In the seventh inning of NLCS Game 3, Jake Bauers did what he’s been doing all postseason: he made a pitcher work, stayed patient, and punished the mistake. Eleven pitches into his at-bat against Blake Snell, a 97.8 mph four-seam fastball caught a little too much of the zone — and Bauers turned on it. The ball left the bat at 109.4 mph, launched at a 34-degree angle, and traveled 411 feet to left field. Brewers 3, Dodgers 2.
Garrett Mitchell didn’t let Los Angeles breathe. He went back-to-back with Bauers in the same inning, pushing it to 4-2 and sending Snell to the dugout for good. Two swings. One inning. Series shifted.
How the 11-Pitch Battle Unfolded
Snell entered Game 3 with a postseason résumé that commanded respect: a 4-1 record, a 1.90 ERA, and 55 strikeouts in 42.2 innings. Through the early innings he looked every bit that dominant — controlled, aggressive, dictating pace with his fastball.
The problem came in the seventh, when he faced Bauers for the second time. Two outs, score tied at 2-2 after the Dodgers had answered in the sixth. What followed was a classic October chess match. Bauers didn’t give away a single pitch. Snell tried to move the ball around the zone, varied his speeds, worked the count — and Bauers matched him beat for beat. On the eleventh pitch, Snell left a fastball up. Bauers didn’t miss it.
Mitchell’s back-to-back blast immediately after made the decision easy: Snell was done.
This Is Who Bauers Is — The Numbers Back It Up
This wasn’t a fluke or a one-night heater. In Game 2, Bauers had already worked a 12-pitch at-bat against Yoshinobu Yamamoto — one pitch longer than this one — drawing a bases-loaded walk that opened the door for Christian Yelich’s two-run single to flip the game.
The 31-year-old left-handed hitter signed for $2.7 million heading into 2026. He’s not the name on the postseason posters. He started Game 3 hitting fifth in Milwaukee’s order and went 0-for-2 before that seventh-inning at-bat. None of that changed his approach by a single degree — and that’s exactly what a hitter with a .389 OBP looks like in October.
His 2026 regular-season Statcast profile explains why he hits the ball the way he does:
- 578 plate appearances in 2026
- 26 home runs, 86 RBI
- AVG: .266 | OPS: .873
- xwOBA: .371 — 93rd percentile (elite)
- Exit velocity: 92.1 mph avg — 91st percentile (elite)
- Barrel rate: 14% — 92nd percentile (elite)
- Hard-hit rate: 51.9% — 94th percentile (elite)
- Bat speed: 76.5 mph avg — 93rd percentile (elite)
- Chase rate discipline — 93rd percentile (elite)
Across every major Statcast contact and discipline category, Bauers sits in the 91st percentile or above. The 11-pitch at-bat wasn’t luck. It was the profile doing exactly what the numbers say it should.
The Contrast the Dodgers Can’t Ignore
While Bauers was working Snell for 11 pitches and a 411-foot home run, Shohei Ohtani is hitting .150 in the 2026 postseason — a number so concerning that Los Angeles dropped him to sixth in the batting order for Game 3 for the first time in six years.
A $2.7 million role player chased their ace. The highest-paid player in baseball history is hitting .150. The postseason has a way of drawing those contrasts in permanent ink.
