Come On Back From the Ledge for a Spell: William Contreras Would Not Let Brewers Lose Game 2

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No fear. No fear, and no self-doubt. No fear, and no self-doubt, and no waiting around. William Contreras felt responsible for the run the Dodgers scored in the top of the first inning Monday, giving the visitors another near-immediate lead and forcing the Brewers to play from behind against the untouchable mega-ace of the last two Octobers, Yoshinobu Yamamoto. He was responsible for it. A Logan Henderson changeup did hit the dirt well in front of home plate, with Mookie Betts at second base, but it came up into Contreras's chest, rather than skipping wildly or staying down in some unpredictable fashion. Contreras should have blocked it, but he failed to, and a few pitches later, Betts came home from third with the first run of the game.

Contreras isn't perfect. That's never been his game. When he first arrived in Milwaukee, he was a poor framer, failing to maintain a tidy strike zone for his pitchers. He cleaned that up nicely, but went through a long period where his arm (though very strong) was inaccurate, so he struggled to control the running game. The last two years, his accuracy has gotten dramatically better. But he struggled mightily blocking errant pitches this season, and that has been a costly shortcoming already this postseason. Meanwhile, at the plate, he's played through some injuries and gone through long, profound power outages. No matter. His greatest trait on the diamond is not his bat speed or his arm strength. It's his tenacity, and second on the list is his resiliency. He plays without fear, or self-doubt, and he never waits for the game to give him the next opportunity to make up for a mistake. Instead, fueled by confidence and his desire to make good, he makes things happen.

In the bottom of the same inning in which he cost the team a run, he got the chance to even the score. Brice Turang slashed a beautiful opposite-field double against Yamamoto, bringing up Contreras with a runner in scoring position and one out. Yamamoto jumped ahead of him 0-2, with back-to-back fastballs on the inner edge of the plate. He missed badly with the next two pitches, though, evening the count. Contreras had a sense of what was coming: something low, maybe even dipping out of the zone. He could have taken the approach of programming a take on that pitch, but he would have risked staring at strike three, if Yamamoto had dotted the bottom rail of the zone with an unexpected fastball. Instead, Contreras was ready. He got a slider, rather than the splitter Yamamoto had tried on the previous pitch, but it was in much the same position as that pitch had been. It was, in fact, about ankle-high on the outer edge of the plate. It's a strikeout pitch. It's a death sentence for any hitter who swings at it. Contreras, though, is a freak. He scooped that ball into left field, a humpback line drive that allowed Turang to score.

His salvific services would be needed again, though. After a third-inning back-and-forth left the Brewers up 3-2, the Dodgers found two runs in the top of the fifth. Milwaukee had already chased Yamamoto, but now, they had to finagle another comeback, with the countdown clock starting to tick. Indeed, the Dodgers had nearly gotten to the halfway point. Contreras stepped into the box against lefty Kris Bubic with Los Angeles having recorded 13 of the 27 outs they needed, and Bubic started him with a strike. You can't get any closer to being exactly halfway to the end of a game, as the winning team. Then, Contreras turned off the clock, the way you turned off your alarm clock when the snooze button wasn't emphatic enough: by firing it off the back wall.

Contreras's long, screaming homer felt like the hammer falling on the Dodgers, but it really only restored parity. The knockout blow would have to come an inning later. The Dodgers should have known better. They faced a tough situation, with a runner on third and one out and the left-hitting Turang due up against righty reliever Brock Stewart. They could have gone to a lefty to take on Turang, but he would have been locked into a matchup with Contreras afterward. Instead, they intentionally walked Turang. They should, really, have known better, but Dave Roberts got away with two bad intentional walks in Game 1 and seemed to be feeling himself. Contreras didn't wait around. Stewart threw a first-pitch sweeper that stayed up and on the outer third, and although he caught it off the end of the bat, the All-Star catcher dumped the ball safely into left field again. It was 5-4 Brewers, and the game felt over. The series felt over.

Three huge at-bats; three huge postseason hits. Contreras hasn't been perfect all postseason. He was as good as perfect in Game 2, though. The Brewers needed him to deliver three times to vanquish the defending champs and take a 2-0 lead in the series. That's a very tall order, but Contreras filled it, with fearless swagger and no small amount of baseball IQ. Every time there was even the slightest temptation to worry, Contreras alleviated it. Now, the team can head to Southern California feeling loose and completely in control.