Brewers' Big Name Acquisitions Come Through In Game 1 Walk-Off Win

The Brewers got nine innings of excellent pitching in a 10-inning game, and won on a walk-off single in extras from Mike Moustakas, to grab Game 1 of their NLDS matchup with the Colorado Rockies.

An obvious takeaway from Game 1 is this: Christian Yelich is really, really great. He slapped a comebacker to pitcher Antonio Senzatela in the first inning, and that was the last time he failed to reach base in the game. In his second at-bat, with Lorenzo Cain on first after a walk, Yelich pounced on a meaty first-pitch changeup and blasted it 413 feet to dead center for his first career postseason dinger:

There wasn’t a lot of offense in this game. The Rockies never had more than one batter get on base in any inning prior to the top of the ninth; the Brewers were held to just six hits before the start of extras, and just three after the third inning. It looked incredibly unlikely that the game would end with anything other than a 2–0 final score until the Rockies woke up in the ninth, strung together three singles, and benefited from an error and a sacrifice fly to tie the game.

It was Yelich, of course, who led off the bottom of the 10th with a walk, the third time he led off an inning by getting on base. A wild pitch put him at second, and a Curtis Granderson fielder’s choice moved him to third, setting up Moustakas’s game-winning knock:

It’s satisfying that in a baseball season that has been partially defined by the shamelessness of teams tanking out of relevance, the three runs scored by the winning team in the first division series game in the books were scored by Lorenzo Cain, Christian Yelich, and Mike Moustakas, who were acquired in aggressive moves aimed at serious improvement by a small-market team. And it remains just astounding that the Marlins were willing to part ways with Yelich. Good move.