Inside sources tell us that one of the toughest decisions the Brewers coaching staff had to make about the final post-season roster was whether to keep
Erik Bettencourt and have three catchers or to include outfielder
Jon Williams, who was the KCS MVP last season but has not played much with the Brewers this season and then not very well. In the end they went with
Williams.
In game 1, he showed them why that was a good decision.
In his first three plate appearances,
Williams drew bases on balls. The first time, in the 3rd inning, he then moved to second base on a sacrifice bunt by
Sadahige Kawaski, then stole third and came home when the catcher threw the ball into left field. His next time up, leading off the 5th inning, he walked again, again took second on a sac bunt by
Kawasaki, and again stole third. (This time the catcher did the wise thing and just held onto the ball.) He then scored on a
Rich White sac fly. At that point the score was 2-2 and the Brewers hadn't even managed to collect a single hit yet off El Paso ace Dan Bottom. It was all
Jon Williams.
In the end, it took a
Rich White walk-off 2-out single in the bottom of the 9th for the Brewers to take game 1 (
Kirk Patnode had led off with a single and
Nick Ward came in to pinch-run, eventually taking 2nd on a pickoff attempt that went awry, and scoring when White dropped a single into fairly shallow centerfield- a slower runner would almost surely not have made it) but without the heroics of
Jon Williams they likely wouldn't have even had that chance.
Sadahige lasted 8 innings, giving up 2 runs on 7 hits.
Tim Shore blew the save when he allowed 2 runs on 2 hits and a walk in the 9th to necessitate the walk-off win.
The Brewers only managed 5 hits in this one (though El Paso's uncharacteristic 5 errors helped) with 2 of them off the bat of
Kirk Patnode.
Jose Figueroa's lone hit was a 6th-inning double.