Brewers Survive Bizarre Roof Play to Edge Padres 3-2 in NLDS Game 1

MILWAUKEE — Ty France hit the ball like a man trying to knock October straight into November. Top of the ninth of a bizarre NLDS opener, Brewers up 3-2, a Padres runner on first, one out — and France absolutely destroyed a Trevor Megill pitch toward the left-field seats at American Family Field. The Padres' dugout started to stir. The Brewers' dugout went dead quiet. And then a cable on the closed roof said nope.

France's moon shot struck the roof over fair territory and dropped out of the Wisconsin sky straight into Jackson Chourio's glove on the warning track for an out. Under the stadium's ground rules, a batted ball that hits the roof, its trusses, or its cables over fair territory is live and catchable. San Diego challenged, arguing the ball was foul. The challenge went nowhere. Jackson Merrill lined out to right fielder Luis Lara, Megill wrapped up a four-out save, and the Brewers survived the play of the year to edge the Padres 3-2 and take NLDS Game 1. Milwaukee's social team needed all of about thirty seconds: "Vibes are through the roof 📈."

It was one of the strangest endings anyone at the park could remember — "one of the most bizarre plays in American Family Field's 25-year history," CNN wrote. And it nearly overshadowed a game the Brewers had won the old-fashioned way first.

How we got there: Chourio and Contreras go deep

San Diego punched first. In the second inning, Xander Bogaerts and 20-year-old catcher Ethan Salas singled, Luis Campusano drove in the opener, and Salas came home on Jake Cronenworth's fielder's choice for a 2-0 Padres lead. And then Jackson Chourio did what Jackson Chourio does in October.

Garrett Mitchell opened the third with a broken-bat single, and Chourio ambushed the first pitch he saw from Padres starter Robbie Ray — a 420-foot, 113.3-mph missile to left-center that tied the game 2-2. It was Chourio's fifth career postseason home run, giving him sole possession of the Brewers' franchise record. The kid is 22 and already the best October hitter this franchise has ever had. Let that sit for a second.

The Brewers — who hit the fewest home runs in the National League this season — needed one more. William Contreras supplied it with two outs in the seventh, taking Padres reliever Adrián Morejón 406 feet to center for a 3-2 lead. Three runs on three swings that mattered: that's the whole formula. Milwaukee's bullpen posted five scoreless innings, and Megill came on in the eighth to fan Fernando Tatis Jr. with runners on the corners before locking down the ninth.

The rulebook meets the roof

Here's the thing about that ninth inning: the umpires were right. The American Family Field ground rules spell it out plainly — a batted ball that strikes the roof, roof truss, roof cable or any cabling over fair territory is in play, and if a fielder catches it, the batter is out. Over foul territory, it's a dead ball. The crew ruled the ball fair when it hit the cable, so the challenge — which could only ask whether it would have been foul — was dead on arrival.

Both dugouts had literally just heard the whole spiel. "We joked about it at the umpire meeting today about what would happen if the ball hit the roof," Stammen said. "And it was unlikely, but it happened. Unfortunately, a bad break for us. Looked like it was a possible home run. Just didn't go our way."

Megill, who gave up the drive, didn't even know the rule until the home plate umpire walked it over to him. "At first, it was, 'Oh, crap,' and then the home-plate umpire came up and said it was live no matter what," he said after the game. "Four years in this stadium, I've never seen that before. Just glad it worked in our favor there."

And here's the part that takes some of the sting out for San Diego, if they're willing to hear it: Statcast had France's drive at 105.3 mph off the bat with a 49-degree launch angle, caught 325 feet from home plate. Balls hit that steeply have almost no business leaving the yard — the data says it would have been a home run in exactly one of baseball's 30 parks, Houston's Daikin Park, and since Statcast tracking began in 2015 there have been only 10 homers anywhere in the majors with a launch angle of 49 degrees or higher. France figured he'd back-spun it fair; Brewers manager Pat Murphy figured it would have hooked foul anyway. We'll never know. That's baseball.

Murphy, for his part, knew exactly who to thank for the finish. Thinking of longtime broadcaster Bob Uecker, who died at 90 less than two years ago, Murphy said: "Ueck decided to put his hand on it and swat it down so Chourio could catch it. So thanks, Ueck."

A weird season of roofs for San Diego

Remarkably, this isn't even the first time this season a stadium roof has mugged the Padres. Back on Aug. 28 at Tampa Bay's Tropicana Field, Xander Bogaerts had a potential homer taken away when his drive struck the stadium's B-ring catwalk and was caught by the Rays' third baseman. San Diego has now lost two would-be homers to architecture in one season. That's not a slump, that's a zoning problem.

France, to his credit, turned the frustration into a question worth asking: with all the ball-tracking data available — exit velocity, launch angle, projected distance, all of it up on the scoreboard — why not have a mechanism for calling it a homer when it's obvious the roof robbed one? "You would think with all the technology and data and everything we have now, we'd be able to make a clear call on that," he said. Maybe this winter someone takes him up on it.

For now, though, the numbers are the Brewers' numbers. Game 2 is Sunday at 3 p.m. CT back at American Family Field, with San Diego ace Michael King starting against Brewers rookie Logan Henderson. The Padres will be thinking about the one that hit the roof. The Brewers will be thinking about the one that didn't have to — Contreras' 406-footer, sitting in a bleacher somewhere. The Padres-Brewers series rolls on, the NLDS is wide open, and Milwaukee is up 1-0. Vibes, as they say, are through the roof.