The Morning Horsehide Herald — the Fifteenth of October, Two Thousand and Twenty-Six

Is it spring training yet? No — the pennants are being decided, and spring must wait its turn.

The Game of the Day

THE FIRST PITCH OF THE EVENING LEAVES THE YARD AND THE ELEVENTH OF A SINGLE SIEGE DECIDES IT — CHOURIO AMBUSHES SNELL BEFORE THE FIFTY THOUSAND HAVE SETTLED, BAUERS OUTLASTS HIM FOR A GO-AHEAD CLOUT, MITCHELL FOLLOWS HIM OVER THE BARRIER, AND MILWAUKEE STANDS ONE VICTORY FROM ITS FIRST WORLD'S SERIES IN FOUR-AND-FORTY YEARS: BREWERS 6, DODGERS 2

Jackson Chourio strikes Blake Snell's very first offering into the right-center seats — one year to the day after he opened a postseason game the same way — and after Will Smith's bases-loaded double briefly restores the champions and their crowd, Jake Bauers fouls off everything Snell has left and turns the eleventh pitch of the battle into a two-run homer, Garrett Mitchell makes it back-to-back, and the Dodgers stand three games down in a hole only one club in history has ever climbed out of

Dodger Stadium got its voice back in the sixth inning Wednesday night, and kept it for less than an inning. Will Smith, mired all month, had just lined a bases-loaded double off the top of the left-center wall for the lead, and the 50,708 were making the old championship noise — two titles running will teach a crowd the words. Then Jake Bauers stepped in against Blake Snell in the seventh and declined, pitch after pitch after pitch, to be put away, and when the eleventh offering caught too much of the plate he deposited it in the right-field pavilion, 412 feet off, for two runs and the lead.³⁴ The yard went so quiet that the visitors' dugout could be heard celebrating in the upper deck. Garrett Mitchell struck the next homer himself, back-to-back, and Milwaukee had turned a 2-1 deficit into a 6-2 verdict and a three-games-to-none grip on the National League's pennant round.³

The evening had announced its character on its very first pitch. Jackson Chourio, 22 years old, met Snell's opening fastball — 97.6 miles the hour, center-cut — and drove it the opposite way into the right-center seats before some of the principals had found their places; the Milwaukee owner was still scrambling to his seat, and Bauers was still pulling on his batting gloves.⁶ The records went scrambling with him: only six men have opened a postseason game with a first-pitch home run since such things were first counted in 1988, and Chourio has now done it twice — one year to the day since he did it in this same round against this same club — a distinction he shares with George Springer alone. The blow was his sixth postseason homer, the most any Brewer has ever accumulated, and Snell became the only pitcher twice victimized by the leadoff ambush.⁶ The young man played the rest of his evening in company: a praying mantis took up residence on his shoulder in the third, just as he settled under a Freddie Freeman fly ball half-lost in the low sun, and could not be persuaded off him. The catch was made, insect and all.⁷

Between the first blow and the last ran a proper pitchers' evening. Snell, who had not allowed a home run in ten starts this year, gathered himself after Chourio's clout and at one stretch retired fourteen men in succession, nine strikeouts among his evening's work.⁵⁴ Robert Gasser — the man this paper introduced yesterday as the season's quietest success — answered with five scoreless innings of his own, three hits, on 72 pitches. The sixth undid the visitors' arithmetic for a moment: Abner Uribe arrived from the bullpen without his compass, walked three Dodgers, and Smith's double cashed two of them — the heaviest damage Milwaukee's relief corps has absorbed all month, with a blown save entered against Uribe's account. DL Hall walked in, stranded Shohei Ohtani ninety feet from home, and the damage stopped at two.³⁵

Then came the seventh, and the at-bat that may yet stand as the series' epitaph. Andrew Vaughn's seven-pitch walk ended Snell's run of fourteen straight; Christian Yelich went in to run for him; and Bauers — who turned the second game Monday with a twelve-pitch walk against Yoshinobu Yamamoto — began fouling off everything with a star on it. A called strike, two balls, a foul tip; two-strike fouls off the slider and the curve; ball three; then fouls off the four-seamer, the changeup, the slider again. The eleventh pitch was a fastball meant for the edge that arrived at the middle, and Bauers did not miss it. He is the second man in postseason history with plate appearances of eleven pitches or more in consecutive games — the Cubs' Aramis Ramirez, in 2003, is the other — and his homer was just the sixth ever struck on the eleventh pitch or later of a postseason at-bat.⁴ The beaten pitcher, once his teammate in the Tampa Bay chain, paid him the evening's handsomest tribute: "I've seen all the ups and downs he's been through, and it's been a lot of downs. For him to go through this right now, he's earned it. Hat's off to him. What an at-bat. I threw everything I had."⁴ This is, after all, a man Milwaukee itself released two Novembers ago, a journeyman of five organizations who once mused about quitting the game for Costa Rica. "I was looking for a fastball, and I didn't want to miss it," Bauers said. "I said I'll adjust to anything else, but if you get a heater, don't miss it."⁴

Mitchell's four-bagger made the pair the third set of back-to-back postseason homers in Milwaukee's annals and chased Snell; a wild pitch cashed Brice Turang in the eighth and Joey Ortiz singled home Cooper Pratt in the ninth, and the accounting was complete. The visitors have now answered, immediately and in kind, every one of the four innings in which Los Angeles has scored in this series — their fifth comeback victory in seven October games, a figure matched this early only by the 1996 Yankees and 1980 Phillies, both of whom finished their autumns with parades.³ The arithmetic ahead is the kind this paper prints with a steady hand: of the 42 clubs ever down three games to none in a best-of-seven, 32 were swept, two forced a seventh game, and exactly one — the 2004 Red Sox, on whose roster stood a reserve outfielder named Dave Roberts — recovered the series. "It's certainly possible," says the same Roberts, now managing the club that must do it. "I've lived it."⁵ His batsmen, 3-for-32 with runners in scoring position this postseason outside Smith's double, are rather further from the precedent than he is. Kyle Tucker states the assignment plainly: "This team's won four games before. That's what we're going to have to do."³ The fourth game goes this very evening at eight o'clock Eastern at Dodger Stadium, and the Elimination Desk takes up its particulars elsewhere in this number.¹⁰

News Around the League

THE ELIMINATION DESK: TONIGHT AT EIGHT THE CHAMPIONS BAT FOR THEIR LIVES BEHIND GLASNOW, UNDEFEATED COMPANY IN THIS OCTOBER'S SEVEN ERRANDS — MILWAUKEE, ASKED FOR ITS STARTER, PROMISES ONLY THAT 'THERE WILL BE PITCHING'

The National League's fourth sitting goes tonight at eight o'clock Eastern at Dodger Stadium — moved up an hour from nine by the league's Wednesday decree — with the sweep standing one game off and the champions' three-peat standing on its last legal appeal.⁸¹⁰

Los Angeles sends its best remaining argument. Los Angeles has yet to lose a postseason game in which Tyler Glasnow has pitched this month — seven appearances, a 1.73 earned-run average across 26 innings — and the man carries a 3.60 figure in three career elimination games, all served in Tampa Bay's employ. His last outing wobbled, five walks against Atlanta in the Division round, but surrendered a single run in 4 2/3 innings.¹⁰ Behind him the bullpen reports in nearly full strength, though the first two games' starters do not: Tarik Skubal and Yoshinobu Yamamoto are held back for a fifth and sixth game that will exist only if tonight is won.⁵¹⁰

Milwaukee, meanwhile, conducted the week's briefest press conference. "Pitching tomorrow?" a reporter asked Pat Murphy, hoping for a name. "Yeah," the manager replied, "there will be pitching."¹⁰ The candidates for what amounts to a bullpen evening are plentiful and rested: the left-handers Kyle Harrison and Shane Drohan and the right-hander Chad Patrick have yet to throw a pitch in seven postseason games, and Dustin May — a former Dodger with a 2020 ring from this very ballpark — threw an inning in the second game. The staff they would front carries a 1.74 earned-run average this postseason, the lowest of the twelve clubs that entered.¹⁰ The champions have twice lately climbed from the brink — down two games to one against San Diego in 2024, down three games to two in last year's World's Series — but they have never needed four victories in a row with winter at the door. "We've never been in this big of a hole," says Kiké Hernández, "but we've had our backs against the wall plenty of times before, and we've come out of it."⁵

THE LAKEFRONT DESK: RAIN MOVES THE AMERICAN QUESTION TO ONE O'CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON — WILLIAMS, NOW OFFICIAL, TAKES THE BALL FOR THE FOREST CITY NINE AGAINST JAX, WHO MAKES THE FIRST OCTOBER START OF HIS LIFE IN A YARD HE KNOWS BY HEART

The American League's pennant round resumes today at Progressive Field at one o'clock in the afternoon, Eastern — the league having moved the game up five full hours from its evening appointment on account of rain forecast over Cleveland tonight. October baseball by daylight, by the lake, with the round tied at a game apiece: the deadball desks could ask no better page.⁸⁹

The pitching is now official on both sides. Gavin Williams, whom this paper reckoned yesterday the likely man, was formally named Wednesday afternoon — on regular rest at last, after a Division round in which he made two starts and an emergency relief errand, recorded the final three outs of the fourth game, and came back on one day's rest to strike out twelve in the fifth, tying the franchise's postseason record. His October ledger stands at a 1.54 earned-run average with 24 strikeouts in 11 2/3 innings, and today's assignment lines him up, should the series run its full length, to start a seventh game Tuesday on regular rest.⁹ Opposite him, Griffin Jax makes the first postseason start of his career — a starter most of this season, lately a reliever by October necessity, with a 0.90 earned-run average over his last five appearances; since a rough return from elbow discomfort in early September, he has permitted two runs in 20 innings with 19 strikeouts across his last four regular-season starts and a Division-round relief errand. The venue holds no mysteries for him: most of his career was spent in Minnesota's employ, and his 13 relief appearances in this very yard produced a 2.19 earned-run average. The man is presumably also acquainted with the weather.⁹

The crowd that sang Cleveland back from two defeats down against Chicago now gets three straight home dates with the round level — and the statisticians' note from yesterday's number still stands: the winner of a third game in a series tied at one has gone on to take the series in roughly seven cases of ten. Patrick Bailey, swinging a hot October bat, catches his customary partner; Tampa Bay's lone question is whether Jonny DeLuca or Cedric Mullins patrols center.⁹

THE MANAGERIAL DESK: THE COURTSHIP THIS PAPER REPORTED YESTERDAY LOSES ITS CHAPERONE — HOUSTON LETS ESPADA'S PAPERS LAPSE A DAY AFTER LENDING HIM TO SEATTLE'S PARLOR, AND PHILADELPHIA, TWICE REFUSED BY CORA, GIVES MATTINGLY, AGED FIVE-AND-SIXTY, TWO YEARS ON MERIT

The managerial market produced two settlements Wednesday, and the first reads as a sequel to yesterday's number. Joe Espada, whose permission to interview for Seattle's vacancy this paper reported only yesterday, will not be back in Houston at all: the Astros announced they will not renew his contract when it expires at the month's end. The owner Jim Crane supplied the customary warm send-off — "We are thankful for Joe's hard work, his passion for the game, and for his commitment to the Houston Astros" — and the club parted besides with five of its coaches, leaving it in search of a manager and a general manager at once, Dana Brown having been dismissed in August.¹² The record Espada carries to market: 256 wins against 229 across three seasons, division flags in 2024 and 2026 — the latter at 81-81, the first club in the game's history to reach the postseason without a winning record — and a two-game sweep at the White Sox's hands for an exit. The courtship across the division may now proceed without asking anyone's leave.¹²

In Philadelphia, meantime, the interim tag came off. Don Mattingly, 65 years old, signed a two-year engagement as the Phillies' manager, the position he has held in fact since Rob Thomson's dismissal 28 games into the season. His case argued itself: 79 wins against 55 thereafter, a Wild Card berth clinched with a victory in the season's final game, and an exit in the deciding third game of the Wild Card round against Atlanta. The appointment carries its footnotes — the man is the father of the club's general manager Preston Mattingly, and the executive Dave Dombrowski was twice rebuffed in his pursuit of Alex Cora before settling, both times, on the man already in the chair.¹³ The Herald observes that 23 consecutive seasons of managing and coaching, laid atop a playing career of the first order, make "settling" a curious word for it.

THE AWARDS DESK: RAWLINGS NAMES THREE MEN TO EVERY POST FOR THE GOLDEN GLOVES, VERDICTS SEALED UNTIL THE FIRST OF NOVEMBER — AND TWO OF THE NOMINATED WILL BE AT WORK THIS VERY AFTERNOON BY THE LAKE

The leather trade published its short lists Wednesday: the Gold Glove finalists for 2026, three men to a position in each league, the utility post included, with the winners to be announced on the first of November. The electorate, for the record, is the league's 30 managers and up to six coaches per club, barred from voting for their own men and counting for three-quarters of the verdict, the remaining quarter supplied by the Society for American Baseball Research's defensive index.¹¹ The Blue Jays and Cubs lead the nominations with five men apiece; the Braves, Diamondbacks, Rangers and Royals count four each.¹¹

Two of the nominated have more immediate engagements. Tanner Bibee, a finalist among American League pitchers, and Taylor Walls, a finalist at shortstop, are presently employed on opposite sides of the pennant round that resumes at one o'clock today at Progressive Field — Bibee for Cleveland, Walls for Tampa Bay — and may be excused for leaving the campaigning to their rivals.¹¹ The Herald reports nominations as nominations, per its standing rule: the hardware changes hands when the ballots are counted, and not an edition sooner.

Today the calendar grants both arguments at once, and at civilized intervals: the American question at one o'clock in the afternoon by the lake, where the rain rewrote the timetable, and the National at eight in Los Angeles, where Milwaukee may finish what it started and the champions must win tonight and then three more times besides. Friday holds the American round's fourth game at Cleveland, and a fifth National sitting — should tonight's defendants earn it.² An afternoon playoff game is the oldest luxury the sport affords: it was how all of October sounded before the lights went up, and a reader with a flexible luncheon arrangement is advised to take full advantage. Until the morrow's dispatch, keep your scorecards near and your enthusiasms nearer.

~ THE HERALD ~

The Herald Acknowledges Its Debts

MLB Box Scores — Thursday, October 15, 2026 — Boxscore
Baseball-Reference.com — Upcoming Schedule and Upcoming Dates — Baseball-Reference
AJ Cassavell, Brewers keep October magic rolling, on cusp of 1st World Series in 44 years — MLB.com
Adam McCalvy, Bauers refuses to give up – not on his career, not against a pair of Dodgers aces — MLB.com
Sonja Chen, LA facing long odds after rough 7th flips script on Snell's Game 3 start — MLB.com
Christina De Nicola, Chourio's history-making 1st-pitch HR comes 1 year to the day after he did the same thing! — MLB.com
Scott Chiusano, The one thing that bugs Brewers star is a praying mantis on his shoulder — MLB.com
Updated Thursday start times: 1 ET (ALCS Game 3), 8 ET (NLCS Game 4) — MLB.com
Tim Stebbins, Keegan Matheson and Adam Berry, Rays-Guardians ALCS Game 3 FAQ (1 ET, TBS/HBO Max) — MLB.com
Sonja Chen, Adam McCalvy and AJ Cassavell, Brewers-Dodgers NLCS Game 4 FAQ (8 ET, FS1/FOX One) — MLB.com
2026 Gold Glove Award finalists revealed — MLB.com
Astros will not renew contract of manager Joe Espada — ESPN
Phillies hire Don Mattingly to 2-year deal as manager — ESPN