In Pivotal Middle Innings of Game 1 Loss, Brewers Offense Got Exploited By Luis Severino, Mets

As good as the Milwaukee Brewers' offense has been all year, they do have a patterned weakness. Because the team is built around principles like being contact-oriented, using the whole field, and not expanding the strike zone, they like to hit the outside pitch. They do their greatest damage on pitches where they can get their arms extended, and they are more consistently able to move the ball the way they want even without power when pitchers throw toward their natural comfort zones, on the outer third of the plate.

Come inside with a fastball, though, and the Crew are pretty vulnerable. This season, they had the fourth-lowest weighted on-base average and second-lowest slugging average on four-seamers and sinkers from the inner third of the plate farther in. Now, the first number was still .320, because by and large, pitchers can't afford to come inside with fastballs very often and expect success. If it's done as a show-me, it must often be in off the plate, and then all a hitter needs is the discipline to let it go. If it's on the plate, it's a pitch that might tie up the right hitter, if they aren't expecting it--but it's also a pitch that can be hit about 430 feet if the hitter is ready. The Rays' wOBA on inner-third fastballs this year was the league's worst, at .307. That's also the league's overall average wOBA for the year. Throw the Yankees inner-third fastballs, and they slug .498, with a .386 wOBA.

The Brewers do a fine job of waiting out those fastballs, most of the time, and even if they go for a called strike, the Milwaukee batter knows they might get something more conducive to their swing on the next pitch. When it comes to actually hitting the inner-third fastball squarely, though, they do a poor job. Brice Turang and William Contreras handle that pitch fairly well, but all year, it's eaten up the likes of Rhys Hoskins, Joey Ortiz, and Jake Bauers.

Right away in the first inning, though, Contreras set a positive tone. He did what he's done countless times this year, getting his hands in just enough to put the barrel on a high, inside fastball from Luis Severino to put the Brewers ahead 1-0, shooting the ball through a wide hole on the right side of the infield. The Brewers were exceptionally aggressive against Severino in Game 1 of the Wild Card Series, and the early returns on that surprising tack were encouraging.

The Mets and Brewers seesawed their way into the middle innings, and Sal Frelick did another fine job on an inside heater from Severino, rocketing his double into right field to catalyze a fourth-inning rally and give the home team the lead. After that, though, everything changed.

You already know about the meltdown in the top of the fifth. The Brewers' two key strengths lapsed at the worst possible times, and although they were this close:

to escaping the jam with no damage, they instead gave up five runs. (Joel, buddy: get over there sooner. Or take a better route to the base. Or, once you have the ball and a step on him like this, just launch yourself sideways into his path. Come on, man.) They would need their offense to muster a comeback.

That was not in the cards, because Severino had settled in--thanks to the inside fastball. He mowed the Brewers down with it, getting not only weak contact in a few early instances and a key double play off the bat of Hoskins in the third inning, but a parade of harmless air outs once the Brewers were ahead and their hitters started pressing.

Throughout the season--but especially in the second half--Severino has brought along his sweeper, turning it into a fearsome offering he throws over a quarter of the time, and which induces whiffs on nearly 39 percent of opponents' swings.

Several times in the middle innings Tuesday, though, it wasn't the sweeper that got the Brewers out, but the expectation of it. Knowing that the Crew would have him scouted carefully and be looking away, sitting on the sweeper and the outside-lane fastball that might set it up, Severino instead went repeatedly to his four-seamer and sinker, running them in on right-handed batters.

The weak contact piled up, the innings got late early, and Severino gave the Mets six strong innings to help cushion their recent heavy use of a weary bullpen. By the end of the game, 12 Brewers plate appearances had ended with heaters on the inner third, or in off the plate. There was Contreras's single, Frelick's double, a walk and a hit batsman in the first inning--and nine outs on the other eight decisive pitches, most of which looked a lot like this.

No other team had more than seven plate appearances end on such pitches Tuesday. Severino, and relievers José Butto and Ryne Stanek, got right into the Brewers' kitchens, and it shut down their offense for the second half of the game. Pat Murphy's charges will have to prove they're not only undaunted and relentless, but nimble and adaptable, because they can't let the game be decided on inside heaters to them again Wednesday. If they do, it will spell the end of their season.