MILWAUKEE — William Contreras homered with two outs in the seventh inning for the go-ahead run to lift the Milwaukee Brewers to a 3-2 comeback victory over the San Diego Padres in a battle of the bullpens on Saturday night in the opener of their National League Division Series.
Reliever Adrian Morejon (0-1) opened the seventh and retired the first two hitters before Contreras sent a 3-2 pitch 406 feet to center.
Jackson Chourio had a game-tying two-run homer in the third off Padres starter Robbie Ray to account for Milwaukee’s other runs. The Brewers were last in the NL with 154 homers and next-to-last in the majors, only ahead of Toronto’s 152.
Milwaukee earned a first-round bye and home-field advantage throughout the postseason after winning a franchise-record 103 games, while San Diego won 17 of its final 20 regular-season games before sweeping the Chicago Cubs this week in their wild-card series.
Brewers ace Jacob Misiorowski, who led the majors with a 1.80 ERA and 252 strikeouts, needed 88 pitches to get through four innings, allowing two runs on four hits with six strikeouts.
Left-hander Ray allowed two runs on four hits in 2 2/3 innings.
Chourio brought the Brewers even at 2-all with his fifth career postseason homer, the most in franchise history. Garrett Mitchell opened with a broken-bat single to short and advanced to second base on a groundout. Chourio then lined the first pitch 420 feet to left-center with an exit velocity of 113.3 mph.
The Padres loaded the bases with two outs in the seventh, but left-hander DL Hall (1-0) relieved and got Jackson Merrill to fly out to left.
Down 3-2, San Diego had runners on the corners with two outs in the eighth, but closer Trevor Megill came on and fanned Fernando Tatis Jr. Megill, who had a team-high 30 saves in 33 opportunities, finished with a scoreless ninth for the save.
After forcing Misiorowski to throw 25 pitches in a scoreless first inning, the Padres scored two runs in a 33-pitch second inning
Xander Bogaerts reached on a one-out infield single and Ethan Salas singled. Luis Campusano followed with an RBI single to right. Salas then scored from third, sliding home ahead of the throw on Jake Cronenworth’s fielder’s choice bouncer to first.
–Jim Hoehn, Field Level Media
