Christian Yelich stole home last night (and nothing bad happened after that).

It is such a damn shame that this moment happened in a game that we would otherwise love to forget. What a savvy play. Yeli noticed that the catcher was kind of lolly-popping his throws back to the mound, he stayed about 5 steps off of 3rd base after the pitch, and as soon as the catcher lobbed it back to the mound he took off. Basically forcing the pitcher to make a perfect (and rushed) throw home to get him. Incredible read and play. That’s it. The end. Brewers win 2-0 in front of 19 people in Miami.

Sadly, that’s not how we get to remember this game. Easily the most frustrating loss of the season. And it starts with that ballpark. There is ZERO juice in Miami. You can’t even hear crowd noise in the background on the TV or radio broadcast. You’d think they were playing this game in front of those fan-cardboard cutouts during the pandemic season*. I’ve seen more energy at a retirement home canasta tournament. Disgraceful. A few other notes in no particular order:

• Tip of the cap to the Brewer bullpen for turning in the effort they did when this became an unexpected bullpen game after the first inning. Joe Ross (who has been solid) left with lower back tightness after one scoreless inning, and it sounds like an IL stint for him. That means that this team has now lost Ross, DL Hall, Miley (for the year) and Jakob Junis (totally forgot about him) from their original 5-man rotation. “If it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.”- Walter Mosely/Pat Murphy.
• You just knew this game was going to take a turn when the Jake Bauers hit in the 9th inning got wedged under the outfield wall for a ground rule double. Monasterio was going to score EASILY to make it a 3-1 game. Instead, he goes back to 3rd with two outs and the Brewers can’t get him home. I’ve never been more sure of anything than I was in that moment that losing that run was going to cost them.
• Bottom of the 9th, Trevor Megill gets the first two outs in just three pitches. Then: A full count single (uh oh). Then: A stolen base (double uh oh). Then: A bloop single to right field to score the tying run (F–). I know there was a lot of conversation on Twitter about whether or not Jackson Chourio should have laid out for that catch to end the game. I get it, I thought the same thing. Be a hero! It is worth noting that Statcast had the catch probability on that ball (based on where Chourio was when it was hit and where it ultimately landed) at 0%. I also think it is worth noting that Chourio is 20 years old with limited outfield experience, and I’m guessing he was concerned that if he dove and missed it, the ball would roll past him and the winning run scores. Again: I wish he would have laid out, but acting like that was a guaranteed out if he dives is lunacy.
• Top of the 10th inning, Brewers get a leadoff walk combo-ed up with the ghost runner on 2nd. Joey Ortiz, one of your hottest hitters, at the plate. The first two pitches to Ortiz miss. That’s 6 straight balls from Marlins closer Tanner Scott. Ortiz is still bunting in a 2-0 count and laid down a fine bunt to advance the runners, but he bunted on ball 3. I think I would have at least forced Scott to throw a strike before attempting to bunt again. He might have walked the bases loaded with no outs. After the bunt, Adames and Sanchez go down MEEKLY and you don’t score a single run.
• Bottom of the 10th: Mitch White. Enough said.

Losing to a last place team in front of a bakers dozen Marlins fans, not ideal! There are going to be games like this in a 162-game schedule, but that was enough to make you want to slam your hand in a car door.

Hopefully they get a LONG start from Gasser tonight, because the other problem with yesterday is that you used ALL of your high-leverage relievers to cover all of those innings once Ross exited.

*It feels almost impossilbe that this happened, but it did.

PS: First Brewer to steal home since Scott Podsednik. Scotty Po! What a 2003 he had on a dreadful team. The only video I can find of that steal of home is from MLB.com and they have disabled embedding on it. I can only assume they were patiently waiting for a future Brewer to steal home and then blogs like this one wanting to embed the Scotty Po content. Well their 21 year gambit paid off. Click here to see the video and give MLB their precious clicks.