Henderson's Two Throwing Errors Gift the Dodgers Two Runs in NLCS Game 2

A championship series can turn on a throw that is not a pitch. Milwaukee starter Logan Henderson made two of them on Monday, one in the third inning and one in the fifth, and each gifted the Los Angeles Dodgers a run in NLCS Game 2 at American Family Field. The first put Los Angeles ahead 2-1, USA Today reports. The second tied the game 3-3 and ended his afternoon, FOX Sports reports. Milwaukee had won the opener 2-1. Game 2 was decided by the smallest throws on the field.

What happened in the wild third inning?

Almost everything, in about ten minutes. Tommy Edman led off with a single, and Mookie Betts followed with a grounder to short that could have been a double play but deflected off the heel of Cooper Pratt’s glove into shallow left, USA Today reports. Freddie Freeman then drove a ball 106.1 mph toward right field, and Sal Frelick, a Gold Glove winner in 2024, leaped and reached behind him to pull it down. Edman tagged to third. With Betts a steal threat at first, Henderson tried a pickoff, spiked it in front of Jake Bauers, and watched it roll into foul territory while Edman walked home. The inning had contained a near double play, a near extra-base hit and a run scored without a ball leaving the infield grass on the scoring play.

Why was the pickoff the one throw Henderson could not afford?

Because of what it defended against. A pickoff with a runner on third and one out is a low-reward gamble: the out at first changes little, while any error scores the runner from third automatically. Henderson was not beaten by a steal or a balk. He created the scoring play himself, against a Dodgers team that had spent Game 1 being held to one run by Milwaukee’s pitching. In a series where Milwaukee’s ace spent his off day trading a signed jersey for his own one-of-one card, the margins were supposed to come from the mound. For two innings on Monday, they came from the dirt in front of first base instead.

What did Milwaukee do immediately after the error?

The loudest possible answer: they chased the Dodgers’ ace. In the bottom of the third, Milwaukee turned 2-1 down into 3-2 up against Yoshinobu Yamamoto, in a 35-pitch inning built on small ball, USA Today’s live coverage reports. David Hamilton singled and stole second, Jake Bauers worked a 12-pitch walk, and Christian Yelich, the captain whose benching framed Game 1, singled in two runs. Yamamoto was relieved in the inning. Henderson’s error had been answered within the half-inning, which is what made the fifth inning sting more.

What happened in the fifth inning?

The same mistake in a different uniform of a play. Kyle Tucker doubled, and when Henderson moved to field a sacrifice bunt, his throw went astray and Tucker scored to tie the game 3-3, FOX Sports reports. Henderson’s start ended soon after, and Dustin May, a pitcher the Dodgers know well from his years in Los Angeles before his route to Milwaukee via Boston and St. Louis, entered for the Brewers, Heavy reports. Los Angeles then retook the lead in the same inning on a Freeman sacrifice fly, a run Milwaukee challenged at the plate and lost, FOX Sports reports. Two Henderson throwing errors, two Dodgers runs, and a lead built by chasing Yamamoto was gone.

Why does this keep happening to Milwaukee’s defence?

That is the question the home coverage is asking. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s live report noted that defence has been a recurring problem for the Brewers this postseason, and that Monday’s third inning added a pair of miscues to the list, one of them a play its writer thought should have been scored an error on Pratt as well. The pattern matters because Milwaukee’s whole October model is run prevention behind contact pitching: a final-strike walk-off in the division series and a 2-1 opener win are games with no room for free runs. A team built that way can survive a quiet bat. It cannot survive its pitcher scoring runs for the other side, the way a dropped pop in the other league’s series gifted the Dodgers a run earlier this month.

What happens next for Henderson and the Brewers?

The post-game answers come first. Henderson and manager Pat Murphy will be asked about both throws, about whether the pickoff was called from the dugout, and about the bunt play, and this article will be updated in place with what they say and with the final score. The rotation question follows: whether Henderson takes a normal turn later in the series, on the shortest leash a starter can have in October, or whether Milwaukee shortens its staff around Misiorowski. What Monday settled is narrower. In a one-run series, the two cheapest runs the Dodgers have scored all October were thrown to them by the man on the mound.