3. Matt Chapman, 46 percent
The Brewers and A’s, each team desperate for victory in their parallel post-season runs, followed the split of their first two games in Oakland with a see-saw battle Thursday afternoon. Milwaukee led 3-1 in the seventh – thanks in part to a run-producing wild pitch by Jake Diekman in the process of fanning Ryan Braun — when Oakland manufactured a run on a base hit, a walk, an infield out and a wild pitch to move to within 3-2.
Facing Josh Hader to open the eighth, Robbie Grossman worked the count to 3-2, then walked on a low-outside fastball. That brought up Chapman, Oakland’s best power threat with 24 home runs and a .524 slugging average.
Chapman didn’t wait around, driving Hader’s first-pitch knee-high fastball over the center field wall for a two-run home run. Before the hit, the A’s stood only a 41 percent chance of coming back to win; Chapman’s blast swung those odds by 46 percentage points.
Those odds improved even more later in the inning when the A’s added an insurance run on Jurickson Profar’s sacrifice fly, which drove home Khris Davis, who had singled. In the bottom of the ninth, Liam Hendricks sealed the deal, setting down the heart of the Milwaukee lineup on just 10 pitches.