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    • Jake Bauers and Sal Frelick were on their way to becoming Brewers postseason heroes
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    Jake Bauers and Sal Frelick were on their way to becoming Brewers postseason heroes

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    Thursday’s Milwaukee Brewers story featured the unlikeliest of Bash Brothers before landing on an ending fit for the Brothers Grimm.

    Every postseason run seems to require big moments from unexpected sources. No one could have predicted that Jake Bauers and Sal Frelick would hit back-to-back home runs in Game 3 of the wild-card series, giving the Brewers a 2-0 lead in the seventh, but Milwaukee was robbed of the fairytale circumstances. when New York’s Pete Alonso delivered a backbreaking three-run homer in the ninth for a 4-2 Mets victory.

    “Just too bad for this group of guys, man,” Bauers said after the loss eliminated the Brewers from the postseason with a 2-1 series loss. “It has been a special clubhouse since Day 1 of spring training. It is not easy to put an end to it.”

    “We are defeated,” said a downtrodden Frelick. “It will be something I think we will all remember as a group next year.”

    Lefthander Jose Quintana had retired from the game after delivering six shutout innings for the Mets. And when righthander José Butto took his place, Brewers manager Pat Murphy made an unconventional decision by signing slugger Rhys Hoskins and putting Bauers in the game to start the frame.

    Hoskins finished 0 for 9 in the series, and while many of his 26 home runs in the regular season came at opportune times, he had a below-average 2024 season, his first year back after tearing his ACL.

    Bauers, a .199 hitter who also joined the organization in 2024, didn’t necessarily have better overall numbers than Hoskins, but he did demonstrate some pop (12 home runs), had the pack advantage and also brought in a higher defense rate at first base a scoreless match.

    And he seemed to know that good things were ahead.

    “We were just sitting in the on-deck circle and he kind of looked at me and said, ‘Let’s just have some fun,’” Frelick said of Bauers in the moments before the seventh inning started. “He was smiling and I could tell he was really excited. He just looked at me and said, ‘Let’s have some fun here.'”

    His idea of ​​fun: a 105-mile-per-hour rocket on a full 400-foot field, easily soaring over the right field wall and sending American Family Field into a frenzy.

    “That’s certainly the case with the birth of my child,” said Bauers, who also wrote the walk-off single that captured the division title on September 18. can still play.”

    One pitch later, Frelick added the moment.

    Frelick was perhaps the least likely player on the team to hit a home run in the postseason. For starters, it wasn’t even certain that he would even be available for the playoffs after suffering a hip injury in the final weekend of the regular season.

    Even when healthy, he had two home runs in the regular season, which came on consecutive days May 14 and 15. His exit velocity this year among 252 qualified MLB hitters ranked last. And yet the 105-mph screamer that left no doubt about its destination was the hardest-hit ball of Frelick’s career in the Majors, traveling a nearly identical 400 feet to Bauers’ blast.

    They were on their way to becoming signature moments in a game that sent the Brewers to the National League division series in Philadelphia on Saturday. Instead, they were lost to history under the weight of a breathtaking four-run rally by the Mets in the ninth.

    “My thoughts were, ‘Let’s go score some points in the bottom,’ and I think that’s probably what everyone was thinking,” Bauers said of the ninth. “That’s been the mentality all year and I don’t think it changed until it was over.”

    That didn’t happen, although Frelick led off the inning with a single for his fourth hit in the series. He was erased on a game-ending double play off the bat of Brice Turang.

    “I think there’s something to be said for mental toughness, focus, not giving up, being persistent and having a little bit of self-confidence regardless of how things are going or what they’ve been,” Bauers said when asked to say something logical. of the unlikely back-to-back homer pair. “Just showing up and trying to be the best version of yourself every day and letting the chips fall where they may.”

    More: Milwaukee drops a breathtaking heartbreaker against Mets in the ninth inning, 4-2

    More: Brewers radio legend Bob Uecker back in the booth for Game 3 of the playoffs

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