Crew Crushes Cubs, Counsell With An Early Sixer

The team with the best record in baseball—the Milwaukee Brewers—came into today’s NLDS game showing it, as they batted around and scored six runs in the bottom of the first after Michael Busch led off the game for the Cubs with a home run. The Brewers added three more tallies in the second and cruised to a 9-3 victory in front of 42,678 fans at Uecker Field at American Family Park on a gorgeous fall Saturday afternoon.

A Tale of Two Innings
Trailing the Cubs 1-0 in the bottom of the initial inning, Jackson Chourio, Brice Turang, and William Contreras hit three consecutive two-base hits off Cubs starter Matthew Boyd, giving Milwaukee a 2-1 lead. After Christian Yelich grounded out, Andrew Vaughn reached on a free pass, putting runners at first and second. Sal Frelick hit a lazy grounder to second, and in his haste to make a play, the normally sure-handed Nico Hoerner failed to get his glove down, and the ball trickled off his mitt. Frelick reached first on the E-4 and Contreras hustled home for the third run of the inning. Caleb Durbin struck out for the second out before Blake Perkins added an RBI single to left, scoring Vaughn. That marked the end of the day for Boyd, who was working on three days’ rest. Reliever Mike Soroka walked Joey Ortiz, and then Chourio knocked in two more with a base hit past a diving Dansby Swanson. Turang struck out to end the inning with the Brewers leading 6-1.

The second inning started much the same as the first for the home team. Contreras, Yelich, and Vaughn all collected base hits to load the sacks. Frelick flew to left after losing his bat and almost taking out manager Pat Murphy in the dugout. Luckily, the stair railing kept Murph from getting nailed, and the Brewers skipper laughed at the near miss.

Durbin then hit a flare into short center, scoring Contreras and Yeli to make the score 8-1. After a groundout and a second walk by Ortiz, Soroka left in favor of former Brewer Aaron Civale. Chourio hit a grounder to a diving Matt Shaw at third base, and ‘Chewy’ easily beat the throw but pulled up lame as Vaughn scored easily from third. After a brief moment with Murphy and the training staff, Chourio came out of the game for pinch-runner Isaac Collins. In a reprise of his first inning AB, Turang again made the third out via the K.

Civale and Ben Brown pitched well the last six and one-third, allowing only four hits and two walks while whiffing six Brewers.

But the damage had been done.

Top Performers
Jackson Chourio, 3-for-3, R, 2B, 3 RBI
Brice Turang, 2-for-5, R, 2B, RBI
William Contreras, 2-for-5, 2 R, 2B, RBI
Blake Perkins, 2-for-4, R 2B, RBI
Freddy Peralta, 5.2 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 3 BB, 9 K