MILWAUKEE — Cubs second baseman Nico Hoerner scrambled after the ball, looking rushed for the first time in his debut postseason.
A moment earlier, the Gold Glover had been trotting in on Brewers rookie Sal Frelick’s soft ground ball, timing the bounce as he had done countless times in his baseball life. It came at him slower than expected, so even with runners on, he realized his only play was at first base.
Then, mysteriously, the ball didn’t stick in his glove. It nicked off the tip and rolled behind him.
Hoerner got to it quickly and threw home, but it bounced into catcher Carson Kelly’s mitt behind the Brewers’ William Contreras, who safely Superman-slid across the plate.
“Obviously, that play had not just win-and-loss implications,” Hoerner said after the Cubs’ 9-3 loss to the Brewers on Saturday, “but just the entire use of the pitching staff and everything like that. [It] had a huge effect on that game and momentum.”
Hoerner’s uncharacteristic error led to four unearned runs, and the Brewers scored six runs in that first inning to set the tone in Game 1 of the National League Division Series.
The miscue came after the Cubs’ stifling defensive effort in their wild-card victory against the Padres, which included heroics from Hoerner.
Defense has been a core tenet of this group since president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer began rebuilding after the 2021 teardown. And the Cubs’ offense this year, when at its best, prided itself on consistently applying pressure on opposing teams.
The Brewers outdid the Cubs in those categories, demonstrating why Milwaukee had the majors’ best record and their rivals to the south finished in second place in the division.
“We were excited to get out there,” Brewers second baseman Brice Turang said. “And we just take that and move on to the next game, try to set the tone in that one, too.”
When first baseman Michael Busch opened the game with a home run, it seemed like a good omen for the Cubs. He notched the team’s third leadoff homer in postseason history, and the first since Dexter Fowler’s in Game 7 of the 2016 World Series.
Almost immediately after, the Cubs’ day took a sharp downturn.
“During the week, maybe the main thing we talked about is, promise me you’ll be ready the first pitch,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “The guys were certainly ready.”
Cubs left-hander Matthew Boyd allowed three consecutive doubles — two of which came on the first pitch of the at-bat — to open the bottom of the first inning and put the Cubs behind 2-1.
“You never know what run is going to win or lose a ballgame,” Boyd said. “They had an approach; they went out there and executed it. They got me on that. Then your job is just to continue to keep the game there.”
Boyd briefly recuperated to get Christian Yelich to ground out to shortstop Dansby Swanson. But then he walked Andrew Vaughn.
With two runners on, Boyd got Frelick to hit the soft grounder to the right side of the infield for what should’ve been the second out.
“It could happen to any of us,” Swanson said of Hoerner’s error. “You’d like in that moment somehow, someway, one of the guys would be able to pick him up. But there’s no question he’ll bounce back. He’s done it all year, and he’s one of the best there is.”
The Cubs might have made peskiness a hallmark of their offense, but the Brewers turned it into an art form this season.
After Boyd struck out Caleb Durbin and surrendered an RBI single to Blake Perkins, manager Craig Counsell came out to boos from his former team’s fans and made the first of his three pitching changes.
Right-hander Michael Soroka replaced Boyd, walked the first batter he faced, then gave up a two-run single to Jackson Chourio.
“[Hoerner’s error is] just a stroke of luck or an aberration,” Murphy said. “He’s not going to do that a lot. He’s one of the best players in the game. You’ve got to have that sometimes to get a big lead or extend an inning. That’s how we’ve had to do it.”
It was already a trouncing, but the Brewers didn’t stop there. They tacked on another three runs in the second inning with five singles as they batted around again.
The Cubs’ offense did the opposite, settling for three solo homers — Ian Happ and Hoerner tacked on after Busch — for their only runs.
Two came against Brewers starter Freddy Peralta, but he pitched into the sixth inning, holding the Cubs to four hits and matching a franchise postseason record with nine strikeouts.
The schedule at least provides a thin silver lining for the Cubs after a game that tilted so dramatically, so quickly. They’ll have a workout day to reset Sunday before Game 2 on Monday at American Family Field.
“If we can even it up on the next one, that’s the beauty of a five-game series,” Happ said. “One won’t kill you.”