Coming off his last start in Game 2 of the National League Division Series against the Atlanta Braves, Los Angeles Dodgers starter Blake Snell had his eyes set on a bounceback start.
That opportunity came on Wednesday in Game 3 of the National League Championship Series against the Milwaukee Brewers, already down 2-0 in the series.
Despite cruising through six innings and picking up nine strikeouts along the way, Milwaukee jolted up a big seventh inning and came away with a 6-2 win and a lopsided 3-0 NLCS lead.
Brewers jump on Dodgers' Snell in seventh inning
Snell was hoping that he could recreate the success he had against Milwaukee in last year's NLCS when he tossed eight scoreless innings and struck out ten Brewers in a Game 1 victory.
Jackson Chourio greeted him with a bang on a first-pitch home run to right field to kick off Game 3.
Snell followed that up with three consecutive strikeouts of Brice Turang, William Contreras, and Andrew Vaughn to end the frame. He carried that into the next five innings.
Over that stretch, the two-time Cy Young Award winner would retire 13 straight hitters before entering the seventh inning. That seventh frame would unravel in the worst possible way.
Snell walked Vaughn to lead off the inning. Just =as he did to Yoshinobu Yamamoto in Game 2, Jake Bauers fought off six foul balls in a 12-pitch at-bat that resulted in a go-ahead two-run shot.
Milwaukee gave Snell no time to breathe as Garrett Mitchell launched his first home run of the postseason, giving the Brewers the lead back on back-to-back home runs.
That allowed Dodgers manager Dave Roberts to pull the plug on Snell after 101 pitches.
This is the first time in Snell's career that he's given up three home runs in a game, and the first since 2022.
Speaking of home runs, the Brewers were tied for the second-fewest regular-season long balls with 154. With their three tacked on on Wednesday, they are tied for the postseason lead with eight.
Dodgers offense sputtered despite lineup changes
Like a train on schedule, the Dodgers offense proved to have its shortcomings, even with the extensive lineup switch. After going back and forth in deliberations between Shohei Ohtani and the Dodgers, Ohtani found his way into the starting lineup in Game 3.
He was placed in the sixth spot, a place he hasn't hit from since Sept. 19, 2020.
Ohtani contributed a hit on a 1-for-2 night at the plate, but the lone offense came from the other struggling bat of Will Smith.
Brewers starter Robert Gasser shut out the Dodgers for five scoreless innings, and manager Pat Murphy turned to Abner Uriber — who's pitched in all seven postseason games thus far.
Uribe lost his command, walking three of the first four batters he faced. Up came Smith, with the looming statistic of the Dodgers going 2-for-12 with runners in scoring position thus far in the postseason.
The three-time All-Star crushed a first-pitch go-ahead double that almost scaled the wall for a grand slam, but it doinked off the center field wall, allowing two runners to score.
Life might have been struck into the Dodgers' lineup for a spark, but that would be all the offense once more.
No more running now as the Dodgers face a 3-0 deficit heading into Thursday's Game 4 with Tyler Glasnow on the mound.