MILWAUKEE — The cleanup man had to think small. The Milwaukee Brewers’ season was alive again; Jackson Chourio, their fearless phenom, had made sure of that. But now Willy Adames was down in the count with the bases empty and two outs in the eighth inning. Facing another early playoff knockout, Adames knew what he had to do.
He dug his red cleats in the dirt. Why red? No reason, Adames said, except to change the Brewers’ luck. They had lost to the New York Mets the night before, their defense and bullpen sloppy, their offense silent. Adames, who once struck out looking to end a World Series, needed to be aggressive, needed to be the spark.
“I was just fighting, fighting, trying to get a walk or something, but I needed to put the ball in play and try to get to first,” Adames said after a pulsating 5-3 victory Wednesday that forced a decisive Game 3 of this National League Wild Card Series. “We’ve got to keep the momentum going in that inning.”
After two quick strikes, Adames took a high cutter from Phil Maton, well out of the zone, then lunged for a curve on the corner. Foul ball. Maton came back with another curve, this one inside. Foul ball. The sixth pitch swept above the zone — a ball, but a pitch that invited Adames to extend his arms. He did and smashed a single to left, his first hit of the series.
From the on-deck circle, Garrett Mitchell watched closely. Mitchell had entered the game as a pinch runner in the sixth inning, representing the tying run. He had one job — everybody knew it — and failed, caught stealing second by Mets catcher Francisco Alvarez.
It was a perfect throw, Mitchell knew, right on the hands, nothing he could have done. Back in the dugout, teammates slapped him on the butt. Forget it. Pat Murphy, the sharp-jawed manager, sent the same message.
“Without words,” Mitchell said. “I looked at Murph, Murph looked at me, smiled, and we just kept pushing.”
Adames’ single pushed Mitchell to the plate. The tenacity he’d just witnessed, from a team leader and free agent-to-be trying to extend his stay in Milwaukee, inspired him.
“He’s always prepared in the big moment,” said Mitchell, a third-year Brewer whose frequent injuries never seem to break his spirit. “That motivates you if you’re behind him. You see the type of battle he put up. I think that kind of led to me going up there and being prepared, knowing that they’ve got to get a pitch over the plate somehow.”
As Mitchell waited, the Mets met at the mound to discuss their plan, which was not for Maton to roll a first-pitch curveball into the barrel of Mitchell’s left-handed swing. When he did, Mitchell powered a deep drive toward the fence in right-center — and hoped.
GARRETT MITCHELL
GO-AHEAD HOMER pic.twitter.com/HP8y8gCjjw— MLB (@MLB) October 3, 2024
“I was kind of like, ‘Go, go, go, go,’” Mitchell said, and when it struck the top of the wall and caromed upward, he knew: two-run homer, two-run lead. Mitchell twirled in delight after touching first base, roaring, exhorting the crowd with both hands.
“The energy in the stadium that whole eighth inning, you felt it,” Mitchell said. “It was like they were just waiting for something to erupt.”
Waiting? If there’s one thing a Brewers fan knows, that’s it. The franchise, now in its 55th season in Milwaukee, has never won a championship. Its lone pennant came in 1982. The Brewers lost two NLCS in the 2010s, both times dropping the clincher at home. In the 2020s, before Wednesday, they were 1-8 in the postseason.
So, yes, the Brewers and their fans have waited a while. But all day, Adames sensed, the players seemed calm. The threat of another swift exit did not disturb them.
“I don’t think we were thinking about it today,” Adames said. “I mean, in the clubhouse, you didn’t see the energy going down at any point today, and I think that was great. That was huge that we stayed positive the whole game and we were able to come back. I mean, we did that a lot this whole year. But to do it in the postseason, I think that’s incredible.”
It was especially incredible for the Brewers. This was their 53rd postseason game and first victory when trailing in the eighth inning. The last when trailing in the seventh came in the fourth game of the 1982 World Series — so long ago that a baby born that day would have reached legal drinking age before Chourio appeared on the planet.
Chourio, who turns 21 in March, is the Brewers’ new centerpiece, a left fielder with power and speed who signed an eight-year, $82 million contract in December, before he’d played a game in the majors. In his debut, on opening day against the Mets at Citi Field, he led off the game with a walk. This time, he led off the bottom of the first with a homer.
Leading off again in the eighth, trailing 3-2, Chourio lined an opposite-field blast off the Miller Lite sign above the Mets bullpen in right. He is 4 for 8 in this series, unflappable and — as the Brewers love to say — undaunted.
“He’s unbelievable, man,” Adames said. “That guy’s crazy. We just told him, I said, ‘Man, I’m proud of you, the way that you’re showing up this postseason. Twenty years old, you’re a kid, and you’re going out there and performing when we need you the most.’ That’s something — I think he was just born with it.”
Chourio, whose first homer came with the Brewers trailing 1-0, became the first player to hit two score-tying home runs (not go-ahead homers) in the same postseason game since a certain Yankee in Game 4 of the 1928 World Series in St. Louis: George Herman Ruth.
It’s a little early to anoint his successor as Babe Chourio. But the 20-year-old Milwaukee savior — who set up Adames and Mitchell for the go-ahead hits, rewarded five relievers for their flawless work, and gave hope to fans desperate for it — grasped the grandeur of the achievement.
“I think the adrenaline is still getting to me,” Chourio said later, through an interpreter. “It was a very special moment for me, and it’s one I’m going to look back on and remember for the rest of my life.”
(Photo of Garrett Mitchell: Stacy Revere / Getty Images)
