The Brewers will face the Atlanta Braves in the third game of the National League Division Series on Monday afternoon at Truist Park.
More:NLDS game 2: Braves 3, Brewers 0 (final)
More:After the dominant pitching in Games 1 and 2, Brewers are trying to steer the offensive in the right direction
Join blog host JR Radcliffe as he brings you live updates from the press box. Make sure you update your browser to the latest version.
Stop us if you’ve heard this before. The Brewers don’t score
The Milwaukee Brewers funk, still clinging to two extra base hits for the entire series and still being crossed out, rolled on through to the fourth.
Avisaíl García just doesn’t see baseball. He hits for the second time today and now has seven strikeouts in nine at-bats in the series. Previously, Willy Adames hit a hittable pitch in the middle and Christian Yelich scored with an out. He stole second place during Rowdy Tellez’s at bat, but Tellez struck and the mini-threat was over.
The Brewers have now been beaten six times by strikeout against Ian Anderson. Two runs in 22 innings.
MILWAUKEE 0, ATLANTA 0, bottom 4
Peralta gives up hard contact, but no hits
Freddie Freeman made hard contact on a couple of fouls and Dansby Swanson opened the inning with a screamer right at Kolten Wong, but Freddy Peralta took a goalless third place including a strikeout from Freeman and pitcher Ian Anderson and a two-walk from Jorge Soler.
MILWAUKEE 0, ATLANTA 0, Top 4
Wong now 1 for 10 in NLDS as brewers cannot make hard contact in the third
Lorenzo Cain showed up, Freddy Peralta knocked out, and Kolten Wong fell to 1 for 10 on the series with a groundout for the first (and the only hit was a bloop single against Will Smith in Game 2). Just nobody makes hard contact today.
MILWAUKEE 0, ATLANTA 0, bottom 3
Serious baserunning error prevents braves from running
It appeared that Travis d’Arnaud had a victim flight in the second inning, but the Brewers caught a massive break. Christian Yelich caught the flyball and threw it to second base, and Kolten Wong wiped runner Adam Duvall a day before Austin Riley crossed the plate, at least according to home plate umpire Alfonso Marquez.
Riley opened the inning with a strange infield single to the right, possibly the result of a misunderstanding, and Duvall picked up a light single to the left.
Eddie Rosario put a very good swing on a ball that surely made the Brewers fans stomachs, but the ball died on the warning lane in the right field, even though it knocked the runners into the corners with an out.
d’Arnaud, who struck four times in Game 2 and entered the battle 0 for 6 in the NLDS, then hit a shot to the left that should have been deep enough with Yelich’s arm, but Duvall inexplicably tried to get from first to second to move and cost his team a run.
MILWAUKEE 0, ATLANTA 0, Top 3
Chipper Jones drops a pop-up in the stands. Brewer bats still calm
A moment of ease for the Braves Nation came at the top of the second when a foul pop fly was thrown from Luis Urías’s bat in one of the front rows of Hall of Famer Chipper Jones. Brutal drop to be honest.
But there isn’t much to laugh about for Brewers fans who have just witnessed the offensive go through another 1-2-3 inning. Rowdy Tellez was kicked out, Urías grounded and Omar Narváez also gently grounded.
Two runs. 20 innings. Reflecting what the Brewers collected in the sad Detroit Tigers series (that was just a 20 innings run) that sparked that run of the lethargic offensive.
MILWAUKEE 0, ATLANTA 0, bottom 2
Freddy Peralta only needs seven pitches in the first
Wow, blink and you missed the bottom of the first one.
Freddy Peralta knocked out Jorge Soler, led a high Freddie Freeman chopper straight back to the hill and made Ozzie Albies fly flat to the right. That’s a seven-pitch inning, a pretty good sign.
MILWAUKEE 0, ATLANTA 0, Top 2
Willy Adames has NLDS’s third hit, but Brewers doesn’t score
Kolten Wong landed on the second field against Braves starter Ian Anderson, and although Willy Adames followed with a single for his third NLDS hit, Christian Yelich and Avisaíl García both followed with strikeouts.
This may be a recurring theme, but Milwaukee has now completed 19 innings in the NLDS and hit with just one swing, the double homer of Rowdy Tellez in Game 1.
García has struck eight at-bats six times in this series. He also achieved a single and hit-by-pitch.
Anderson threw 17 pitches in the first frame.
Will this morning’s losing team send their ace?
As Tom Haudricourt from Atlanta points out, none of the teams have named a starter for Game 4. But the losing side is obviously about to be eliminated on Tuesday today, and would it make sense for that team to bring their ace back to try and take a short break?
Brian Snitker showed that he is at least thinking of Charlie Morton, who completed six mind-boggling innings before giving up two runs on Friday 7th and taking only three days off. The Brewers could potentially do the same to Corbin Burnes. It would go against the team’s conservative approach to the regular season, but as you know, this is a different time and place.
Adames was doing better again this season
Willy Adames’ team’s mid-season reveal has always been explained as leading him out of Tropicana Field, the home of the Rays and a place where Adames simply couldn’t hit the ball.
Adames is one of two Brewers players in the line-up (along with Luis Urías) to score two goals in the first two NLDS games, but as TBS points out in their pre-game coverage, Adames is still hitting better away, right like he did with Tampa.
Overall, Adames achieved .302 on the road with an .890 OPS and only .214 at home (.734 OPS) this year, but that’s also baked for the first month and a half at Tropicana Field.
At AmFam Field he got .236 this year with a .802 OPS – slightly better home numbers, but still a bit better on the road overall.
Perhaps a first-inning jolt from Adames will underscore those numbers.
It’s not going to be a four-game baseball day because Sox-Astros has been postponed
Today’s White Sox Astros game has been postponed until tomorrow due to thunderstorms in Chicagoland.
Brewers fans had to stay up late today if they were concerned about the timing of the first strike; If the Astros had finished a swing of the Red Sox, the Brewers-Braves game would have been postponed by three hours to the afternoon. The White Sox won and held Milwaukee by noon.
And now the battle in Game 4 between Houston and Chicago does not take place in the 3pm time window anyway. Milwaukee is supposed to get some of the same nasty weather, not that it matters since the game is in Atlanta and Milwaukee, you know, has a roof.
Ian Anderson had postseason success
Anderson has a 3.58 ERA and 1.23 WHIP, both numbers that are okay if unspectacular, making him the first starting pitcher in this series without a really noticeable stats line.
But while he only has 30 regular season starts in his career résumé, he was fatal as a postseason rookie last year, appearing in four games when the Braves went to the NLCS. Anderson did not allow runs on his postseason debut on two hits against the Reds with nine strikeouts, followed by 5 2/3 innings shutout ball against Miami (three hits, one walk, eight strikeouts).
He allowed a single hit over four innings in Game 2 of the NLCS against the Dodgers, despite running five batter in addition to five strikeouts. Then he came back to occupy a massive seat and started Game 7 of the NLCS against the Dodgers. He allowed two runs, five hits and two walks with two strikeouts in three innings, a game Los Angeles won just under 4-3 on the way to a World Series title.
But needless to say, the moment won’t be too big for Ian Anderson, although this will be his first playoff appearance with fans. He has 0.96 ERA in 18 2/3 postseason innings.
Anderson still holds rookie qualification and will do even better in this year’s Rookie of the Year race than he did in seventh place last year.
The starting line-ups are set and Eduardo Escobar is on the bench
The Milwaukee Brewers are at Truist Park in Atlanta and need a win today or tomorrow to extend their season. The Brewers start at noon, and Luis Urías, who is frankly one of the team’s best attacking players, gets started at third base ahead of Eduardo Escobar, a close-of-trade takeover that hasn’t quite gotten off the ground.
Escobar actually ended the season well with five doubles among his seven hits in 13 at-bats in the last four games of the year. It did not carry over into the postseason with a single out of seven at-bats in the tiny sample of two games with four strikeouts.
Urías scored a promising .789 OPS that year despite not always having a full-time spot on the field, and he went 2 for 4 in Game 2 after failing to appear in Game 1.
Speaking of players who really struggled towards the end of the season, Omar Narváez is back in the Catcher line-up after not playing in Game 2.
The Braves don’t play with their formula. It’s the same players with eight positions and the same line-up for all three games so far, this time with pitcher Ian Anderson on the bump.
Milwaukee Brewers
1. Kolten Wong, 2B
2. Willy Adames, SS
3. Christian Yelich, LF
4. Avisaíl García, RF
5. Rowdy Tellez, 1B
6. Luis Urias, 3B
7. Omar Narváez, C.
8. Lorenzo Cain, CF
9. Freddy Peralta, RHP
Atlanta Braves
1. Jorge Soler, RF
2. Freddie Freeman, 1B
3. Ozzie Albies, 2B
4. Austin Riley, 3B
5. Adam Duvall, CF
6. Eddie Rosario, LF
7. Travis d’Arnaud, C.
8. Dansby Swanson, SS
9. Ian Anderson, RHP
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