On Jacob Misiorowski bump day, the Brewers are always feeling good about their chances to win heading into the game. They seemed well on their way to one through the first couple of innings. Misiorowski was electric as usual and Jackson Chourio slugged his fourth homer of the homestand to lead off the game.
Misiorowski came into the day needing just five strikeouts to reach 200 Ks on the season. He reached that mark during the third inning. He becomes the 9th pitcher to have a 200 strikeout season in Brewers
franchise history and also reached that 200 K mark in the second-fewest IP in MLB history.
However, after four scoreless innings, Misiorowski ran into some barrels later in the game. He allowed a solo homer to Brooks Lee in the 5th to allow the Twins to tie it up. Then, after the Brewers scored two runs in the bottom of the 5th on a Jake Bauers homer and David Hamilton RBI double, Misiorowski again allowed the Twins to tie it on a two run home run by Kody Clemens.
Misiorowski got out of the 6th on an incredible leaping catch at the wall by Luis Lara and that would finish the day for him. Miz went six innings, allowing four hits, three runs, one walk, and struck out nine.
The game would stay tied at 3-3 for a while. The Twins threatened with the bases loaded against Aaron Ashby in the 7th and Abner Uribe in the 8th, but couldn’t scratch a run across. The Brewers couldn’t either. So this game went to extra innings.
DL Hall got the call for the 10th inning with the runner starting on second base. He induced a Josh Bell pop up to short for the first out of the inning. Then, Kody Clemens ripped a fly ball deep to right field that had trouble written all over it.
Then Luis Lara happened.
Lara crashed into the right field fence, but held on to make a spectacular catch and was able to get the ball in quickly to prevent the runner from tagging up to score. That catch swung the momentum back into the Brewers favor.
“I just knew, whatever happened happened, but I was going to find a way to make the play” Lara said.
Hall closed out a scoreless top half of the 10th, setting up the heart of the Brewers order to deliver.
With Brice Turang as the Manfred Man on second base, Garrett Mitchell was immediately issued an intentional walk to bring up William Contreras. Contreras struck out, leaving one out and two on for Jake Bauers.
Jake Bauers punched a single to left field, Turang was being waved home, the throw from Clemens was not quite in time to make the tag and the Brewers survived with a walk off winner.
“My first thought was ‘Oh my God, he’s gonna be out by a mile” Jake Bauers said postgame.
The Twins did challenge, but replay was quick to confirm and the celebration was on at American Family Field.
“This was the best team win in a long, long time” Pat Murphy said.
The Brewers had contributions from up and down the lineup. Aaron Ashby and Abner Uribe weren’t particularly sharp, but they each had scoreless innings. Hall secured his first decision of the season. Andrew Vaughn got his first start at third base in five years and performed well. David Hamilton had a big RBI double that allowed this game to get to extras.
Even Ji-Hwan Bae, who just arrived in Milwaukee this morning, dropped down two perfectly executed bunts, one for a base hit, one for a sacrifice, as he made his Brewers debut.
The Brewers were able to secure the series win and a 5-2 homestand. Now they’ll head back out to California for a week-long road trip against the Padres and Dodgers.
