MLB playoffs: The Rockies get a quick Crew cut

Milwaukee out-classes Colorado 6-0 in NLDS finale to be the first to move on in the MLB playoffs

Perhaps one of the other teams remaining alive in post-season play can defeat the Milwaukee Brewers. But if that team exists in the MLB playoffs, it must be prepared to cope not only with the game’s hottest team, but with its most balanced and – as the Brewers showed Sunday – its most resourceful.

For a third straight game in the National League Division Series, the Colorado Rockies were not that team. The Brewers closed out the Rockies 6-0 to wrap up their best-of-five series in the minimum three games. They advance to the National League Championship Series beginning later in the week against the winner of the Dodgers-Braves series.

With a chance to end it, Milwaukee displayed the full variety of talents that allowed the Brewers to overcome a six-game deficit in the NL Central in little more than the season’s final month. Since Aug. 29, they are 26-7 in regular season and post-season play, the best finishing kick of any of the remaining teams. Over that stretch, they have out-scored opponents by an average of 5.3 runs to 3, and they will carry an 11-game winning streak into the NLDS.  The Brewers have not lost since a 3-0 shutout at the hands of Pittsburgh more than two weeks ago.

How’d they do it Sunday? Let us count the ways.

• They manufactured. In the first inning, Christian Yelich walked, Ryan Braun singled him to third, and Travis Shaw got him home on an infield ground out the Rockies never had a chance of turning.
• They slugged. With one out in the fourth, Jesus Aguilar, who hit 35 regular season home runs, drove one into the bleachers beyond the left field fence. Leading off the 9th, light-hitting shortstop Jose Arcia and outfielder Keon Broxton delivered back-to-back coups de grace, one to left and one to right.
• They put themselves in position to get lucky. With one out in the sixth, Mike Moustakas singled in front of Matt Holliday and Erik Kratz doubled him to third. Then when Scott Oberg absent-mindedly dropped the ball while standing on the rubber, Moustakas was waved him on a balk. A few seconds later, Oberg bounced a curve in the dirt that Rockies catcher Tony Wolters failed to block, and Kratz raced home with a fourth run.
• Finally, as has become de rigeour with the Brewers, they pitched…stiflingly. Starter  (if that is not a dated term) Wade Miley and what is frequently labeled the game’s best bullpen shut out the Rockies on four hits, with no runner ever advancing beyond second base.

Two measures serve to illustrate the depth of the Brewers staff’s dominance Sunday. 1. Rockies batters went zero-for-11 with runners on base. 2. Colorado’s first six hitters – Charlie Blackmon, D.J. LeMahieu, Nolan Arenado, Trevor Story, Matt Holliday and Carlos Gonzalez  – were a combined 3-for-21.

The longer, MLB playoffs series-long view, is also illustrated by two statistics. Colorado scored in just one of the series’ 28 innings, that being the ninth inning of the first game. During the regular season, the Rockies hit .256; against the Brewers, they hit .147.