I'm creating 2 separate blog posts because on Friday October 5th, we did something pretty awesome on our way to the wedding. "Part 1" will be about that.
Brandon's wedding weekend happened to fall on the first weekend of baseball's post-season. On Monday, October 1st, the Brewers had a Game 163 vs. the Cubs, in Chicago, to crown the Central Division winner. What a thriller it was, but the Brewers came out the absolute victors, and we had home-field advantage throughout the playoffs! The Brewers made it to the NLDS; now they just had to find out who they were playing. Later on Monday, another Game 163 was happening, between the Dodgers and Rockies to determine the winner of the NL West. The Dodgers ended up winning, so the Rockies and Cubs would battle for the Wildcard spot the very next day. The Brewers were either going to be playing the Cubs or the Rockies in the NLDS. The Wildcard game was played at Wrigley Field in Chicago, and we though that there was just no way the Cubs would lose 2 games in a row, at home, for a spot in the post-season. Buuuut, they did! We couldn't believe it! How we, and the Rockies came into Wrigley Field and handed the Cubs 2 consecutive losses for the post-season, was amazing! 2 consecutive celebrations both by the opposing team was almost too good to be true, but it was very real! Just to put it in perspective, the Brewers were down 5 games to the Cubs at the beginning of September. 5 games is REALLY hard to make up, especially at the end of the season with postseason on the line. So, the NLDS was set, and being the Brewers had home-field advantage, Milwaukee got the first 2 games on Thursday and Friday, October 4th and 5th.
Now, Friday was going to be our travel day all along, with wedding festivities starting Saturday. On Wednesday, after we found out the Brewers didn't have to play the Cubs in the NLDS, we decided to get tickets to Friday's Game 2! There were a few reasons as to why we made this decision to go to the game. One being the timing of the game was just right. The game started at 3:15 pm CST. If the game started any earlier we wouldn't have made it. It is a 5.5 hour drive to Milwaukee without traffic, but for us, it was about an hour longer because we hit Chicago traffic, then road construction all the way from the WI/IL border to Milwaukee, plus the time change. We left Cincinnati at 6:30 am just to be there in time, so if the game started any earlier, we wouldn't have gone. If the game started any later, we also wouldn't have gone. If it was a night game, it would've been over at 10:00 pm at the earliest, and we would've had to get a hotel in the Milwaukee area, which would have meant getting up super early to be in Minneapolis by noon the next day for the wedding rehearsal. The second, and more important, reason we decided to get tickets to this game is that it was a birthday present for Robbie. Robbie's birthday fell on the weekend that we moved into our new house, so his birthday got overlooked. We both felt that he needed something bigger, so this was it!
Like I said, we left our house at 6:30 am. It rained practically the whole way from Indianapolis to Chicago, and I'm talking torrential rain! We were going probably an average speed on 35 mph nearly the whole way. Then we hit Chicago traffic around 11 am. It took us probably a half hour to get through downtown. Then we hit road construction from the WI/IL border all the way to Milwaukee on I-94. Not the greatest driving conditions, but we made it! Robbie downloaded a parking pass before we arrived, so we were able to park in one of Miller Park's parking lots. When we have gone to games there before, we would just find free street parking and walk to the stadium. We didn't want to run the risk this time, so we thought better to be safe than sorry.
When we parked, it was instant awesome! When you think of Miller Park you think of tailgating. These fans did not disappoint on that front! There were rows and rows of grills, smoke, the smell of brats and hot dogs, people playing beanbags and catch, and above all that, the excitement and anticipation was over the top! We took all the tailgating in while walking to the stadium. I was sooooo excited to be at this game; I was like a little kid in a candy store! Our first order of business was lunch, including the midwest staple, cheese curds!
We got to our seats just as batting practice was wrapping up. Our seats were great, just behind homeplate in the 2nd tier. I liked these seats because we could see practically the whole field! This was my very first Brewers playoff experience and I wanted to just soak it all in!
Christian Yelich wrote a really great article in The Players Tribune just before the Brewers made the playoffs, and it was titled "Let's Goooooo!" So that has been one of our motto's throughout the post-season!
The 4 times we have been to the Post-season. Hoping to add more to that this year!
Before the game, the jumbotron showed clips of past post-seasons with videos similar to one another in different years. It was really cool to see the videos that I was alive for, most notably Nyjer Morgan's walk-off win in 2011! Also, we had a really cool ceremonial first pitch as well. Cecil Cooper and "Stormin" Gorman Thomas threw out the first pitch to Craig Counsell and Jim Gantner, respectively. Cecil Cooper's granddaughter also sang the National Anthem! Finally, those 2 words were said that gave me chills, especially in this game: PLAY BALL!
Jhoulys Chacin got the nod in this game, after short rest; he started Game 163 on Monday vs. the Cubs. I wasn't sure how he would do on short rest, but I was sure our bullpen would back him up if he struggled! Chacin did very well as he pitched 5 scoreless, giving up only 3 hits! He also had 3 strike-outs as well. In this era of baseball, a pitcher going 5 innings is quite good. It used to be that you would see many pitchers go complete games, but not anymore. Baseball is relying heavily on their bullpen, and I'm pretty sure the Brewers are paving the way in that regard. Heck, in Game 1 of the NLDS, the Brewers manager threw a bullpen game by design. At any rate, the game was scoreless going into the Brewers half of the 4th inning. With 1 out, our mid-season trade acquisition, Mike Moustakas, hit a double, then the very next batter traded places with him on a ground-rule double! Brewers were on the board, 1-0!!
The Seventh Inning Stretch was something I had been looking forward to since our last visit to Miller Park in 2011. Not only do we sing Take Me Out To The Ballgame, but Miller Park has a tradition of singing Roll Out The Barrel too! It was so fun to sing that again with such an electric crowd!
When Chacin left after 5 solid, Knebel came in and pitched a clean 6th, with 2 strikeouts. Then Soria pitched .2 innings, then Hader came on and got out of the inning! Jeffress was next out of the bullpen in the 8th and he had a clean inning. Then the big Brewers bats were up, starting with Yelich, who made a strong push to be MVP this season (still to be announced). Yelich walked, then Braun singled him to 3rd. Aguilar then walked the bases loaded! At this point, the crowd was going absolutely nuts! But to me, this is what I've waited for, an extremely exciting Brewers home playoff game! And I was sure getting it! Next up was Moustakas, and he singled Yelich in, and the wheels were in motion! The very next batter was Eric Kratz, the back up to the back up catcher. Steven Vogt went down with an injury early in the season and he was our original back-up catcher this year. When he got injured, Eric Kratz became the 2nd catcher on our roster. In a 1-1 count to Kratz, he lines a single to left field scoring Braun and Arcia (who replaced Aguilar as a pinch runner)!! This was some exciting stuff that was happening on the field! The next batter was our bullpen pitcher Jeremy Jeffress, who was making his first career plate appearance! I couldn't believe it! What an inning the Brewers had! We were up 4-0 going into the top of the 9th! Just 3 more outs! Jeremy Jeffress went back out there to pitch the 9th inning after the offense padded his lead! After a lead-off single by the Rockies, they went down 1-2-3 after that, and the Brewers won! I was ecstatic!! The crowd was going crazy, and I'm pretty sure the game ball was given to Kratz! What a game to be at! Not only did they win this game, they had also just won their 10th game in a row! The Brewers were so resilient this season, and definitely when they needed it the most! I was so proud of them after this game! We stayed to listen to the post-game interviews on the field, then started to make our way out and back to our car. The environment around the the stadium was still so electric, just as much (and if not, more) than it was when we got to Miller Park earlier in the day! It took a while for that win to sink in!
Surprisingly, it didn't take us long to leave the parking lot. We parked near the outer edge of the lot, so that made it easier to exit. When we decided to go to the Brewers game, we also decided not to confirm a hotel for that night. By the time we got on the road, it was about 8:00 pm. We planned on just driving until we were tired. We originally had Wisconsin Dells as our stopping point for the night, but we pushed a little bit further west on I-94 and made it to Eau Claire. Looking back, it was probably wise of us to just stop in the Dells because by the time we got to Eau Claire, neither of us could keep our eyes open. Robbie was driving at this point, and we were both doing our best to keep us both awake! It was a rough last 10 miles! We were so glad to have gotten to our hotel when we did!
The Brewers NLDS game kicked off our weekrnd of wedding fun, and even though this day was a little longer than expected, it was perfect! Robbie and I have been such Brewers fans the last few years, and to have the opportunity to go to a playoff game was more than I could have ever thought! The Brewers won their first 2 games of this series, and would eventually go into Colorado and break the Rockies' hearts in game 3 with a sweep of the series!! We were moving onto the NLCS and I couldn't be more excited to see what happens!
