Benny Sieu-Imagn Images
One of the fun things about the new Wild Card format is that after the first day, every game is an elimination game. On Wednesday, all four games could have ended with one team heading home and one team punching its ticket for the next round.
Three of them ended that way, and the one game left on the docket Thursday will end that way too, after the Brewers beat the Mets to even the National League Wild Card Series at one game apiece.
That kind of pressure is nothing new for the Mets, who spent pretty much the entire season dancing on a knife’s edge, but it’s certainly an unfamiliar feeling for the Brewers, whose playoff odds hadn’t dropped below 75% since May or below 90% since early August.
“I’m going to be honest with you: It’s hard to be tired when you’re playing playoff baseball,” New York third baseman Mark Vientos said following Tuesday’s Game 1 win. “I had a bunch of energy. I know all of us did.”
The Mets certainly didn’t come out flat on Wednesday night, but they did come out horizontal. I’ll explain what I mean by that in a moment, but I shouldn’t bury the lede any longer: This was the Jackson Chourio Game. Or at least it was the first Jackson Chourio Game; we could be in for a lot more Jackson Chourio Games over the next decade or two.
The 20-year-old, who entered the season as the no. 5 prospect in baseball, has already emerged as one of the game’s best young talents, and now he’s made it clear that he’s absolutely nails in the playoffs.
In Wednesday’s NL Wild Card Series Game 2 (Jackson Chourio Game 1), the Brewers left fielder ripped two game-tying home runs in a 5-3 Milwaukee win.
Sean Manaea and Frankie Montas faced off as starting pitchers for the second time in six days, and it really felt like a bizzaro-world repeat of last Friday’s regular-season matchup. In that game, Montas struck out six Mets, allowing two hits and two earned runs over four innings.
Manaea got shelled, giving up seven hits and six runs (five earned) over 3 2/3 innings. Naturally, in Wednesday’s bizarro-ballgame, Manaea was the dominant one, while Montas looked iffy and surrendered the unearned runs.
The Milwaukee fans exploded when Montas started off the game with a 97-mph called strike to Francisco Lindor. They were also fairly loud five pitches later, booing home plate umpire Chris Segal when Montas walked Lindor on a pitch that wasn’t particularly close to the zone.
A fielder’s choice and an infield hit later, Brandon Nimmo drove in the game’s first run with a groundball just to the right of first baseman Rhys Hoskins. Just like that, the Mets were in the driver’s seat.
Both OAA and DRS rate the Brewers as one of the top-three defensive teams in baseball. Second baseman Brice Turang led all players with 21 Defensive Runs Saved, and he may well win a Platinum Glove this season.
In true bizarro fashion, the Mets got their production by hitting a succession of seeing-eye groundballs to the right side of the infield. During the game, Matthew Trueblood noted that when opponents hit grounders and low liners toward the second baseman’s territory this season, the Brewers allowed an on-base percentage of just .210, the lowest in baseball. Maybe we can add that to the list of stuff that doesn’t work in the playoffs.
The inning ended when Willy Adames started a double play with a diving stop on a Pete Alonso grounder. Alonso may have had a chance to beat the throw, but he somehow stepped on his own bat coming out of the box, and after just a few steps, he tumbled to the ground hard enough to raise a cloud of dust.
