The great escape: Cain directs Yelich out of trouble on bases, Brewers finally beat Cubs

When Lorenzo Cain retires from baseball, he might have a second career as a traffic cop.

Directing teammate Christian Yelich to survive a seemingly hopeless rundown play in the third inning, Cain set the tone on Tuesday night when the Milwaukee Brewers finally did enough things right to beat the Chicago Cubs.

Chase Anderson was the pitching hero and Travis Shaw knocked in every run in the 4-0 victory at Miller Park but afterward everyone was talking about Cain’s stunning instincts on the bases.

“That base-running play by Cain was flat-out brilliant,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said after his club finally ended its seven-game losing streak against the Cubs. “I’ve never seen anything like that. He knew exactly what he was doing.

“I had no idea what he was planning on doing but it was amazing. It really was. You talk about seeing the court, seeing the floor, as a basketball analogy. That’s seeing the field and understanding what’s happening. I tip my cap to that. That was incredible.”

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Cain and Yelich pulled off the great escape after Yelich led off the bottom of the third with a walk off Tyler Chatwood and moved up on Chatwood’s errant pickoff attempt. Cain followed with a bouncer up the middle that second baseman Javier Báez fielded, catching Yelich too far off the base.

Yelich got into a rundown long enough for Cain to advance to second but his teammate had other ideas. Realizing first baseman Anthony Rizzo had gone to cover home with catcher Willson Contreras moving to third for the rundown, Cain stopped just short of second, directed Yelich back to that base, then retreated safely to first as the Cubs’ infielders watched dumbfounded.

The play paid immediate dividends when Shaw followed with his second two-run double of the game, accounting for all of the scoring.

Amazingly, Cain said Kansas City had worked on just that play when he was with the Royals.

“I peeked back,” Cain said. “I want to credit that play to (Royals coach) Rusty Kuntz. We used to practice that play when I was in KC. It never actually happened. For it to happen tonight was nice.

“As long as the guy in front of you is hustling, I peeked back and saw Rizzo wasn’t covering first. I told ‘Yelly’ to get on the bag. I credit him for hustling all the way. If he slows down, he’s out. That’s normally what guys do. Once I’m on the bag, they usually shut it down. He kept hustling.

“Everybody was huddled around second base. The main goal is to get them thinking I’m going to stand there and they get the easy out. I was able to get back to first easy.”

Yelich said he was “caught in no-man’s land” and wanted to stay alive just long enough for Cain to get to second. Then, he saw Cain had bigger things in mind.

“I heard him the whole time, saying, ‘All the way back! All the way back!’ He was yelling at me and pointing to the bag,” Yelich said. “I just kept running hard and as soon as I got there, he took off running back to first. That’s a really smart play.

“That was a great play on his part. He was kind of directing traffic. Then, Travis got a big hit right after and we got two runs.”

Shaw, who watched the play from the on-deck circle, marveled at what Cain was able to see, in front and behind him.

“It was smart on his part,” Shaw said. “I didn’t realize Rizzo was at the plate. For him to pick that up was big. That was an extra run.”

So, after watching the Cubs do the little things game after game in building an 8-1 record against the Brewers, including five shutouts, the Brewers were able to flip the script.

“It’s hard to pitch any better than that,” Shaw said of Anderson’s seven innings of one-hit ball. “Once we got ahead, he attacked the hitters. He was pretty dominant tonight. If you don’t score, you’re not going to win.”

The players knew there was widespread panic outside of the clubhouse about the Chicago’s dominance in the won-loss column in play against the Brewers. But, because so many of the games were close, including all four losses in a late-April sweep at Wrigley, they knew they could compete with the team that has ruled the division for three years.

“We’ve played really competitive games,” Cain said. “They’ve just beaten us. Scoring runs is the main focus. I hope we come out here tomorrow and score a lot of runs.”

You could tell it meant something to Anderson, who pitched the extra inning the Brewers needed in the seventh, throwing a season-high 107 pitches, and showed great emotion after recording three hard-hit outs.

“That’s probably the most excited I’ve been in a long time,” he said. “I yelled, ‘Let’s go!’ really loud.

“We’ve had some really good games against them that haven’t gone our way. It felt good to get some runs early. We know our record against the Cubs this year isn’t great, head to head. But every game counts. We’ve got 40 wins now. We look forward to winning the series tomorrow.”