The Milwaukee Brewers pulled off a dicey 3-2 win over the Colorado Rockies in the opening game of their National League Division Series.
Colorado staged a remarkable ninth-inning fightback, having trailed 2-0 down from the third.
It came down to Milwaukee’s Mike Moustakas, whose single in the extra inning lifted the Brewers clear.
“Look, Moose has been in those spots,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. “It’s something that you try to not make the situation too big, and he did a great job of it and finally got a pitch to it.”
Christian Yelich had put the Brewers two points ahead in the third inning with a homer that saw Lorenzo Cain back in.
Colorado then trailed run-less through six innings before Charlie Blackmon’s intervention with a single.
Nolan Arenado followed that up with a sacrifice fly that saw Garrett Hampson score to level the teams.
Moustakas broke the deadlock in the extra and Milwaukee made it 1-0 in the best-of-five series.
“You’re just trying to slow the situation down, find a way to get on and make something happen,” Yelich said. “And Moose was able to come through there at the end with the huge hit.”
The Los Angeles Dodgers’ NL opener against the Atlanta Braves was a more decisive affair, with LA pummelling their play-off adversaries 6-0.
Joc Pederson’s homer in the first inning put the Dodgers ahead and Max Muncy fired off a three-run homer in the second.
Another homer for Enrique Hernandez, followed by a sacrifice fly by David Freese in the eighth, concluded the demolition at the Dodgers Stadium.
“I don’t really feel like there’s anyone on this team that’s going up there trying to hit a home run,” said Muncy. “It’s just a result of us having a good approach and good at-bats. I feel like a lot of the home runs we’ve had have come off of long at-bats, working the counts and wearing the pitcher down.”
