Blake Snell masterpiece overshadows double-play disaster in Dodgers’ NLCS Game 1 win

By Jack Harris Los Angeles Times MILWAUKEE The reason the Milwaukee Brewers are here in the National League Championship Series is because of plays like the one that ended the fourth inning Monday night A strange one-in-a-million -foot double-play in which one Brewers fielder made a spectacular defensive effort and another never lost awareness of a wacky situation highlighting the sound fundamentals that made them baseball s winningest club this season The reason the Dodgers are here however is because of the way they can respond to adversity just like that settling the panic with their dominant starting pitching rallying at the plate with their star-studded lineup and suffocating an opponent with a record payroll s worth of talent In a - Championship win of the NLCS at American Family Field that was ultimately what made the difference The evening s the majority memorable moment might have been that fourth-inning cluster when the Dodgers had the bases loaded with one out only to come up empty when Max Muncy had a likely grand slam robbed but crucially not caught cleanly and two Dodgers runners were retired on forceouts at home and third But the bulk key contributions were what came after that with Freddie Freeman s home run in the sixth inning giving the Dodgers the lead and Blake Snell s scoreless eight-inning master class on the mound ensuring they wouldn t relinquish it By the end the former Giants left-hander Snell had become the real story Already this postseason the squad s million offseason signing had gotten off to a strong start in October going at least six innings in each of his first two outings while allowing just two total runs But on Monday the two-time Cy Young Award winner ascended to a different level Over eight innings of pure annihilation Snell faced the minimum number of batters erasing his only baserunner which came on a flare single from Caleb Durbin to lead off the third by picking him off later in the inning He struck out batters setting a postseason career high He needed just pitches with going for strikes And of those were on swing-and-misses tied for the largest part any pitcher has generated off the contact-minded Brewers this season Since Jos Lima s NL Division Series shutout in Clayton Kershaw had been the only other Dodgers starter with a scoreless eight-inning start in the postseason Every bit of Snell s excellence was required too thanks first and foremost to the Dodgers squandered opportunity in the top of the fourth The inning had started well with the lineup completely awakening Teoscar Hern ndez led with a walk One-out singles from Will Smith and former Stanford star Tommy Edman loaded the bases That brought Muncy to the plate where the slugger got an elevated cutter from Brewers bulk man Quinn Priester and clobbered a towering fly-ball to center field What followed however was a tragedy One both self-inflicted by the Dodgers lack of awareness and created by the Brewers ability to do the little things so well As Muncy s ball soared to the wall Brewers center fielder Sal Frelick jumped got a glove on it and then at least it seemed initially caught it on a bobble At third base Hern ndez tagged up once then again after seeing Frelick s bobble before conclusively urgent for home plate as the Brewers relayed the ball in What no one on the Dodgers noticed in the moment Left field umpire Chad Fairchild waving his arms in the outfield signaling correctly as replay would later show that the ball had bounced off the top of the wall amid Frelick s bobble That meant instead of a sacrifice fly situation a force play was on for the defense Thus when catcher William Contreras caught the throw home just ahead of Hern ndez s slide he was out even without a tag And as the other Dodgers baserunners stood motionless on base still thinking Frelick had cleanly made the catch the ever-aware Contreras ran over to third himself and stepped on the bag forcing out Smith after he had failed to advance from second The play would be reviewed but the call would stand More frustration followed for the Dodgers who got a leadoff double from Kik Hern ndez in the fifth only to end the inning with another albeit more traditional double-play grounder from Mookie Betts And for a brief moment the Dodgers seemed to be falling into the Brewers trap Struggling with their talented pitching staff frustrated by their stellar defense and one mistake away from losing to a organization with inferior talent but impeccable resolve Snell however never let that happen And then with one out in the sixth the Dodgers ultimately jumped ahead when Freeman launched a high-arching drive to right that just kept carrying for his first home run of the playoffs Related Articles Padres boss Shildt retires opening another NL West managerial job Brewers beat Cubs - 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