Mitchell takes the Brewers to the Mets in the personnel tiebreaker in the NL wild card

MILWAUKEE – Jackson Chourio tied the game in the eighth with his second home run of the night and pinch-hitter Garrett Mitchell delivered a two-run throw later in the inning to give the Milwaukee Brewers a 5-3 victory over the New York Mets Their NL Wild Card Series ended on Wednesday evening.

The teams will play the decisive Game 3 on Thursday evening. The Brewers will try to become the first team to win a best-of-three wild card series after losing the opener since MLB moved to this expanded playoff format in 2022.

Milwaukee was trailing 3-2 when Chourio took the lead in the eighth with a home run to right center off losing pitcher Phil Maton, making his fourth appearance on the mound in five days. The 20-year-old rookie also opened the bottom of the first inning with a drive to right.

He became the youngest player to hit a leadoff home run in the postseason and the first player in postseason history with a leadoff HR and a game-winning HR in the eighth inning or later in the same game. He is also the second-youngest player to hit a home run twice in a postseason game, behind 19-year-old Andruw Jones for Atlanta in the 1996 World Series opener at Yankee Stadium.

After Blake Perkins hit a single and William Contreras hit a double play, Willy Adames kept the eighth inning alive with a single. Mitchell then sent a first-pitch curveball just over the wall in right-center, a 390-foot shot that sent the American Family Field crowd into a frenzy.

“I was just looking for something over the plate and recognized curveball early,” Mitchell told ESPN.

“I've been preparing to hit since about the fourth inning, so I just tried to stay active and ready to go.”

Devin Williams withdrew to earn the save in the ninth. Joe Ross got the win after pitching 1 1/3 innings of scoreless relief.

The Mets had taken the lead in the second inning after a Brewers pitcher made another critical error near first base.

With the score tied at 1-1, the Mets had one out and no one on in the second when Starling Marte hit a routine grounder to first baseman Rhys Hoskins, whose throw bounced off Frankie Montas' glove as the right-hander covered the ball.

After failing to catch Hoskins' throw, Montas failed to strike out the Mets' next two batters. Tyrone Taylor and Francisco Alvarez hit consecutive singles, with the latter hitting to bring home Marte. Francisco Lindor followed with a sacrifice fly that scored Taylor.

It was the second night in a row that the Mets recovered after a Brewers pitcher botched a play at first base. New York was trailing 4-3 with two outs in the fifth inning of its 8-4 win on Tuesday when Joel Payamps was late to first base on a grounder to Hoskins, allowing Jose Iglesias to slide headfirst to safety and hit a five- Trigger run outbreak.

Milwaukee got a run back in the fifth when Brice Turang hit a leadoff double and scored on Perkins' sacrifice fly.

Information from ESPN Research, ESPN's Jesse Rogers and The Associated Press was used in this report.