Jake Bauers' Epic 12-Pitch Walk Set Stage for Brewers To Take Game 2

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How often can you say a game-changing plate appearance happened in the third inning? Well, in the postseason, it can occur at any time.

Most remember walk-offs or late-inning hits that lead to a team winning a game. But Monday, the biggest plate appearance happened in the bottom of the third inning of the NL Championship Series between the Milwaukee Brewers and the two-time defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers.

It was a walk—it was the walk heard 'round Wisconsin.

And because of it, the Brewers have a 2-0 lead over the Dodgers thanks to a 7-4 win. Four wins are needed to get through the NLCS. A trip to the World Series, their first since 1982, awaits if they get two more. It won't be easy as the next three games are in Los Angeles.

The Dodgers had just taken a 2-1 lead in the top of the third inning against Brewers rookie right-hander Logan Henderson. Perhaps the Dodgers were about to go on and add more runs against Henderson and go on to even the best-of-seven series at a game apiece.

After all, the Dodgers had right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto on the mound, last year's World Series MVP. The Japanese star began his impeccable postseason run against these Brewers in Game 2 of last year's NLCS, throwing the first of back-to-back complete games. Those were the first complete games of Yamamoto's brief MLB career.

So it had to creep into the Brewers' minds that Yamamoto was about to throw a shutdown inning and give the Dodgers' bats a chance to tack on.

Only the Brewers had other ideas.

David Hamilton, the light-hitting No. 9 batter, led off with a single to center. Star leadoff hitter Jackson Chourio lined out to right fielder Kyle Tucker, who made a nice running play. Hamilton easily stole second and one of the Game 1 heroes, Brice Turang, walked. William Contreras, who would make his own mark on this game with two run-scoring singles and a solo homer, flew out to center, with the runners still at first and second.

Up came Bauers. A surprising big piece of the Brewers' offense this season with a team-high 26 homers to go along with 86 RBIs, Bauers didn't have a good at-bat in his first trip to the plate against Yamamoto. He popped up to catcher Will Smith on five pitches.

Yamamoto wishes he only needed five pitches against Bauers in his second time up. Bauers, a left-handed hitter, got ahead in the count 2-1, with Yamamoto getting back into the count with a curveball at the top of the zone. The next pitch was a ball high and outside. Full count. Two outs. Two on.

The fun was about to begin.

97 mph four-seamer up and in. Fouled off.
77.7 mph curveball down and in. Fouled off.
95.7 mph sinker middle up. Fouled off.
97.4 mph four-seamer up and off the plate inside. Fouled off.
93.7 mph cutter just a little below the previous pitch. Fouled off.
92.3 mph splitter missed low and outside. Fouled off.

Six straight foul balls. The tension of the postseason, even on a late-afternoon start on a Monday, was intense. The sellout gathering at American Family Field was with Bauers on every pitch, every swing.

Finally, after swinging at three pitches that were out of the strike zone, the last three swings, Bauers didn't swing. Ball four was in the dirt. After a scintillating 12-pitch battle with one of the best pitchers in all of MLB, the journeyman first baseman trotted to first with a walk that loaded the bases.

Bauers, as the Brewers have preached all season, did his job and handed the baton to the next hitter, That guy was Christian Yelich, the newly christened captain of the Crew. After a poor finish to the regular season and speculation over his postseason role rampant, Yelich has found a second wind after being named captain. Yelich lined a 1-0 curveball right down the pipe to center. Two runs scored. The Brewers had the lead at 3-2. That lead wouldn't hold. The Dodgers took a 4-3 lead, then the Brewers tied it 4-4.

But what Bauers did wore down Yamamoto. After Yelich's hit, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts did what no one had on their bingo card entering the game: removing his ace with two outs in the third inning. Yamamoto had thrown 75 pitches. A Yamamoto game usually means a light day for the bullpen. Not on this day.

Bauers exhausted Yamamoto with a plate appearance that took 7 minutes, 15 seconds.

It was Yamamoto's shortest of 11 postseason starts. The 2⅔ innings matches what Yamamoto pitched to close out Game 7 of the World Series last year.

This year's Game 2 was different. No complete game. Instead, a parade of seven Dodgers relievers. The Brewers have now beaten Yamamoto and Tarik Skubal, the two-time reigning AL Cy Young Award winner in the first two games of the series.

Blake Snell, another two-time Cy Young Award winner, awaits in Game 3.

But as Yamamoto found out, these Brewers are different. They have expected to perform on this stage. They have done just that.

And a 12-pitch walk has the Brewers with an improbable series lead and halfway to a long-awaited trip to the World Series.

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Steve Drumwright grew up in Wisconsin and was forced out of youth baseball when he failed to make enough contact to play the sport he loves. He did make one memorable pitching appearance, summoned from right field in a blowout. Steve went on to a successful journalism career, beginning as a part-time high school sportswriter in small-town Wisconsin to becoming the No. 2 person in the newsroom in San Francisco. Steve enjoys telling the stories of other people and how sports is a terrific vehicle for telling those stories. He now lives in Southern California. Follow him on Bluesky.