Well folks, they say you can't predict baseball, and they say it every time because it's true. First inning, first jam of the night: Shohei Ohtani rips one down the line, it hits off the bag, hops clean over the first baseman's head like it had a flight to catch, and rolls all the way to the wall. RBI triple. One pitch, one run, and Miz hadn't even broken a sweat yet.
That was it for the damage. One run, in the books early, and Jacob Misiorowski spent the next five innings making sure it stayed that way — right up until the fifth, when the Dodgers loaded the bases and brought the reigning MVP back to the plate with a chance to blow the thing open.
He reached back for it — 104.2 MPH, his fastest pitch of the entire night, saved for the exact moment he needed it most. Ohtani went down swinging. Then Freddie Freeman stepped in, same situation, same stakes, and struck out right behind him. Bases loaded, two future Hall of Famers, zero runs. Inning over. That's not pitching out of a jam, folks, that's pitching your way out of a novel.
The offense made sure it counted for something. Willson Contreras — who'd been mired in an 0-for-20 skid you could see wearing on him — finally broke through with a two-run homer. Joey Ortiz added another two-run shot of his own. Aaron Ashby locked the door with two scoreless innings for the save. Final score: Brewers 4, Dodgers 1.
Six innings, six strikeouts, one run — and it came on a ball that bounced funny, not a ball he lost control of. ERA: 1.75, still the best in baseball, and now with a signature moment to go with it.