had already left its mark before he stepped into that fourth-inning at-bat. He ranged behind second base to backhand Mookie Betts’ ground ball in the first inning, then threw across his body to get the out. Later in the inning, he took Cooper Pratt’s relay on Will Smith’s grounder and completed an inning-ending double play.
The next inning brought the bigger escape. Los Angeles had scored, loaded the bases and put Jacob Misiorowski through a demanding frame when Kiké Hernández hit a grounder that gave Pratt a chance to start a double play. Turang’s quick relay to Bauers beat Hernández to first, limiting the Dodgers to one run and preserving a manageable deficit.
He helped turn another one in the fifth after DL Hall entered with Betts aboard following a walk. Freddie Freeman hit a grounder to Turang’s left, and the second baseman spun to feed Pratt at second. The return throw to first wiped out the threat immediately.
Murphy called Turang’s work in the field “incredible,” pointing to both the opening play on Betts and the turns that repeatedly took pressure off Milwaukee pitching.
After Turang’s homer pulled the Brewers even, Luis Lara supplied the go-ahead RBI single in the bottom of the fifth. Milwaukee then leaned on its bullpen, its infield defense and the small details that tend to matter most in tight postseason games. Turang’s later sacrifice bunt was another useful piece of that effort.
“He does everything,” Pratt said. “He defends, he hits, he runs, he knows the game, he’s a baseball rat, he wants to win, he’s a complete player.”
The opener stood in sharp contrast to Turang’s previous NLCS experience. He went 1-for-15 in last year’s series, when the Dodgers completed a four-game sweep. This time, Milwaukee has the early edge, and Turang has already touched the series with his bat, glove and instincts.
For Turang, the late-night cage work also carried a little comfort from long before October baseball. “Kind of grew up hitting all the time for late hours of the night,” he said. “So sometimes it brings me back to being a kid a little bit and enjoying just going in there and hitting in the cage.”
Game 2 is scheduled for Monday at 5 p.m. ET, with coverage on FOX, FS1, FOX Deportes and FOX One.
