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MLB Playoffs 2024: Jackson Chourio keeps Brewers season alive and adds his name to the MLB record books with 2-homer Game 2
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MLB Playoffs 2024: Jackson Chourio keeps Brewers season alive and adds his name to the MLB record books with 2-homer Game 2

MILWAUKEE — There’s no hiding from the moment in the postseason. The lights are bright, the crowd is loud and every pitch can determine the outcome of a team’s season.

When all three of those things happened for the Brewers on Wednesday, the 20-year-old kid with the big smile was there.

“He’s… he’s special,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy, fighting back emotions, said of outfielder Jackson Chourio after his team’s 5-3 victory over the Mets in Game 2 of their NL wild-card series.

As the Brewers entered spring training, Chourio insisted. Fresh off an $82 million extension — a record for a player with no major league experience — the rookie, who was about to become the youngest player in the major leagues, was clearly trying to show the world he deserved it.

Throughout this season, Chourio was quiet, with a calm demeanor. You might even have called him shy. But as he rounded the bases not once but twice in Wednesday’s Game 2, he unleashed every emotion in his body as his two-home run day saved the Brewers’ season.

The boy from Maracaibo, Venezuela, is no longer shy. He and everyone watching now knows he has arrived.

“I’m ready to put on a show for the big leagues and all the fans who haven’t seen me play yet,” Chourio told Yahoo Sports in March.

Fast forward to today, and that’s exactly what he does. All season, Chourio was the spark plug for the Brewers. First he was the youngest player in baseball and then the youngest player in MLB history to post a 20-20 season. He got better every time. How much more can you ask of a child?

But after the team’s top outfielder, Christian Yelich, went down due to season-ending back surgery, Chourio appeared to take on an even bigger role. And on Wednesday, with his team’s back against the wall and the season on the line, Chourio took matters into his own hands.

“The pressure will always be there,” he said after the match. “So as a player it’s our job to control it as best we can. It’s about going out there and finding the moment where we can control it and keep going there and doing what we do.”

The Brewers left fielder started his monster night by crushing a leadoff homer into the Mets’ bullpen, putting Milwaukee on the board in the first inning and setting the tone for his team. The homer made Chourio the fifth-youngest player to hit a home run in the MLB postseason.

The playoffs tend to provide big moments for the stars to shine. And late in the game, as Milwaukee faced a 3-2 deficit and early October elimination, you sensed something special on the horizon. The crowd was buzzing with anticipation, and in the eighth inning, when the Brewers needed some magic, Chourio was indeed there.

On a 1-1 count, he hit a hanging cutter from Mets reliever Phil Maton deep to right field to tie the game. The Brewers dugout erupted and when the ball hit the facade of the second deck, Chourio electrified the crowd of more than 40,000 people at American Family Field.

That home run made Chourio just the second player in MLB history to have a multi-homer postseason game before his 21st birthday, joining Braves great Andruw Jones, who did so as a 19-year-old. It also made Chourio just the second player in MLB history to hit two game-tying home runs in a single postseason game, joining Babe Ruth in Game 4 of the 1928 World Series.

“I think the adrenaline is still getting to me. I think I still feel the adrenaline,” he said after the match. “It was a very special moment for me and one I will remember for the rest of my life.”

Offered Mets manager Carlos Mendoza: “The whole time we were going through the situation, we wanted a Maton-Chourio matchup.

“It just didn’t work.”

Two batters later, Garrett Mitchell put his stamp on the game for the Brewers by hitting a two-run shot to help Milwaukee secure the win and tie the series at 1-1.

“It starts with (Chourio),” Mitchell said afterward. “It starts with that at-bat he put together.”

As this season progressed, there were several moments where things clicked for Chourio. After just starting to find his way eight months ago, he’s becoming exactly the player the organization thought he could be.

“I think you saw it (first) on defense,” Murphy said. “He showed some aggression in the outfield and it was like, ‘Wow.’ … There were some tapings (in early June), and all of a sudden I’m like, ‘This kid gets it.’

“… But the child came with a big smile. He is a wonderful person.”

This season, Chourio showed anyone paying attention that he is a star, and now the postseason’s youngest player (who appropriately also picked up the final out of the game) shines when the lights are brightest.

“These are moments that we can share together, both me personally and the city of Milwaukee,” he said. “So I’m just really happy that we can celebrate this together.”