{"id":278062,"date":"2025-10-04T21:37:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T21:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/278062\/"},"modified":"2025-10-04T21:37:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-04T21:37:09","slug":"fast-start-propels-brewers-to-9-3-victory-over-cubs-in-nlds-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/278062\/","title":{"rendered":"Fast start propels Brewers to 9-3 victory over Cubs in NLDS opener"},"content":{"rendered":"

MILWAUKEE — – Jackson Chourio<\/a> went 3 for 3 and drove in three runs in the first two innings before departing with a hamstring injury<\/a> as the Milwaukee Brewers<\/a> trounced the Chicago Cubs<\/a> 9-3 in their NL Division Series opener Saturday.<\/p>\n

Chourio became the first player<\/a> to have three hits in the first two innings of a playoff game. But his availability for Monday’s Game 2 in the best-of-five series is unclear.<\/p>\n

Chourio, who missed a month<\/a> of the regular season with a strained right hamstring, left with tightness in that hamstring after beating out a bases-loaded infield single.<\/p>\n

That’s just about the only thing that went wrong for the Brewers, who grabbed a 9-1 lead in the first two innings in a matchup of NL Central rivals.<\/p>\n

Milwaukee’s Freddy Peralta<\/a> worked 5 2\/3 innings, and the only runs he allowed came on homers from Michael Busch<\/a> and Ian Happ<\/a>. Nico Hoerner<\/a> added a solo shot off Jared Koenig<\/a> in the eighth inning.<\/p>\n

Peralta’s nine strikeouts tied Don Sutton, Yovani Gallardo and Brandon Woodruff<\/a> for the Brewers’ single-game playoff record.<\/p>\n

Brewers-Cubs games in Milwaukee generally have divided crowds because of all the people who make the 90-mile trip from Chicago, but that wasn’t the case Saturday. The vast majority of spectators were Brewers fans waving yellow towels and booing Cubs manager Craig Counsell<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Counsell<\/a> grew up in the Milwaukee area and is the winningest manager in Brewers history, but he left for Chicago<\/a> after the 2023 season. He has been jeered<\/a> whenever his name has been mentioned over the American Family Field loudspeaker since he departed.<\/p>\n

Counsell’s decision to start Matthew Boyd<\/a> on short rest didn’t work out. The All-Star left-hander was lifted with two out in the first.<\/p>\n

The Brewers scored four runs or fewer in their last nine regular-season games. They had gone 2-11 in their last 13 playoff games, scoring over four runs in just one of those contests and failing to exceed five runs in any of them.<\/p>\n

This time, they had six runs by the end of the first, matching their highest scoring playoff inning in franchise history.<\/p>\n

After Busch opened the game with a 389-foot drive over the wall in right-center, Chourio, Brice Turang<\/a> and William Contreras<\/a> started the bottom half of the first with consecutive doubles.<\/p>\n

Contreras scored from second when Hoerner mishandled a slow grounder from Sal Frelick<\/a>. Blake Perkins<\/a> capped an 11-pitch at bat with a two-out RBI single to center.<\/p>\n

Michael Soroka<\/a> walked Joey Ortiz<\/a> to load the bases and allowed a two-run single to Chourio.<\/p>\n

Boyd had only three days of rest after throwing 58 pitches in the Cubs’ 3-1 Wild Card Series Game 1 victory<\/a> over the San Diego Padres<\/a> on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Milwaukee added three more runs in the second. Caleb Durbin<\/a> delivered a two-run single before Chourio’s infield hit made it 9-1.<\/p>\n

Chicago’s Aaron Civale<\/a>, who started the season with Milwaukee,<\/a> and Ben Brown combined for 6 1\/3 innings of shutout relief.<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/MLB<\/a>br\/]<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2025 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILWAUKEE — – Jackson Chourio went 3 for 3 and drove in three runs in the first two…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":278063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[143720,1271,5723,4247,1266,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-278062","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-143720","9":"tag-chicago-cubs","10":"tag-espn","11":"tag-milwaukee-brewers","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115318059418537003","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}