Brewers capitalize on mistakes and microscopic margins to inch closer to first World Series in 36 years

If you ever wanted to feel the full weight of the drama, tension, and intrigue that playoff baseball can bring, Game 3 of the NLCS was a pretty good way to experience it.

The final score read Brewers 4, Dodgers 0. But this was as tense and tight as a four-run game could be, with razor-thin margins deciding the outcome Monday night, while also setting the stage for all kinds of developments in the rest of the series.

No player did more with those slim margins for success than Milwaukee's Game 3 starter, Jhoulys Chacin.

The 30-year-old right-hander proved to be a free-agent steal for the Brewers this season, making a team-high 35 starts, winning 15 games, and posting a stingy 3.50 ERA. But those results belied some more troubling indicators. Chacin struggled at times this year with control. He benefited from a .250 batting average allowed on balls in play, one of the lowest marks in the league and also his lowest since becoming a full-time starter.

Chacin also owned one of the most extreme platoon splits in the league: His slider-heavy repertoire limited right-handed hitters to a .178/.244/.284 line against him, but lefties whacked him to the tune of .261/.351/.430. Facing a Dodgers lineup loaded with left-handed thumpers who could pummel that slider, Chacin seemed destined for an early exit, with the Brewers' best hope to win resting on another superhuman performance by bailout machine Josh Hader.

Instead, Chacin carved through the Dodgers lineup, firing 5 ⅓ shutout innings, allowing just three hits and two walks, and striking out six. Chacin's performance brought all the necessary ingredients for a right-hander with so-so stuff (his average fastball velocity is just 90 mph, one of the slowest marks in the league) to succeed: A little bit of skill, a little bit of luck, and some tidy defense behind him.

Chacin started his night by carving through the top three batters in Los Angeles' lineup, setting the tone by punching out lefty mashers Joc Pederson and Max Muncy. Then in the second inning, he got bailed out by favorable circumstances, and fortunate timing. Manny Machado and Yasiel Puig sandwiched a single and a double around a groundout by struggling center fielder Cody Bellinger, putting runners on second and third with one out. That brought Yasmani Grandal to the plate.

Grandal's Game 1 was a nightmare, with the Dodgers catcher committing two errors and letting two passed balls squirt by him. Those defensive stumbles exacerbated a run of offensive futility in the postseason. By the time Grandal strode to the plate in the second with a chance to cash in two runs and give the Dodgers the lead, his career playoff line read 6 for 64, with 27 strikeouts.

Make it 6 for 65 with 28 strikeouts, as Chacin flummoxed Grandal with four sliders. That enabled the Brewers' starter to intentionally walk Enrique Hernandez, setting up an inning-ending, caught-looking strikeout by overmatched Dodgers pitcher Walker Buehler.

The third inning brought Chacin a fresh round of happy circumstances and good fortune. Pederson led off by smacking a sharply-hit ball wide of first ... but right at Brewers shortstop Orlando Arcia, who'd shifted all the way over to short right field to take a hit away from the Dodgers' lefty-swinging leadoff man. Par for the course for a Brewers team that ranked second in the National League this year in both total Defensive Runs Saved, and in runs saved by shifts. Chacin then grooved a slider up in the zone that just sat and spun tantalizingly, waiting for Muncy to crush it into the bleachers. The Dodgers first baseman connected, sending a flyball to left that drifted ... and drifted ... and died at the warning track.

The fourth inning likewise could have led to trouble, as Manny Machado opened the frame with a walk. But then after falling behind Bellinger 1-0, Chacin delivered a 78-mph Houdini of a slider, a pitch that disappeared under Bellinger's bat, sending his corkscrewing to the ground. Bellinger then rapped a groundball to Jesus Aguilar, prompting the first baseman to fire to second for a forceout.

It also prompted Machado to earn duncecap-of-the-game honors. Seeking to break up a potential double play but apparently forgetting both baseball's new rules and also the rules of physics, Machado stuck his arm out to try and clip Arcia's leg and disrupt the throw to first. This was illegal. It also happened after Arcia had released the ball. Result: Umpires' review, then a double play, for no good reason. When Mike Moustakas followed with a sparkling, diving play at third to end the inning, it was obvious this would be Chacin's night -- a night filled with clipping the corners, and a little luck on the rare pitches in which he missed his spots.

If Chacin's success often depends on guile and kismet, Buehler gets the job done through sheer, screaming dominance. Armed with a dazzling array of pitches that starts with a fastball that can reach the high-90s, Buehler's terrific rookie season showed how thoroughly he can trample opposing lineups. If we ignore everything but the runs number in Buehler's final line, you'd conclude that he'd whitewashed yet another hapless opponent on Monday, given the eight strikeouts he rang up in seven innings, against just five hits and one walk.

Problem is, Buehler made two big mistakes in Game 3. And the Brewers didn't miss either of them.

The first such miscue came in the first. With MVP front-runner Christian Yelich struggling to translate his regular-season magic to the ALCS, the number-two hitter for the Brewers instead worked his way on with a walk. With the count 1-1 against Ryan Braun, Grandal set his target low and outside, only for Buehler to miss badly, chucking an 87-mph wounded duck that was up, middle-in, and crushed to left for a run-scoring double that gave Milwaukee a quick 1-0 lead.

Then ... silence. Buehler plowed through Brewers hitters, racking up six strikeouts through three innings, eight punchouts through five, and keeping the game close at 1-0. The bottom of the fifth brought Dodgers manager Dave Roberts' first decision of the game -- another tiny-margin moment that had a chance to swing a nail-biter of a game. With one out, a runner of second, and the pitcher's spot due up, Roberts opted to let Buehler bat, rather than turning to a pinch-hitter. The move reflected confidence in Buehler's abilities, but also showed that Roberts still didn't fully trust a bullpen that had thrived in the first two games of the NLCS, but showed numerous leaks for ... well, the past several years. A feckless Buehler strikeout and a Pederson lineout later, the Dodgers had blown one of their best chances of the game.

The very next inning, Buehler made his second mistake. After falling behind righty-masher Travis Shaw, Buehler got the sign for a fastball, up and in. Instead, his 97-mph heater lingered out over the plate, thigh-high. Shaw crushed it.

Sure, Bellinger might've had a play on the ball had he not lost it for a second in the lights. But Buehler missing his catcher's target by a mile still resulted in hard, deep contact by a Brewers slugger, in this case a triple. One wild pitch later, Milwaukee opened up a 2-0 lead.

Chacin capped his stellar evening with his best pitch of the night, a 1-2 slider that drew nothing but air from Muncy. That brought the Brewers bullpen into the game.

For all the ink that lanky, long-haired, lights-out lefty Josh Hader has earned this season and postseason (all of it deserved!), Corey Knebel has spun a helluva tale in his own right. The hard-throwing right-hander won the closer job last season for the Brewers, pitching so brilliantly, he made the All-Star team. That all went to hell this summer, with Knebel coughing up eight runs over a stretch of 3 ⅔ innings in August, earning a demotion to the minors. A pitcher going from the Midsummer Classic to the bush leagues in a span of 13 months could be forgiven for coming unglued. Knebel did no such thing. Making his return in September, he made 16 appearances the rest of the way. His numbers over that span? 16 ⅓ innings, 33 strikeouts, 3 walks, 5 hits, and a 0.00 ERA. So by the time Counsell was ready to send Chacin to the showers in Game 3, he had a viable alternative to Hader ready to go.

And go, Knebel did. The right-hander retired five of the six hitters that he faced, with the one baserunner reaching on an error. He punched out the last four batters he faced, all of them swinging. His 1-2-3 effort in the seventh should be hung in a museum.

If you'd asked Brewers fans to name an offensive star to lift the team in October, they'd start with Yelich. If the near-Triple Crown winner wasn't an option, they might've chosen sluggers Aguilar or Shaw, maybe leadoff man Lorenzo Cain, or the venerable veteran Braun. Arcia would've ranked right a hair above the Brewers pitchers. Milwaukee's shortstop figured to be an automatic out in October, but you lived with his punchless .236/.268/.307 line for the sake of plus defense at a pivotal position. But then Arcia homered off tough Rockies closer Wade Davis in Game 3 of the NLDS, and again off Hyun-Jin Ryu in Game 2 of the NLCS. After hitting just three homers in 119 games during the regular season, he'd launched two in five games during the playoffs.

Then he made it three. After an Erik Kratz one-out double in the seventh, Arcia jumped on a tough pitch from Buehler, a mid-90s fastball that was up and away. In a series filled with big guys on both sides, it was Milwaukee's 165-pound shortstop who cranked the only home run of this game.

That homer not only added two insurance runs to Milwaukee's lead. It set up the Brewers to take a potential stranglehold on the series.

Consider that Counsell opted to use the invaluable Hader for just two batters in the eighth inning, figuring his team's four-run lead could hold up without Hader needing to expend much energy. Bringing in Jeremy Jeffress for the ninth caused some nervy moments, as the Dodgers put runners on second and third with nobody out to start the inning, then brought the tying run to the plate after a Yasiel Puig walk. But when a Jeffress fastball dotted the outside corner to set down Brian Dozier, the Brewers had their 4-0 win, plus the promise of going back to their best pitcher in Game 4, after Hader needed just eight low-pressure pitches to ring up two strikeouts before his exit.

Think of all the things that could have gone wrong for the Brewers in this game. If the Dodgers had hit a couple of Chacin's rare mistakes. If the Brewers hadn't jumped on two of Buehler's rare miscues. If Arcia hadn't continued his out-of-nowhere Babe Ruth act in the postseason. If Counsell didn't have the confidence to pull Hader and turn the game over to a closer who'd flashed a 7.71 ERA and a 1.106 OPS allowed to that point in the playoffs. If Jeffress's two-strike fastball had found just a couple more inches of plate, drifting into Dozier's happy zone.

Those are the microscopic margins that decide games in October. They're what make the playoffs great. And they now have the Brewers just two wins away from their first World Series trip in 36 years, with their bullpen nuclear weapon fresh and ready for Game 4.

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