The swagger has been swiped. All the bravado, energy and confidence the Milwaukee Brewers played with while winning the first two games of their NL Division Series is gone, sapped by a matchup that has so far been determined by home-field advantage.
The Diamondbacks departed Miller Park down 2-0, but once back in their beloved Chase Field, their bats woke up and they pitched just well enough to even the best-of-five series with a 10-6 Game 4 victory Wednesday night.
Three reasons why the Diamondbacks have forced the fifth meeting Friday at Miller Park:
1. The grand slam
Both these teams are long-ball lovers. The Brewers led the NL with 185 homers and the Diamondbacks were fourth with 172, and there has been no shortage of power in the series.
But the bombs Arizona hit at Chase Field were of maximum damage. In Game 3, with the Diamondbacks already ahead 3-1 in the fifth inning, the Brewers decided to walk Miguel Montero to load the bases for rookie Paul Goldschmidt. A fatal mistake. Goldschmidt hit a fastball over the right-field fence to break open a close game. The Diamondbacks wasted no time getting things going in Game 4. Knowing Brewers lefty Randy Wolf struggles in the first inning (6.00 ERA in 33 first innings this season), they jumped on him. Two singles and a walk loaded the bases for Goldschmidt, but he took a called third strike. Ryan Roberts picked him up by blasting a hanging changeup over the left-field fence.
With that blast, Arizona became the first team since the 1977 Dodgers to hit grand slams in consecutive games in the postseason. The shot also gave the Diamondbacks a grand slam in each of their previous four home games going back to the final two of the regular season.
2. Chris Young's revival
Young, the Diamondbacks? center fielder, has plenty of tools but has only shown flashes of the player the organization thinks he can become. Some of those flashes have come in this series.
Young went 3-for-4 with a homer in Game 2 and 1-for-4 in the Game 3 victory, but he saw 15 pitches in those four, quality at-bats Tuesday.
On Wednesday, he saw the ball well and put the barrel squarely on it?twice. Young immediately followed Roberts? grand slam with a home run of his own, making it a five-run first inning and giving Joe Saunders, who did not pitch especially well, a cushion he needed. When Young came up in the seventh, the Diamondbacks had a four-run lead, and with the way the ball was whistling out of Chase Field and with the Brewers? pop, that wasn?t a safe lead. But Young created more separation when he hit a two-run home run.
That shot gave Young five postseason home runs in 39 at-bats. It is the most in franchise history, one ahead of Luis Gonzalez.
3. Home-field advantage
The Brewers lead the league with 57 home wins, while the D-backs were third with 51. And sure enough, a road team has yet to win in this series.
Coincidentally?or maybe not?manager Kirk Gibson had just about every decision he made in Milwaukee backfire. But upon returning to Phoenix, it seemed like any move Gibson made in the two games at Chase Field worked out perfectly.
First, he tabbed rookie Josh Collmenter to pitch a do-or-die Game 3, and Collmenter made the manager look good by pitching seven innings and allowing only a run. In the same game, Gibson?s counterpart, Brewers manager Ron Roenicke, elected to walk Montero to load the bases for Goldschmidt, who hit the grand slam.
Gibson?s second critical move came in Game 4 with Saunders struggling to keep men off base. In the bottom of the third, Gibson pulled Saunders for pinch hitter Collin Cowgill with two runners in scoring position and two outs. Cowgill came through with a two-run single to stretch the lead from two runs to four.
Gibson also decided not to let Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder beat his team. After going a combined 9-for-16 with two home runs, six RBIs and six runs scored in the first two games, the two sluggers went 3-for-14. Rickie Weeks, the man who hits behind those two, is 1-for-15 in the series.
Those are the reasons the Diamondbacks have forced a fifth game as they try to become the eighth team to ever come back from a 0-2 deficit in a best-of-five series. If they hang onto this momentum, they?ll play in the NL Championship Series. If there is another major shift, they?ll start winter vacation Saturday.
sports football cricket golf baseball soccer sports news football news cricket news golf news
No comments:
Post a Comment