MILWAUKEE -- The final outs of Game 2 of the World Series belonged to Brewers lefty Aaron Ashby, not closer Trevor Megill. Not that labels matter much with this team. Manager Pat Murphy pieces things together the way it works best for his ballclub instead of managing to stats.
Megill, for example, had 30 saves in the regular season, but Chad Patrick and Abner Uribe had six apiece. Ashby gets so many important outs that, paired with the Brewers' relentless comebacks, he also recorded 13 regular-season wins. Here in the playoffs, he now has one win and three saves.
He's also absorbing multiple innings when called upon and has become one of the biggest postseason bullpen weapons we've ever seen. After the five-out save in Game 2 of the World Series, a 5-4 Brewers win that gives them a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series, Ashby's playoff stats are ridiculous. The line: 15 ⅔ IP, 5 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 17 K.
The most consecutive scoreless innings to start a postseason in MLB history? Sure, Ashby was coming off a very good regular season, but he wasn't this level of bullpen killer. He had a 3.12 ERA and 1.31 WHIP.
This is something entirely new. Not only that, but he's had razor-thin margins with which to work. In Game 1 of the NLDS, Ashby came in to a tie game and got all four Padres batters he faced out.
The Brewers won (shocking, I know). In Game 2, he entered with the Brewers down by a run and he held it right there. They won in walk-off fashion.
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