MILWAUKEE — What do you do when a ball comes screaming at you at 85 mph?
When a lifetime of playing the game has taught you that ball will leave a slight bruise if you’re lucky, a welt that will ache for days if you’re not. A ball that looks like it might make direct contact with your knee, not exactly the most sturdy of body parts and one that isn’t covered in hard plastic like your elbow and your shins.
Do you stand there and take the blow, knowing that sacrificing your body will force in the game-tying run? Or does the natural instinct for self-preservation win out, your body deciding for you to get out of the ball’s path?
Brice Turang not letting himself be hit by that pitch in the ninth inning was the subject of debate, if not outright criticism, as soon as the game ended in a Milwaukee Brewers loss. But you stand in that batter’s box and see if you do anything different.
“It sucks. It is what it is,” Turang said after the 2-1 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 1 of the NLCS on Monday night.
“The natural reaction is to kind of get out of the way,” he said. “I mean, there’s nothing I could do. I can’t go back.”
In every game, in every sport, there are woulda, coulda, shouldas. For eight innings, the Brewers were stymied by Blake Snell, unable to mount anything that might have shaken the two-time Cy Young winner off his game.
Milwaukee got the ball out of the infield just three times against Snell, and not after the third inning. They managed one hit and struck out 10 times.
“He was definitely on his game tonight. Executed and really didn’t give us too many good pitches to hit,” Sal Frelick said. “We face a ton of really good pitchers, right? And when we see guys like that, you kind have got to choke up on the bat, find a way to get on base. We didn’t do that tonight.”
Only after Snell was out of the game could Milwaukee get anything going offensively.
The Brewers roughed up Dodgers ace reliever Roki Sasaki, with Isaac Collins drawing a one-out walk, pinch-hitter Jake Bauers following with a double and Jackson Chourio getting Milwaukee on the board with a sac fly.
Sasaki was lifted after he walked Christian Yelich, and the Brewers loaded the bases with William Contreras’ walk against Blake Treinen.
“We were able to flip the game a little bit there,” Contreras said.
That brought up Turang, who is a big reason the Brewers finished the regular season with the best record in baseball. He hit .321 with 12 homers and 37 RBIs in the last 52 games and was among the NL’s best in batting average and hits. In Milwaukee’s regular-season sweep of the Dodgers, Turang went 8-for-19 with two RBIs in six games .
But Turang has cooled off in the postseason.
Yes, he homered against the Chicago Cubs in the decisive Game 5 of their NL Division Series. But he was 2-for-19 in his other at-bats during the series. In his first three at-bats Monday, he flied out to left field, struck out and grounded out to first.
Turang fouled off the first pitch he saw from Treinen. Then came a ball and a called strike. Treinen threw another sweeper on the fourth pitch, but this one got a little away from him and it darted inside.
Had Turang not flinched, the ball would have hit him right above the knee. Hit-by-pitch, automatic base, game-tying run forced in. But Turang did flinch, creating just enough space for the ball to get by him without making contact.
“It’s a natural reaction,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “When the ball is coming toward you, your natural thing, it’s a breaking ball, your natural thing is to do that.
“I know he was thinking the same thing after the ball passed,” Murphy said. “It happens. He’ll learn from that situation. But it’s hard. Even if you try to maneuver yourself, it’s hard to get hit by the pitch because it’s so reactionary.”
Turang was looking for the sweeper again on the next pitch. But Treinen threw a four-seam fastball, instead, and Turang took the bait, swinging and missing.
Game over.
Turang is not the reason the Brewers lost this game. No one player or play ever is. Even if he’d let himself get hit, it would only have tied the game. Maybe he gets plunked and Milwaukee still loses.
Turang is a convenient scapegoat, however, an easy outlet for frustration with a screwed-up financial system that already tilts the scales in the Dodgers’ favor.
If you’re going to blame Turang, however, ask yourself first: Would you have been able to do it differently?
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.