3 hours ago
1
He probably should have taken one for the team.
Brewers second baseman Brice Turang stepped up to the plate with the bases loaded and two outs in the ninth inning against Dodgers closer Blake Treinen when the right-hander’s sweeper burrowed down in and near his ankles and into his own batter’s box.
Turang avoided the pitch as it nearly nicked his knee and would have forced in the game-tying run.
On the very next pitch, Turang swung at a 99 mph fastball well above the zone to end the game and give the Dodgers a 2-1 win and a 1-0 series lead in the NLCS.
After the game, Turang acknowledged that he should have leaned into that one to help his team tie up the ball game.
“It sucks. It is what it is,” Turang said. “Natural reaction to kind of get out of the way, and there’s nothing I can do, I can’t go back. And then I was looking up at the top of the zone for the sinker/sweeper that he’s throwing, and he threw me a four-seam, and it took off. So, it is what it is.”
Treinen had come into the game after the Brewers had chased Roki Sasaki, who failed to get the final three outs after Blake Snell pitched eight brilliant one-hit innings.
Treinen walked William Contreras to load the bases before striking out Turang.
Brewers manager Pat Murphy defended his second baseman after the tough result in the game’s final plate appearance.
“When the ball is coming towards you, your natural thing — it’s a breaking ball, your natural thing is to do that,” Murphy said, according to MLB.com. “And I know he was thinking the same thing after the ball passed. It happens. He’ll learn from that situation. But it’s hard. Even if you try to maneuver yourself, it’s hard to get hit by the pitch because it’s so reactionary.”
The Brewers send Freddy Peralta to the mound opposite Yoshinobu Yamamoto on Tuesday night for Game 2.
English (US)