MILWAUKEE — Jackson Surio tied the eighth with his second homer of the night and pinch-hitter Garrett Mitchell delivered a two-run shot in the inning as the Milwaukee Brewers beat the New York Mets 5-3. Their National League wild card streak ended on Wednesday night.
Both teams will play a decisive Game 3 on Thursday night. The Brewers will try to become the first team since MLB moved to this expanded playoff format in 2022 to win a best-of-three wild-card series after losing the opener.
With Milwaukee trailing 3-2, Saurio pitched the eighth, missing pitcher Phil Maton and homering to right-center, making his fourth appearance on the mound in five days. Saurio, a 20-year-old rookie, also opened the bottom of the first inning with a single to right.
He became the youngest player to hit a leadoff homer in the postseason and the first player in postseason history with a leadoff homer and a game-tying homer in the same game in the eighth inning or later. He became the second youngest player to hit a two-run homer in the postseason, behind 19-year-old Andrew Jones for Atlanta in the 1996 World Series opener at Yankee Stadium.
After Blake Perkins singled and William Contreras hit a double play, Willie Adams sparked the eighth inning with a single. Mitchell then sent a first-pitch curveball over the wall in right-center, a 390-foot shot that sent the American family crowd into a frenzy.
“I was looking for something over the plate and I recognized the curveball early,” Mitchell told ESPN.
“I’m ready [to hit] From the fourth inning on, I was active and ready to go.”
Devin Williams was retired for the save in the ninth, and Joe Ross picked up the win after pitching 1⅓ innings of scoreless relief. It was the Brewers’ first playoff win in franchise history after trailing entering eight innings. They were previously 0-26 in such situations.
The Mets took the lead in the second inning after a Brewers pitcher made a critical error around first base again.
With the score tied 1-1, the Mets had one out and no one on in the second when Starling Marte hit a routine grounder to first baseman Rhys Hoskins that bounced off the glove of Frankie Montas as the right-hander went to cover the bag. .
After Montas failed to catch a Hoskins throw, he failed to strike out the next two Mets hitters. Tyrone Taylor and Francisco Alvarez hit back-to-back singles, the latter’s hit bringing Marte home. Francisco Lindor followed with a sacrifice fly that scored Taylor.
It marked the second straight night the Mets rallied after a Brewers pitcher blocked a play at first base. New York trailed 4-3 in the fifth inning of Tuesday’s 8-4 victory when Joel Byamps reached first base late on a grounder to Hoskins, and Jose Iglesias slid safely into the backfield to score five runs.
Milwaukee got one run back in the top of the fifth when Bryce Durang hit a leadoff double and Perkins scored on a sacrifice fly.
Information from ESPN Research, ESPN’s Jesse Rogers and The Associated Press was used in this report.
