MILWAUKEE — Yellow and blue streamers fell from the ceiling, and the Brewers stormed the field. A line of Cubs looked on silently from the visitors’ dugout at American Family Field.
Their postseason run had just ended with a 3-1 loss to the Brewers on Saturday in Game 5 of the National League Division Series.
It was the Cubs’ fourth elimination game of the postseason, and those back-against-the-wall circumstances had brought the best out of the team in the first three. But the magic didn’t extend to the last game of this series.
“You kind of feel the emotions at the end of the season and watching the other team so excited about going on to the next level,” rookie Matt Shaw said. “It’s just kind of one of those things that you remember for sure, and you just look forward to being back in a situation where you can dominate that moment.”
The Cubs wavered, their plans to hop on a plane after the game dashed. And the Brewers claimed their first postseason-series victory in seven years to win a date with the Dodgers in the NL Championship Series.
“Congratulations to the Brewers,” manager Craig Counsell said. “That’s a very good team and a team that deserves and earned their right to play for the World Series. That’s a good baseball team. . . . I’m disappointed, sad.
“I think this team did a lot to honor the Chicago Cub uniform. In the big picture, that’s how I feel, but what did we do wrong tonight? That’s kind of what you’re stuck on. Why couldn’t we get anything going? It’s hard to get past that right now.”
It wasn’t certain for much of this tense game, however, which team would deal the final blow.
The long series set up a two-sided bullpen day. The openers happened to be relievers who had played for both teams in their careers.
For the Cubs, Drew Pomeranz, who hadn’t allowed a baserunner all postseason, earned the assignment. For the Brewers, it was All-Star closer Trevor Megill, who returned from a strained right flexor on the last day of the regular season.
“Both sides are kind of acknowledging that the first inning has been a pretty big inning in this series,” Counsell said before the game.
In the first four games of the series, 60% of the teams’ combined run-scoring occurred in the first inning.
In this game, however, for the first time in the NLDS, the Cubs didn’t score in the first inning. Megill retired the top of the Cubs’ lineup in order.
Then another first: Pomeranz gave up a solo home run to William Contreras.
That made the Cubs’ immediate response all the more important. The Brewers brought in flame-throwing rookie Jacob Misiorowski for the second inning. And as soon as he threw a fastball over the plate, on his second pitch of the outing, Cubs slugger Seiya Suzuki tied the score with a solo shot of his own.
The Brewers have been so good at capitalizing on their opponents’ mistakes all year —and in Game 1 of the NLDS turned an error by Cubs second baseman Nico Hoerner into four unearned runs.
So when Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson committed an error in the third inning, his high throw pulling first baseman Michael Busch off the bag, the next play became pivotal.
Right-hander Colin Rea got Jackson Chourio to hit a grounder to Hoerner, and he and Swanson turned a double play to erase the blunder.
In the fourth, however, the lead swung back to the Brewers, thanks again to the long ball. Rea missed over the middle with a cutter to Andrew Vaughn, who smoked it on a line over the left-field wall.
Then Sal Frelick beat out a single on a soft ground ball up the middle. Caleb Durbin moved Frelick to third with a low liner into center field. Pete Crow-Armstrong didn’t field it cleanly, and after scrambling to grab the rebound, he rushed the throw in, allowing Durbin to advance to second.
Rea then gave up a walk to load the bases. Counsell turned to Daniel Palencia, his “fireman” or middle-of-the game closer. Palencia lived up to the unofficial title and escaped with a grounder from Joey Ortiz.
The Cubs weren’t going down easily.
They put two runners on with no outs in the sixth with a single and a hit by pitch. After Brewers left-hander Aaron Ashby struck out designated hitter Kyle Tucker, Brewers manager Pat Murphy called in right-hander Chad Patrick to face Suzuki.
Suzuki hit a line drive to left field, but it was caught at the warning track. Patrick then struck out Ian Happ and fist-pumped to celebrate the squashing of the Cubs’ latest offensive counter.
The Brewers then doubled down the next inning. This time it was Brice Turang’s turn to hit a solo homer off right-hander Andrew Kittredge.
Just to get the NLDS to a Game 5, the Cubs had to beat the odds after the hole they dug for themselves in the first two games.
They lost the first two games at American Family Field, outscored by the Brewers 16-6. The Cubs’ starting pitching struggled, and the offense became overly reliant on the home run. The Brewers’ hitters, on the other hand, put on consistent pressure and capitalized on mistakes.
The climb ahead was steep, but it wasn’t unprecedented. The Cubs had won three straight elimination games once before in playoff history, and the last victory clinched the 2016 World Series title.
Roles, and momentum, reversed when the series moved to Wrigley Field, but the Cubs’ hopes finally ended back at American Family Field.