Game 1 of the 2025 National League Championship Series delivered its share of drama, but nothing quite like what unfolded in the fourth inning. What appeared destined to be a grand slam turned into confusion, chaos, and a historically strange double play.
With the Dodgers and Brewers locked in a scoreless duel, Max Muncy launched a deep fly ball to center field off Milwaukee starter Quinn Priester. The ball carried, and in many parks, it would have cleared the fence. But in American Family Field, the story was different. Sal Frelick sprinted back and leapt, got a glove on it, but the ball popped out and caromed off the padded wall.
The Play That Broke (Baseball) Logic
The way the play unraveled is the kind of moment that makes stadiums gasp and fans rewind replays. Umpire Chad Fairchild–stationed down the left-field line–immediately ruled no catch, signaling the ball had not been held in. That set off pandemonium.
Muncy, unsure whether he’d cleared the fence or not, rolled through first. Teoscar Hernández, on third, tagged up and sprinted home–then stopped, then advanced. In the confusion, William Contreras applied the force at the plate, and the inning ended with a groundout in what was officially scored an 8-6-2 double play (center field → shortstop → catcher).
It was the first time an 8-6-2 double play had ever occurred in a postseason game, according to Elias Sports Bureau. It’s so rare that the last time an 8-6-2 double play happened at all in a regular season was April 16, 2004.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before,” Brewers veteran Christian Yelich said. “It’s just one of those really weird, freak plays.” Contreras called it “a crazy moment.” The official scoring reads as a groundout and that forced the inning to end without a run.
The ball was clocked at 104 mph and projected to go 404 feet. In statcast terms, it became the second-longest ball in play (since 2015) that resulted in a double play.
“I didn’t really know what happened,” Frelick said. “I really had no clue what was going on until like an inning later when I could see the replay.”
What It Meant, and What It Almost Was
Had the ball cleared the wall as projected, the Dodgers would have gone from a tight 0-0 to a probable 4-0 lead, and their win probability would have shot up to about 88 percent. Instead, after the double play, Milwaukee’s win probability still sat above 50 percent–not dominant, but a flip in momentum.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts pointed to the mental side of the play. “It happened fast. I didn’t know he didn’t catch it, to be quite honest,” Roberts said. “We go over that rule. Teo knows the rule. I think right there he had just a little bit of a brain fart, appreciating that when it does hit the glove, you can tag there. But then he tagged, did it correctly, then saw he didn’t catch it, and he went back. That was the mistake.
“But he owned it. And after that, there’s nothing else you can do about it.”
The rest of the game stayed tight and tense, including a bottom of the ninth, bases loaded moment for the Brewers. Ultimately, the game would come down to Brice Turang, who ended up striking out, allowing the Dodgers to take Game 1 with a 2-1 final score.
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