After Josh Hader negotiated what appeared to be the at-bat of the game, an unexpected result awaited the next inning

JR Radcliffe
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Brewers reliever Josh Hader reacts after giving up a three-run home run with two outs in the top of the eighth inning.

They couldn’t have been two more dissimilar at-bats.

One, a pressure-packed matchup between the Brewers’ best pitcher and perhaps the Dodgers’ best hitter turning into an entertaining seven-pitch sequence that finished with about as vintage a pitch as Josh Hader can deliver.

The other, an inning later, against a far-less heralded batter with a stunning result.

Kike Hernandez did something no batter has ever done against Hader, hit a home run on an 0-2 pitch. The three-run blast in the eighth inning broke a 2-2- tie and provided the winning tallies in a 5-3 Dodgers win over Milwaukee on Friday at Miller Park, cuing the familiar chorus anytime Hader surrenders anything at all: “He’s human.”

Hader, who has nonetheless been borderline extra-terrestrial over the past year-plus, was tagged with his second loss since the start of the 2018 season. Prior to the home run, batters were 0 for 10 with nine strikeouts this year on 0-2 counts. Since the start of last year, once a batter gets to an 0-2 count, he’s a collective 1 for 55 (.018) with 44 strikeouts.

“It was up where I wanted it, but I wanted it to be more in and just left it out over,” Hader said. “With me falling behind on those guys walking, I didn’t set myself up too good to execute. I made mistakes and I paid for it. That’s the way a game goes sometimes.”

Hader issued two free passes after walking two batters in all of his first seven appearances this year, spanning 10 innings. Still, with two down after a pretty slider to strike out Austin Barnes and then an 0-2 count to Hernandez, the situation seemed heavily in Milwaukee's favor.

“It’s a good team, 1 through 9, even the bench is strong hitters,” Hader said. “This is a team you can’t fall behind on, because obviously they’ll have you pay for it.”

BOX SCORE:Dodgers 5, Brewers 3

Contrast the unexpected outcome with what happened in the seventh, when the Dodgers loaded the bases with one out. After Junior Guerra secured a called third strike against Justin Turner, up came Cody Bellinger, whose 10 home runs are now one back of the Major League lead after Christian Yelich launched No. 11 earlier in the game.

“We were hoping Alex (Wilson) and Junior get through the inning or some combination of it, but they put together some huge at-bats,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. “The game was on the line, and I thought it was the right spot for Josh and he did his job, for sure. I felt really good. I thought the eighth inning for Josh was the inning, it was going to be a tough inning. There were a bunch of right handers. I felt really good about scoring in the bottom half.”

Bellinger battled for seven pitches, but the seventh was essentially unhittable. He waved helplessly at a 96-mile-per-hour heater on the outside black.

“He’s a good hitter too,” Hader said. “He was trying to make a pitch (work for him) and fouled it back, fouled it back. That’s why you pitch, for matches like that. Sometimes it goes your way and sometimes it doesn’t, so we turn the page and try to figure it out tomorrow.”

The strikeout preserved the 2-2 tie, though much of the enthusiasm was sucked out of Miller Park’s crowd thanks to a plodding bottom of the seventh from notoriously slow worker Pedro Baez (1-1). The Brewers remained deadlocked headed into the eighth, when Hader opened with a walk to AJ Pollock, struck out Max Muncy, then issued a walk to Brewers killer David Freese on a notably close ball-four pitch.

They were two of the nine walks issued by Milwaukee on the night.

“The strike zone in general … it wasn’t the best night,” Counsell said.

It didn’t help that the Brewers’ offense offered limited help. Yelich’s two-run homer in the first gave the Brewers a 2-0 lead before they even surrendered an out, but Milwaukee’s lone additional run came on an Eric Thames homer in the eighth.

“It’s been a couple days where we haven’t put a bunch of runs on the board,” Counsell said. “That’s going to happen. We’re facing some pretty good pitching and have a coupe guys that aren’t quite on it. We’re going to be fine offensively and score a bunch of runs; I’m confident in that. This is a good baseball team, with good pitching and good offense, and you’ve got to do a lot of things well to beat them.”