LOS ANGELES — Jake Bauers put his team’s determination on full display, getting the Milwaukee Brewers within one victory of their first World Series appearance in 44 years.
Bauers turned an 11-pitch at-bat into a go-ahead two-run homer in the seventh inning as the Brewers took a commanding 3-0 lead in the National League Championship Series with a 6-2 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Wednesday.
Milwaukee will aim for a sweep of the best-of-seven series on Thursday at Dodger Stadium.
Garrett Mitchell followed Bauers with a homer of his own as the Southern California natives put on a show in front of family and friends in a ballpark where the home team has played the bully for more than a decade.
“We play for each other. It’s as simple as that, man,” Bauers said. “Any time there’s a mistake, an error, a walk, pitchers give up runs, hitters strike out in a big spot, the only thing anybody’s thinking about is how can I help pick that guy up? How can I help pick that guy up and do my part to win this game?”
Rookie left-hander Robert Gasser gave up three hits over five scoreless innings as the Brewers moved closer to the franchise’s second trip to the World Series. The Brewers made their lone Fall Classic appearance in 1982 as an American League team, losing in seven games to the St. Louis Cardinals.
Jackson Chourio led off the game with a first-pitch homer off Dodgers left-hander Blake Snell as Milwaukee showed its power capabilities after finishing last in the NL in homers during the regular season with 154.
“Job’s not finished yet,” Mitchell said. “Just got to take it a day at a time, not really worried about what’s happened today, what happened yesterday or what’s coming tomorrow. We’ve just got to show up and continue to play our brand of baseball and continue doing it for one another.”
Will Smith hit a two-run double for the Dodgers, who won the last two World Series titles. Los Angeles is trying to become the first NL club to win three consecutive Fall Classic championships.
Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts moved Shohei Ohtani to sixth in the batting order with the superstar in a postseason slump. Ohtani went 1-for-2 with a walk and a hit-by-pitch. The Dodgers’ offense was held to five hits in Game 3 after collecting three in Game 2.
“I haven’t digested this one,” Roberts said when asked about potential lineup changes for Game 4. “They’re going to run a bullpen game. Just trying to figure out which guys we want to be in there, how you kind of construct the lineup, but I haven’t thought about that one yet.”
Snell appeared to recover from Chourio’s ambush home run before he was rocked by consecutive home runs with no outs in the seventh. Snell (0-1) allowed four runs on four hits over six-plus innings with two walks and nine strikeouts.
“I just left the fastball over the middle to Bauers,” said Snell, who was in the Tampa Bay Rays organization with Bauers from 2015-18. “… I’ve seen the ups and downs he’s been through, and it’s been a lot of downs. So for him to go through this right now, he’s earned it. Hats off to him. What an at-bat.”
Trailing 1-0 from the jump, the Dodgers managed to put their leadoff batter on base in four of the first six innings before finally breaking through.
Gasser was replaced by right-hander Abner Uribe to open the sixth, and the reliever walked three of the first four batters he faced to load the bases, including a walk to Ohtani. Smith delivered a double off the wall in left-center for a 2-1 lead after entering the game in a 1-for-25 slump.
Los Angeles failed to add onto the lead in the inning against left-hander DL Hall (3-0) when Enrique Hernandez and Tommy Edman struck out to end the threat.
Milwaukee responded immediately when Andrew Vaughn walked to open the seventh before Bauers’ epic at-bat. Two pitches later, Mitchell went over the wall in right-center for a 4-2 advantage to end Snell’s outing.
Bauers had a similar plate appearance in Game 2 when he worked a 12-pitch walk with two outs in the third inning and Christian Yelich followed with a two-run single.
“Yeah, there was for sure a moment where I thought to myself like, ‘Oh, you’re in it again,'” Bauers said. “As far as the approach for the at-bat, I didn’t want to miss a fastball.”
The Brewers added to their lead in the eighth when Brice Turang scored on a Justin Wrobleski wild pitch, and Joey Ortiz tacked on an RBI single in the ninth.
Hall threw 2 1/3 scoreless innings. Brewers closer Trevor Megill got the last four outs, striking out the final two batters, for his fourth save of the postseason.
–Doug Padilla, Field Level Media
