NLCS: Brewers Win What Will Forever Be Known as the Woodruff Game

Is baseball a crazy-great game or what?

Its first formal rules were written in 1845 and records have been kept ever since.

The mind-boggler is there's still stuff that's never happened in a game, and in this age of red-headed stepchild statistics and the wonder of digital access, it seems like they're multiplying.

 

The NL Championship Series opened with a couple of them, one of which was a vital factor in Milwaukee's Brewers holding on in the late innings to manage a 6-5 decision over the Los Angeles Dodgers.

It was also Milwaukee's 12th straight victory -- going back to the regular season, obviously -- and was a classic example of how today's managers can turn homer-happy games into a next-level kinda chess.

 

In this one, it was Brewer reliver Brandon Woodruff, appearing early -- as in the third inning -- in his usual role and then reminding one and all that he's a full-service jock.

Dude did it by tying the game, 1-1, with a single, sudden, and surprising swat offa Clayton Kershaw:

 

Woodruff then went into flamethrower mode and fanned the side right afterward.

Going deep and then notching three punchies immediately thereafter?

 

Not to be outdone, the Bums registered a pair of statistical firsts, too. They just weren't as cool:

• Never before had a catcher commit two errors and allow two passed balls in the same post-season game, so Yasmani Grandal is now the answer to a trivia question that will grow mold with time; and
• Never in his MLB career had Justin Turner worn the Golden Sombrero.

Each of these happenings -- and a late-inning Jesús Aguilar dinger that looked like window dressing at the time but soon wasn't -- figured prominently in the proceedings:

 

Safe to say that Milwaukee skipper Craig Counsell pushed all the right buttons here.

It's also appropriate to break out the old bromide that no lead is gonna be safe in the NLCS.

And we've seen proof yet again that when you take in a game, you may see something that you've never seen before. Or anyone else.