CHICAGO – From a room discreetly tucked away behind the right-field concourse at Wrigley Field, Pat Murphy turned a question about his starting pitcher that night into a recitation of Shakespeare.
“To be or not to be, that is the question,” the Milwaukee Brewers manager began. “Whether it’s nobler in the minds to suffer the slings and arrows of begotten fortune, or bear arms – I’ll stop. What is that, ‘Hamlet?'”
That play, Murphy went on to inform the group of reporters a couple hours before first pitch in Game 4 of the National League Division Series, is his favorite Shakespearean tragedy.
Not long after, his team became one loss away from a tragedy of their own.
On the afternoon of Oct. 8, the Brewers walked into the visiting clubhouse at Wrigley leading the series, 2-0, and with ideas of turning the cramped confines into the scene of a party.
Instead, they lost Game 3. Then, still with another chance to advance to the National League Championship Series, their starting pitcher got roughed up in the first inning for the fourth time in four games, setting the tone for a dominant 6-0 Chicago Cubs win.
BOX SCORE: Cubs 6, Brewers 0
The Brewers now must win Game 5 back home on Oct. 11 in order to avoid their latest, most torturous October exit yet – which is saying something.
“It’s part of the story, man,” Brewers designated hitter Christian Yelich said. “Sometimes you’re going to have to win some big games. You face some adversity in the postseason and you have to keep going.
“We played well at our own field, they took care of business here. We’ll go back and get ready for Saturday and make sure we play well.”
Freddy Peralta’s first inning struggles pave the way for Cubs
On an island 18 feet in diameter with a sea of bloodthirsty Cubs fans surrounding him, Peralta toed the slab as chants of “Fred-dy!” rained down beginning with the second hitter he saw.
He buckled.
After giving up a one-out single to Nico Hoerner on a hanging curveball and a four-pitch walk to Kyle Tucker that ratcheted the decibels from the crowd up, Peralta left a 94.8 mph fastball over the middle of the plate and belt-high for Ian Happ.
The crack of Happ’s bat cut through the chants. The ball cut through the crosswind. Three to nothing, Cubs.
“It was just a pitch that he was able to hit,” Peralta said. “He hit it exactly how he wanted it. For me, it wasn’t a mistake. It was the pitch we wanted but he was just able to hit it really hard.”
Peralta added that he tried to feed off the crowd’s energy and didn’t think it affected him, but that Happ simply beat him on a fastball.
“For me it was fine. I kind of like those moments,” Peralta said. “It makes me better whenever I feel those moments.”
The Brewers offense, meanwhile, which has staked its identity upon creating pressure and grinding out rallies, went quietly into the crisp evening against Chicago left-hander Matthew Boyd and a parade of relievers
Only 10 times in MLB history has a team come back from a 2-0 deficit to win in a best-of-five series. It hasn’t happened in the National League since the Cincinnati Reds blew a 2-0 lead to the San Francisco Giants in 2012.
Given the Brewers’ recent playoff woes – they have lost in the first round in each of their five previous appearances – there will be no shortage of nervous energy by the time the first pitch is thrown at American Family Field.
“This team, we fight,” said second baseman Brice Turang. “We’re going to keep fighting. You forget about these things and you move on and you try to win the next game.”
One chance after another goes for naught
The Brewers weren’t without their opportunities against Boyd. They put the leadoff runner on against him in three of five innings and had 10 at-bats with a runner on base. Zero hits came of it.
After stranding leadoff walks in the first and second, the Brewers’ best chance came in the fifth against Boyd, whom they torched for six first-inning runs in Game 1. Sal Frelick led off with a double, and Blake Perkins walked.
Joey Ortiz, despite being the tying run, bunted the runners over. Home-plate umpire Lance Barksdale started Yelich’s ensuing at-bat off by calling a sinker that missed the top of the zone by four inches a strike, and the designated hitter later struck out swinging.
“He just made some good pitches,” Yelich said. “I felt like my at-bat with second and third, he just made some really good pitches. The first pitch could have gone either way, I felt. Then we kind of just battled. That 2-2 pitch was a strike to ball sinker that was just a really good pitch. Sometimes you just have to tip your hat. He did really good today. Sometimes that happens.”
The strikeout foiled Pat Murphy’s idea of batting Yelich first, allowing the left-hander Boyd to face him a third time before turning the ball over to Daniel Palencia to face Jackson Chourio. The Cubs were able to get their preferred matchup in both instances and won both when Chourio popped the first pitch up.
Milwaukee’s bats were unable to reclaim their identity in the two losses at Wrigley, which were capped with a three-hit showing in Game 4.
“I don’t think there’s an ‘it,'” Yelich said. “These days happen. It’s the sport, man. You have to regroup. We’ve got one more game to play, so we have to make sure we’re ready to go. I’ve got confidence in these guys, in this group. Everybody is fine. We’re ready to go. You brush this one off in a few minutes and lock in tomorrow on the off day and get ready to go in Game 5.”
Cubs tack on against Aaron Ashby, defense in the sixth
A Caleb Durbin error allowed the Cubs a bit of extra breathing room in the sixth.
Carson Kelly opened the inning with a slow chopper toward third base, which Durbin couldn’t glove cleanly. Three batters later, Matt Shaw chased an 0-2 curveball at his ankles and golfed it into center for a single to score Kelly from second, giving the Cubs a 4-0 advantage.
It was the first error of the series from the typically surehanded Brewers defense.
Robert Gasser, the only Brewers pitcher to not appear in the series in the first three games, gave up a litany of hard contact, including solo homers to Kyle Tucker and Michael Busch, in the seventh and eighth innings. Gasser surrendered five hits and came within inches of it being six hits and three homers, but a Carson Kelly fly ball to left that was initially called a two-run dinger got overturned on video review.
Busch has been the ultimate thorn in the side with three homers in the series alone — which would be just one shy of the Brewers’ overall franchise postseason career record of four.
Pitching lines up as do-or-die bullpen game
The Brewers’ lack of starting pitching depth leaves them staring at what is likely a bullpen game for all the marbles in Game 5.
The nod could go to Ashby, who gave up a three-run homer in the first inning as the Game 2 opener and then struggled in Game 4. Perhaps his recent performance, though, will keep the Brewers from going that route.
The rest of the bullpen will all theoretically be available after an off-day Oct. 10. That includes Jacob Misiorowski, who will likely get the ball in the early-to-middle innings, suddenly making the rookie an integral part of the Brewers’ hopes of advancing.
“I’ll be ready to go,” Misiorowski said.
The Cubs could do what they did in Game 4 with Boyd and bring back a lefty starter whom the Brewers roughed up earlier in the series with elimination on the line. Milwaukee tagged Shota Imanaga for four runs in its Game 2 victory, but the Japanese southpaw figures to be the one to get the call.
The Brewers, just 2-7 in their last nine elimination games, will cross the white lines with plenty of skeletons in the franchise closet.
“I’ve always been excited to go out and compete every day,” Turang said. “These guys are excited. The game didn’t go the way we wanted it to go and we move on and play Game 5. Let’s roll.”
Is this season truly a magical brew? Or is it merely just the latest chapter in the story of the protagonist with a fatal flaw?
We will find out beginning when the calendar reads October 11 at 7:08 p.m.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Another nightmare first inning. Another loss at Wrigley. Brewers have one chance left to avoid another playoff collapse.
Reporting by Curt Hogg, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
