This one belongs to the San Diego dugout, and the longer you look at it the worse it gets.
Jackson Chourio ripped a two-run single off Mason Miller with two outs in the ninth, past Jake Cronenworth's diving backhand and into center, and the Brewers beat the Padres 4-3 for a 2-0 NLDS lead. It was the second time in 20 hours Milwaukee rallied past San Diego. The series isn't over, with Game 3 set for Tuesday in San Diego. But whatever happens next, Game 2 was a self-inflicted wound.
San Diego ignored the math. Miller entered with a 3-2 lead, trying for a six-out save. He rolled through the eighth on 14 pitches with two strikeouts, looking every bit the power arm he is. Then he kept going. By the time Chourio stepped in, Miller had thrown 40 pitches. During the entire regular season he crossed 31 pitches exactly once, and never got to 35. So the Padres asked a man whose command had never been tested past the mid-30s to get six outs cold, on the road in October, and acted surprised when it fell apart.
It fell apart how you'd expect. After a leadoff groundout in the ninth, Miller walked Christian Yelich, then Sal Frelick, got Andrew Vaughn to fly out, and then walked Gary Sánchez to load the bases. He never had to get beaten; he handed Milwaukee the bases loaded and let Chourio finish it. Fall one out short of a six-out save and only the result counts.
None of that takes anything away from Chourio, who was absurd. He saw six pitches with the bases loaded and the season on the line. He fouled off a 104-mph fastball with two strikes, the kind that retires almost everyone. He laid off a slider down. Then he lined a 101-mph heater up the middle to end it. A night earlier he'd sparked Milwaukee's Game 1 comeback with a tying homer. For a hitter that young to stay that calm against that velocity, twice, is the stuff teams build around.
But "the at-bat was too good to stop" is a story you tell after you've already put your best reliever in a hole. Miller is the Padres' best arm, and leaning on your best arm in the biggest moment is what good teams do. That's true right up until you push him into territory he's never pitched in. Using Miller for the ninth is obvious. Using him for an inning and a half he'd never been asked to handle all year, when every data point says his control goes with the pitch count, is a choice, and it's the choice that lost the game. You don't learn in the ninth inning that your closer's command slips past 30 pitches. You know it going in.
Milwaukee won a franchise-record 103 games and the best record in baseball this year, so none of this is a fluke on their end. They put the pressure on and let San Diego crack. Chourio's single is the highlight. The forty pitches are the reason there was one.
