Some playoff games flow like beautiful novels. Two ACE starters may have a duel – narratively satisfying. Maybe a pitcher tries to stop the opponent from attacking – who doesn’t like the story of siege? Or maybe Superstar Slugger absolutely tore apart – the greats of post-season baseball theory is still alive. But Monday night, the game played by the winemakers and the Cubs didn’t fit any of these tropes. The brewer fought the bullfight. The Cubs answered with Shota Imanaga, who gave up 15 home runs at the start of his last nine regular seasons, a brief pull. result? A disconnected game, best captured by disconnected reviews.
Justin Turner, the leading batsman
Justin Turner didn’t reach the lead. He made just 69 sets in the lead over his long Major League Baseball career, with only one in the past decade. He never got a lead in the playoffs. His intraday average this year is well below average – a 71 WRC+ and a negative war. Naturally, he won the lead in the Cubs’ most important game to date.
Why? Because Chicago manager Craig Counsell is not a dummy. The winemaker founded Aaron Ashby, his keen observer will point out in Game 1 on Saturday. Ashby is just a choice for Kyle Tucker and other Cubs left-wing contingents. Counsell’s counter move is simple. Another guy started with a left-handed relief guy? He will start with the left-handed right hand, more or less pinched nails.
The move was not immediately abandoned; Turner escaped gently to open the game. But the rest of the Chicago roster went to work immediately – single, walking, a massive home run by Seiya Suzuki. Blink 3-0. Even after the setback, brewers manager Pat Murphy tried to extend Ashby to the second inning, but that wasn’t the case. Ashby needs 43 pitches to get 10 batsmen. That’s right, 10 – His last batsman was Turner’s second, and Turner broke out with a simple single, chasing Ashby left and right. Counsell’s Gambit works perfectly. He somehow got two consecutive rows of rows in the series to the right of the high octane number.
The bomb goes away
Imanaga ended the year in a bad form. All of these home runs irritated his September era with annoying 6.51. His 6.68 FIP is somewhat worse. He played against San Diego in the first round of the playoffs as a batch inning choice behind opener Andrew Kittringe and gave up another blast on the way to uneven appearances (four innings, three strikeouts, two walks, one home run, two runs). But what would Kursel do instead of starting him?
The winemakers aren’t necessarily a home run team, but they’re open to the idea if invited. If not tempting, Imanaga’s arsenal has nothing. After a double-double single, Andrew Vaughn put on a belt-high sweeper and stuffed it into the left stadium rack. It was 3-3 before we left the first inning, but not that long. When the order’s top order reappeared in the third inning, Willson Contreras removed the 91mph fastball to rank Milwaukee at the highest. Christian Yelich followed closely behind, with a hard single that Counsell had seen enough people. After 46 courts and 8 outs, he went to the pen.
Miz!
Jacob Misourowski must eat sugary cereals for breakfast. I say that because I know I have a bowl of scrubs after my behavior and when Murphy turns to him to start the third round he shows similar symptoms. Think of his fastball as a terrorist who is 101 miles per hour? It was horrible when he raised it to 104, like he did it repeatedly in his first job.
Misiorowski is almost unpopular when it is on it. In the third inning, he won two weak spots, an overwhelming strikeout and a four-step walk. The second grounding ended the game, but it also showed Misiorowski’s mentality. After reaching out it cleanly, he ran to a full sprint, perhaps a little reluctant to believe in himself. He then succumbed to the roar in the playoff atmosphere.
The next inning brought more of the same thing – a magnified Miz, two strikeouts and five-shot walks, each court got getting crazier. Oh yes, the last batsman was Michael Busch, who, in Turner’s game, has put up a correct position on the mound. Again, you won’t beat Misiorowski when he is keyed but waiting for him. Nico Hoerner finally hit him on his fifth against the field line, but nothing went as you tried to join the 103mph fastball and the 95mph slider. The other three Cubs managed strikeouts and two weak fouls.
When Misiorowski finally left at the start of the sixth time, the winemakers were comfortable leading. The bear was never particularly close to tie anything together. I’m not sure how long he will be able to walk in his October appearance next year, or how many days of rest he’ll give after 57 adrenaline pumping courts. I believe it will watch electric, and the pups desperately hope that they will somehow perform a reverse scan in this series without having to face more 104 mph heaters. What a performance.
Action Jackson
Jackson Chourio missed the whole of August almost with his ham hamstring. His return looks less explosive, less powered, and more offensive methods. He then exacerbated the damage in the first game of the series, at least somewhat suspicious of his Monday night availability. His first two bats had two situations with the originally rolled up Imanaga. He rose for the third time? A towering, 419-foot home run to the dead center put the brewery up 7-3 in the fourth inning.
Is chourio back? It depends on how you define it. He was still moving around at times, and it was obvious that the hamstrings bothered him. He hit Bush when he hit first base in the sixth inning and looked slower as he continued the second inning (speed is not a problem; Dansby Swanson just entered foul territory and had little chance to play on the base). But on the other hand, he is exploding a huge home run and doing well in the foul field, where he turns a foul ball into a foul ball with smooth, separated wall grip. I don’t think he’s full strength, but he’s still a dangerous batsman, and even if his basic abilities are reduced, the brewer will be happy to continue with him.
We have ice
Caleb Durbin’s batting line in this game doesn’t look particularly impressive. He did not record the blow or take a walk. He played doubles. But in that fateful fourth inning, he saw a Daniel Palencia fastball heading in his usual direction and heroically threw his elbow at it. He grabbed the ball like you thought, hitting his arm directly, one of the moves that “like you get out of the way, but make sure to do the opposite”, which has been using Grind and Grind and Grind batsmen to accumulate free bases since ancient times.
It’s not accidental that Doberman leads the NL with 24 hits this year, with only three leading positions in Major League Baseball. Even more impressive than this. Durbin did this in his 506-dish appearance, while leader Randy Arozarena needed 709 to hit 27 hbps. You may not like this skill, but it is real, and Durbin is now the best in the profession.
These free basics are not always important. This time, they did it. Durbin’s position in the lineup produced a baseman instead of a knockout, which meant that when Blake Perkins then beat immediately, there were two outs instead of three. That means Palencia’s pitching more, and Joey Ortiz’s line-driven singles flip the lineup. You’ve read what happened next – Chourio hit the ball to Wauwatosa (the suburb of Milwaukee I promised) and gave the winemaker an insurmountable lead.
blockade
The Cubs’ offense may have been quiet on Misiorowski, but there is still time. After Milwaukee’s most terrifying arm left, they had 12 games to play with, but they couldn’t do anything about them, because the guy behind Miz was also pretty good. Chad Patrick beats two cubs in a perfect sixth place. Jared Koenig has been out four straight times with Vaughn’s huge help, who has performed well on foul territory, turning a possible infield single into one. Suddenly, there are only five situations to play, and Milwaukee hasn’t even chosen its later options.
By the time the eighth round was rolling, even the deficit in one game was almost unforgettable for the winemaker. Both Trevor Megill and Abner Uribe were spectacular this year, with a commensurate era and strikeout rate. Megill’s health is a matter of entering Game 2. His first appearance from flexor stress was the regular season finale, and he did not compete in the first game of the series. His stuff looks a bit reduced – fast balls slow, less attractive curves – but stuff is never a problem with giant rice. We play the little hot map of the stuff on the page? Their red is not as red as Megill. He looked annoying and even sat down with a tick, and he pounded the strike zone with Plus Command. Good luck, batsman.
No one knows how good the giants on Monday would be. There is no such doubt about the form of Uribe. He started in 2025 and he became stronger as the year went on, with his trademark sinker/slider duo beating his walking rate. The Cubs are just the latest victim as he beat the side on 13 courts and retired with a flashing slider below the strike zone. Winemakers don’t need a lockdown show from the bullpen, but Tuesday’s travel day, there’s no reason to leave any chances. After Murphy led the hammer, he kept putting it down.
in conclusion
Don’t let the early game deceive you; the winemakers absolutely burned the Cubs today. They have been on the basis of the threat to score in almost every inning and only release gas at the end. In the world, how would you do seven runs against their bullpen? This is not as close as the non-tight score line. Even before Chourio abandoned things, it didn’t seem particularly possible for the Cubs to put anything together to march with Milwaukee’s endless powerful relief workers.
I don’t know if the bullpen game will help Milwaukee’s long-term chance, but it’s hard to argue over one night on its effectiveness. A form of Misiorowski was thrown into the mix, and there wasn’t much time to score before the door was closed. Even with a pretty Turner leading Gambit, the Cubs have had many tough games with many great pitchers. I could imagine a seven-game series that dulls the effectiveness of the strategy, and the winemakers might tinker with the roster ahead of a potential championship series, but it’s one real Strong prevention plan. They might be able to stand out from the pitching of Freddy Peralta, an announced starter (Jose Quintana or Quinn Priester) and the dominant bullpen.
On the Chicago side, there are not many strategies to discuss. The bear only needs to score some points and only needs to give up the number of times. There aren’t many interesting situations, different decisions may have taken us on a different path, and there are no attractions that can play a crucial game in the way Chicago is. The Cubs seized their huge opportunity with their first three-game winning streak. This is not enough. That doesn’t mean the rest of the series will be going the same way – as they keep saying, momentum is tomorrow’s starting pitcher – but so far, the brewers have been completely outperforming the Cubs.
