Jake Bauers kept Milwaukee’s October push moving with one stubborn at-bat, turning an 11-pitch showdown into a two-run swing that put the Brewers back in front in Game 3 of the National League Championship Series in Los Angeles.
| Game situation | Score | Key play |
|---|---|---|
| End of six innings | Dodgers 2, Brewers 1 | Los Angeles rallied for two runs to take the lead. |
| Top of seventh | Brewers 3, Dodgers 2 | Bauers hit a two-run homer off Blake Snell. |
| Top of seventh | Brewers 4, Dodgers 2 | Garrett Mitchell followed with a home run. |
Bauers wins the long fight
Andrew Vaughn started the seventh with a walk, ending Snell’s run of 14 consecutive Brewers retired. Bauers then stepped in and made the Dodgers left-hander work.
Snell got ahead with a called strike, but Bauers watched two pitches miss the zone before swinging through a changeup. With two strikes, he stayed alive by fouling off a slider and a changeup. After taking ball three, he fouled away a four-seam fastball, another changeup and another slider.
Snell finally went back to the heater on pitch No. 11. Bauers was ready, driving it into the right-field seats for his first homer of this postseason. The blast traveled a projected 412 feet and changed a one-run deficit into a Milwaukee lead.
It marked only the sixth postseason home run hit on the 11th pitch of an at-bat or later since pitch tracking began in 1988.
Mitchell follows immediately
Mitchell came up next and went deep as well, pushing the Brewers’ advantage to 4-2 and ending Snell’s night. The back-to-back shots were the third such postseason pair in franchise history.
- Jake Bauers and Sal Frelick also went back-to-back in Game 3 of the 2024 National League Wild Card Series.
- Orlando Arcia and Keon Broxton did it in Game 3 of the 2018 National League Division Series.
The human note
A few years ago, Bauers came close to walking away from the game. Instead, he stayed with it, and now he has delivered another defining October moment for Milwaukee. His 12-pitch walk helped swing Game 2 of this NLCS toward the Brewers. In Game 3, he needed 11 pitches to supply an even louder answer.
