Todd Rosiak

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

LOS ANGELES -- Milwaukee Brewers reliever Jeremy Jeffress caused a minor stir with his take on how the Los Angeles Dodgers rallied against him in their 4-3 victory in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series on Saturday at Miller Park.

Discussing two key moments -- a bases-loaded walk issued to No. 8 hitter Austin Barnes that cut the Brewers' lead to 3-2 in the seventh and the two-run home run by Justin Turner that proved to be the game-winner in the eighth -- the right-hander twice utilized the word "luck."

When asked why he threw Barnes a curveball in a 3-2 count, Jeffress said: "I don't know. I decided it was just what he needed to see. I don’t know. He just got lucky."

When asked about the 2-0 splitter he threw to Turner, Jeffress said: "He just got lucky. I knew what I wanted to throw him. I just left the ball up and he got his pitch."

Jeffress replaced Corbin Burnes with two on and nobody out in the seventh, and he was greeted by a bloop single by Joc Pederson that could have been quantified as lucky.

Turner's homer in the eighth was preceded by an infield squibber off the bat of Chris Taylor, whose hit definitely could have been termed lucky.

Jeffress was asked later if he was referring to Taylor's hit rather than Turner's homer with his "lucky" comment.

"Dude, honestly, you saw the hits. I don't gotta tell nobody, man," he said. "Honestly, if I say it's lucky, that means it's lucky. But everybody saw the hit. That's a lucky hit, bro. It is. It just is."

Predictably, Jeffress' comments did not go over well with some, and on Sunday morning he tweeted out what appeared to be an attempt at a clarification.

"To set things straight. One lost doesn’t define my ability. And a homerun is never lucky. I was referring to the cheap hits before. Everyone are professionals here. Except the ones who criticize. Thanks have a blessed day"

Jeffress is well-known for his fiery temperament on the mound, and it's one reason why he turned in a career season at 31 years of age. He went 8-1 with a 1.29 earned run average and 15 saves in 73 appearances, earning his first appearance in the All-Star Game in the process.

But it's been a different story for Jeffress in the postseason. Four of his five outings to this point have been shaky, and he enters Game 3 at Dodger Stadium on Monday at 0-1 with a 7.71 ERA and having allowed a team-high 11 hits.

Taking all that into consideration, Jeffress' frustrations are understandable, according to manager Craig Counsell.

"Baseball, luck and pitchers -- it's part of your life," he said Sunday afternoon following a sparsely attended optional workout at Dodger Stadium.

"There's times when you have to realize it's working for you. You don't want to acknowledge it when the line drive gets hit at somebody. But there's times when the slow roller, as Chris Taylor's ball, it's frustrating, you make a good pitch, the guy hits it 40 feet, it's frustrating. And when the next guy hits a homer it's really frustrating.

"He's frustrated by that -- understandably so. Pederson hit a pop-up that falls between the fielders. So a couple of frustrating balls. And I do think, look, the postseason is more emotional. There's no getting around that. And we're not always going to hide from that. And nobody is going to say it's not, because it is.

"Most times, for a guy like J.J., I think it works for him. He hasn't had the results so far. But he's going to get the ball again. We're going to need him to get outs. I'll tell you that for this to work, we need to count on our guys.

"And we're going to continue to."

Wait and see: It was somewhat surprising for Counsell to divulge the Brewers' first three starting pitchers -- check that, initial out-getters -- prior to the start of the NLCS considering how he'd literally gone almost day by day in announcing them in the National League Division Series.

Counsell was not ready to announce his Game 4 starter on Sunday, though, and didn't offer much clarification when asked if it might be a bullpen game similar to what the Brewers utilized in Game 1 of the NLDS against the Colorado Rockies.

"You can describe it any way you'd like," he said. "We'll put together some way to get 27 outs. I don't mean to be coy about it; that's how we're looking at it. And there's several candidates for it.

"But we're going to use all our resources in Game 3 and then move on to Game 4."

Counsell did add a caveat when he named his first three starters for the NLCS, saying that Game 3 starter Jhoulys Chacín would be in play in Game 1 -- which was started by Gio Gonzalez -- if the situation called for it.

Such is the nature of postseason play, where teams win at all costs on that particular day and then worry about tomorrow, tomorrow.

"We believe we have (enough) guys. That's the reason why you have multiple guys with the kind of length associated with them in the bullpen, on our active roster," Counsell said. "And so we think we have a way to map out the game no matter what we have to do the night before.

"And unless there's a crazy extra-inning game or a really long game, I can't envision us (not) having a good game plan that we haven't talked about, ready to put forth the next day."

Ready to go: Along those lines, it would appear as though rookie right-hander Freddy Peralta is lined up to see his first postseason action at some point during the Brewers' time at Dodger Stadium.

Peralta was on the NLDS roster because of his tremendous success against the Rockies in his two regular-season starts against them. But he wound up not pitching at all after Milwaukee went with a bullpen outing in Game 1 and then went with experienced starters in Chacín and Wade Miley in Games 2 and 3, respectively.

"I expect Freddy to be involved the next three days," said Counsell. "It's really a function of how well that we've pitched -- starts like Jhoulys has had, outings like Brandon Woodruff has had, and Wade's starts. That's the reason why Freddy has not pitched.

"(Saturday) was the first time we were trailing in a game since the regular season ended, the last two innings of the game. So, we've just been in a good spot with our pitching and we haven't let in many runs.

"That's just where Freddy is at. Freddy is ready to go, and I expect when he gets out there one of these next three days, we're going to see a really good version of him."

Leave it to Agui: While the Brewers' Game 2 loss was no laughing matter, there was a pretty comical moment in the sixth inning when Miley was lifted in favor of Burnes with two outs in the sixth inning.

Miley walked off the field to a standing ovation from the crowd of 43,905 with first baseman Jesús Aguilar trailing not far behind him as he made way for Hernán Pérez in a double switch.

Miley acknowledged the crowd with a slight wave of his glove only to have Aguilar doff his cap and wave himself to the delight of the crowd and the rest of his team.

"I was not looking at Corbin Burnes coming in the game. All six of us on the mound were saying, 'Look at Agui, man. Isn't that just like Agui?'" Counsell said. "We were laughing at Agui.

"We were all watching him. And I think I had to turn around and hand Corbin the ball because we were watching Agui ham it up, as he's really good at doing."