MILWAUKEE _ The home team started the playoffs without a starting pitcher, by design.
The performance of their starting pitchers had been so spotty this season that the Milwaukee Brewers decided to do away with the position, at least on Thursday. Their relief pitchers had been outstanding, so the Brewers simply loaded up on them.
The closer the game got to the ninth inning, the better the Brewers felt. The back end of their bullpen was strong and deep.
Four relievers pitched the first eight innings. The Colorado Rockies had one hit. The Brewers had a two-run lead. It was time for the ninth inning, and for Jeremy Jeffress to get the final three outs.
He did, but not before the Rockies had tied the score. The first three batters singled and, after an error and sacrifice fly, the score was tied, and the game was headed to extra innings.
Christian Yelich took it from there. Yelich, the presumptive National League most valuable player, had hit a two-run home run, for the Brewers' only runs in the first nine innings.
He walked to start the 10th inning, his fourth time on base. He took second on a wild pitch from Adam Ottavino, took third on a ground ball, and scored the winning run on Mike Moustakas' walk-off single.
The Brewers won, 3-2, taking the first game of this best-of-five division series. The Brewers promised to start an actual starting pitcher in Game 2 on Friday.
For Jeffress, an All-Star with a 1.29 earned-run average, it was the first time this season he had given up three hits.
Brandon Woodruff got the first nine outs, Corbin Burnes the next six, Corey Knebel the next five, Josh Hader the next four. The Rockies had no hits in the first four innings, and no hits from the fifth through the eighth.
All those zeroes might have gone for naught, if not for one swing from Yelich. The presumptive National League most valuable player delivered a 413-foot home run in the third inning.
The crowd saluted Yelich with a standing ovation as he came to bat in the first inning. After he hit the home run, Ryan Braun delayed his entrance to the batter's box, giving Yelich time to take a curtain call if he wished. He did not.
The Brewers' Opening-Day starter, Chase Anderson, did not make the playoff roster. The only starting pitcher Milwaukee did acquire during the season, Gio Gonzalez, warmed up in the bullpen in the early innings.
On that January day when the Milwaukee Brewers landed Yelich and Lorenzo Cain, the team celebrated. The rest of the baseball world thought they had too many outfielders. They shrugged and handed Braun a first baseman's glove.
"Everyone thought we should be adding a starting pitcher," Brewers owner Mark Attanasio said, "or two or three."
They did not, even as spring training dawned with the likes of Jake Arrieta and Lance Lynn available.
In July, they added Moustakas and Jonathan Schoop, and the rest of the baseball world thought they had too many infielders.
They did not fret about their starting pitchers. So, after Yelich and Cain led the Brewers to their first playoff berth in seven years, which of their starting pitchers did they choose for the division series opener?
None of them.
The Brewers' relievers have the best earned-run average of any team alive in the NL playoffs, so the team decided to play to its strengths?
Craig Counsell, the Brewers' manager, said that the schedule allows his team the flexibility to run bullpen games in the postseason. The Brewers had two days off before Game 1, with another day off after Game 2, and another day off after Game 4, if the series goes that far.
"During the course of the regular season, you need starting pitching," Counsell said.
For now? Counsell used the phrase "all hands on deck," and he did not just mean a top starter pitching in relief in the last game of a postseason series.
"We're trying to get away from what the word 'starter' and 'reliever' means," Counsell said. "That's how we're going to get through the postseason."
