Long before Jake Bauers delivered one of the biggest swings of the Milwaukee Brewers’ postseason, he had already experienced the pressure of playing for a championship at Dodger Stadium.
Fomer Southern Section Stars Leading the Way for the Brew Crew
Thirteen years after helping Marina High School reach the CIF Southern Section Division 1 championship game at the ballpark, Bauers returned Wednesday night with considerably more at stake.
The former high school standout battled Dodgers starter Blake Snell for 11 pitches before launching a go-ahead two-run home run in the seventh inning of Milwaukee’s 6-2 victory in Game 3 of the National League Championship Series.
Two pitches later, another former Southern Section star joined him.
Garrett Mitchell, who starred at Orange Lutheran, followed with a solo home run to extend Milwaukee’s lead to 4-2, giving a pair of Orange County high school products back-to-back homers at Dodger Stadium.
The moment highlighted a Southern California connection that runs surprisingly deep throughout Milwaukee’s roster.
Seven players on the Brewers’ 26-man NLCS roster played at CIF Southern Section high schools: Bauers (Marina), Trevor Megill (Marina and Orange Lutheran), JoJo Romero (Oxnard), Joey Ortiz (Pacifica (Garden Grove)), Brice Turang (Santiago), Mitchell (Orange Lutheran) and Christian Yelich (Westlake).
And several have played significant roles in pushing Los Angeles to the brink.
Jake Bauers Returns to To His Prep Career Roots
Bauers’ connection to Dodger Stadium goes back to 2013.
As a senior, he helped Marina reach the Southern Section Division 1 championship game, where the Vikings fell 1-0 to Harvard-Westlake and future major leaguer Jack Flaherty.
Bauers was one of the country’s top high school hitters that season. According to MaxPreps, he hit .571 with 48 hits, 10 home runs and 26 RBIs before earning MaxPreps All-America recognition.
The San Diego Padres selected Bauers directly out of Marina with the 208th overall pick of the 2013 MLB Draft.
More than a decade later, he returned to the same stadium and produced a swing that could help send Milwaukee to the World Series.
Garrett Mitchell went from Orange Lutheran star to October hero
Mitchell was already one of Southern California’s premier prospects during his four varsity seasons at Orange Lutheran.
According to MaxPreps, Mitchell finished his high school career with 85 hits, 69 runs and 40 RBIs in 98 games while batting .318 with a .420 on-base percentage. He also helped Orange Lutheran win the 2017 National High School Invitational.
His homer immediately following Bauers’ blast gave the Game 3 sequence an unmistakable local feel.
Two former Orange County high school standouts had returned home in October and, within the span of three pitches, helped turn a 2-1 Milwaukee deficit into a 4-2 advantage.
Brice Turang’s Southern California Roots Run Just as Deep
Bauers and Mitchell have not been alone.
Milwaukee second baseman Brice Turang developed into one of the nation’s best high school players at Santiago High School in Corona.
Turang was a four-year varsity starter and was named MaxPreps’ national freshman of the year in 2015 after hitting .475 with 12 doubles, three triples, two home runs, 34 runs and 27 RBIs. His reported career totals included a .433 batting average and 171 hits in 392 at-bats.
Milwaukee eventually selected Turang with the No. 21 overall pick in the 2018 MLB Draft.
Now he is contributing against the team he grew up closest to geographically. Turang hit a game-tying solo home run in Game 1 of the NLCS before going 2-for-3 with an RBI in Game 2.
Seven Different Paths from the Southern Section
Not every member of Milwaukee’s Southern Section contingent followed the same route.
Christian Yelich was a four-year varsity player at Westlake and hit .451 with a .609 on-base percentage, 37 hits, nine home runs, 25 RBIs and 41 runs as a senior, according to MaxPreps. He ultimately became the No. 23 overall selection in the 2010 MLB Draft.
Joey Ortiz took a different path. The former Pacifica High School standout hit .417 with a .714 slugging percentage as a senior but went undrafted out of high school. He played at New Mexico State before the Baltimore Orioles selected him in the 2019 draft. Ortiz drove in Milwaukee’s final run of Game 3 with a two-out RBI single.
JoJo Romero developed at Oxnard High School, where Nevada's official bio credits him with a 24-7 career pitching record and 280 strikeouts. He later pitched at Nevada and Yavapai College before Philadelphia selected him in the fourth round of the 2016 draft.
Then there is Trevor Megill, whose high school journey included time at both Marina and Orange Lutheran before he graduated through Bixby Charter School. At Marina, MaxPreps lists a 1.35 ERA with 61 strikeouts over 52 innings.
Megill fittingly finished what his fellow Southern California products helped start Wednesday.
The 6-foot-8 right-hander recorded the final four outs of Game 3, striking out two and earning his fourth save of the postseason. Through the outing, he had surrendered just one hit over 5 2/3 scoreless postseason innings.
For a Brewers team one victory away from the World Series, the road through October has carried an unmistakable Southern California flavor.
Bauers and Mitchell supplied the biggest swings Wednesday. Turang has delivered throughout the series. Ortiz drove in a run, and Megill closed the door.
Before any of them reached the majors, however, they were playing on high school fields throughout the CIF Southern Section.
Now seven of those former Southern Section players share the same October clubhouse , and some of them are helping Milwaukee win just miles from where their baseball careers began.
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