Jake Bauers' 11‑pitch homer lifts Brewers to 4-2 Game 3 win, puts Milwaukee up 3-0 in NLCS

Jake Bauers turned National League Championship Series Game 3 with one prolonged swing sequence against one of the Dodgers’ biggest arms.

Bauers hit an 11-pitch, go-ahead two-run homer off Los Angeles starter Blake Snell in the seventh inning Wednesday night, lifting the Milwaukee Brewers to a 4-2 win at Dodger Stadium and a 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven NLCS.

The decisive at-bat came in the top of the seventh after a leadoff walk ended Snell’s run of 14 consecutive batters retired. Bauers fell behind, worked into a two-strike count, fouled off multiple pitches and then drove the 11th pitch of the plate appearance — a four-seam fastball, according to MLB’s play description — for a homer projected by Statcast at 412 feet. MLB said it was just the sixth postseason home run on the 11th pitch of an at-bat or later since pitch tracking began in 1988.

Milwaukee added to the blow immediately. Garrett Mitchell homered after Bauers, giving the Brewers back-to-back postseason home runs and pushing the lead to 4-2. MLB said it was one of three such instances in Brewers postseason history.

For Snell, a two-time Cy Young Award winner and one of the Dodgers’ marquee starters, the two swings changed an otherwise dominant outing. He finished at 101 pitches, 63 for strikes, and was charged with four earned runs on four hits, with two walks, nine strikeouts and three home runs allowed.

That Bauers delivered the breakthrough this way fit the shape of the series. Milwaukee had already taken the first two games, and Bauers had already shown in Game 2 how much his plate appearances can affect an opponent even without a hit. In that game, he drew a 12-pitch walk that helped drive up the opposing starter’s pitch count. In Game 3, the same kind of persistence produced a far bigger result: the swing that put the Brewers one win from the World Series.

The broader stakes made the at-bat sharper. Teams that take a 3-0 lead in a best-of-seven series seize overwhelming control, and Milwaukee got there by turning one of the night’s few openings into the game’s defining moment. Snell had spent much of the evening in command before the leadoff walk opened the seventh. Bauers then forced him through a long confrontation and finished it with the rarest kind of postseason plate appearance: one that kept stretching until it broke the game.

Brewers manager Pat Murphy recently described the club’s mindset in simple terms: “It’s what we do in response that matters. ... It’s what you do on the next play.” In Game 3, Milwaukee’s next play after finally cracking Snell was the one that may have all but decided the series.