Box score

The Milwaukee Brewers and New York Mets met tonight in a winner-take-all elimination game, the only game three of any Wild Card series this year. It was a game that nonpartisan fans would surely call a classic, a pitching duel between unlikely forces (rookie Tobias Myers and 35-year-old Jose Quintana) with unlikely heroes.

But for Brewer fans, this game will go down in disgrace; a game in which they held the Mets for eight innings, playing perfect, dramatic baseball until the very end before a meltdown from one of the franchise’s icons handed the fanbase one of the most painful losses in team history. Just like that, Milwaukee’s magical season was over.

Francisco Lindor got things started with a hustle double to center field. He was almost thrown out at second, but Brice Turang couldn’t handle the throw and Lindor was safe. But Myers struck out Mark Vientos and Brandon Nimmo and then flied out Pete Alonso to end the inning. Preventing Lindor from advancing after the leadoff double was a big early moment.

Jackson Chourio, whose contributions to this team can hardly be put into words, led off the bottom of the first with a single. He advanced to second base when William Contreras grounded out a few batters later, but stranded there on a popout by Willy Adames.

Myers closed out in the second inning, getting a lineout from Jose Iglesias, a groundout from Jesse Winker and a lineout from Starling Marte on just 10 pitches. Gary Sánchez led off the bottom of the second with a double, but like the Mets in the first inning, the Brewers couldn’t advance him as Rhys Hoskins and Sal Frelick struck out and Joey Ortiz popped out to end the threat.

Tyrone Taylor flew to right center to open the third, and Myers followed with a strikeout of Francisco Alvarez. With two outs, Lindor hit his second hit of the game – a single to right – and moved to second on a pitch in the mud. Vientos hit one pretty hard, but it held up for Frelick on the warning track, and Myers had another scoreless inning.

The red-hot Turang opened the bottom of the third inning with a hard liner to second base, but Iglesias made a nice play and threw out Turang. After Chourio was eliminated on a soft liner to center, Blake Perkins reached on a two-out infield hit, but Contreras grounded out to end the inning.

Myers worked through a quick 1-2-3 inning in the top of the fourth, and he was cruising at this point. Adames reached on an infield single to lead off the bottom of the inning, stole a base and advanced to third base on a groundout, but he was stranded there when Frelick grounded out to Quintana.

Myers hit Winker with a 1-2 pitch to put New York’s leadoff man on board in the fifth. But he struck out Marte and Taylor and got Alvarez on a pop-out, and he was through five scoreless hits with just two hits allowed — both to Lindor — and just 66 pitches, bringing the sold-out crowd to its feet.

Ortiz and Turang started the bottom of the fifth with groundouts. Chourio walked with two outs and stole second base with Perkins at the plate, and Perkins worked a long at-bat, but he grounded out to the shortstop to end the inning. Quintana hadn’t been as efficient as Myers that night and had to deal with a bit more traffic, but he was just as effective as both pitchers had five scoreless innings.

And five innings is all Myers got, as he was eliminated in the sixth in favor of Trevor Megill. I understand the reasoning, even if I don’t love it — that’s baseball in 2024 — but I have to respect Murphy for making the (analytically sound) move, even after I got some grief after making a similar move with Freddy Peralta in game one. It worked, at least in the short term: Megill threw a 1-2-3 sixth to form the heart of the Brewers’ order in the bottom half of the inning.

But Quintana was still strong. He sent Contreras flying to center, struck out Adames and retired Sánchez to power through an easy sixth. At this point it felt like both offenses were urgent, desperate for something, anything, to get them going.

A surprising sight took the mound for the Brewers in the seventh: righty Nick Mears, who has struggled this season, was asked to be in the middle of the Mets order. He rewarded his manager’s trust by striking out Alonso, Iglesias on a grounder and striking out Winker. Nick Mears! Who would have thought that? (It might also be worth noting that Freddy Peralta, who started game one two days ago, was starting to warm up in the bullpen at this point in the game.)

Quintana was retired in the bottom of the seventh and lightning struck American Family Field. José Buttó, New York’s new pitcher, was greeted by pinch-hitter Jake Bauers, who replaced Hoskins, and he worked a full count before launching one into the right-field stands to break the deadlock. But the Brewers weren’t done there: Sal Frelick, of all people – Sal Frelick, who crashed into a wall and looked like he’d broken his back less than a week ago, Sal Frelick, who hasn’t hit a home run since he got his hit the back only home runs of the season in back-to-back games on May 14 and 15 – hit a shot down the right-field line to double the Brewers’ lead.

Buttó got Ortiz to line out short, and the Mets – quickly running out of chances – played their trump card, closing in on Edwin Díaz with one out in the seventh. Díaz led off with a walk for Turang, who stole second base. Chourio flew to shallow left and Díaz also walked Perkins, bringing up Contreras – of course, walking to “Díaz’s music” – and Díaz fell behind again, and Alvarez watched as Turang and Perkins executed a double steal . Díaz did manage to strike out Contreras to end the inning, but he needed 20 pitches to get the last two outs of the inning.

The Brewers had to make a pick in the eighth inning, as their usual pitcher in this spot, Megill, had thrown the sixth. In a game full of surprises, it was really Peralta who took on the role of a man. He started with a grounder from Marte to second base, then had Taylor fly out to right and Alvarez grounded to third base. Peralta, who hadn’t made a relief appearance in more than two years, looked completely at ease and guaranteed the Brewers would hand the game to Devin Williams with a lead in the ninth. That lead would remain just two; Díaz looked much better in the eighth, getting Adames, Sánchez and Bauers sorted.

Williams was ranked ninth against the league-leading Mets, and Lindor, who will likely finish second in the National League MVP voting, did his best to keep New York’s hopes alive with an opening eight-walk to pull pitches. Williams came back to strike out Vientos, and he got ahead of Nimmo, but an 0-2 pitch lined up up the middle for a single, putting runners at the corners with one out for Alonso. Williams fell behind Alonso and the worst happened: He lined up a switch, left over center, just over the wall to the right to flip the scoreboard and put the Mets up 3-2.

Williams got Iglesias to ground out, hitting Winker (who stole second), and Marte hit a groundball through the right side to score Winker from second – a huge insurance run. Williams was removed from the match in favor of Joe Ross. Ross needed just one pitch to end the inning, but now the Brewers needed a miracle comeback of their own to keep their postseason going.

Frelick led off the ninth inning against David Peterson, who—in a depleted Mets bullpen—made his first relief appearance of the season, and Frelick wasn’t quite ready for it to end: He singled to left to start the inning. . But Peterson struck out Ortiz, and Turang hit a line drive ball hard to short, turning Lindor into a double play. Ironically, had Turang made the weaker contact he made for most of the second half, he probably could have beaten the throw. The match ended with Chourio on deck.

This was such an upside-down match. Jake Bauers, Sal Frelick, Tobias Myers and Nick Mears were heroes. Devin Williams, the National League’s best closer and one of the most dominant relievers of the past half-decade, melted a day after looking dominant in another elimination game.

This is a painful loss, one of the most difficult losses in the team’s fifty-plus year history. It’s almost harder to accept because you can’t criticize the decision to include Williams in the game. Naturally that was the right decision. It just didn’t work.

There will be more postmortems and closings and all kinds of other things, but for now we will have to deal with the pain of this loss, which was imposed on us when we so close. Sports can be cruel. Fandom can be painful.