MILWAUKEE — Two of the most analytically driven teams, the Dodgers and Brewers, can spend days and nights crunching data to prepare for any eventuality that might come their way in the National League Championship Series. The smallest incremental advantage in the numbers is sought like precious metals buried in a vast mine.
And after all that cold, hard study the game can turn on something nobody could have foreseen, not any of the algorithm-writing data analysts, not the wildest-eyed fiction writer, not even the father of the pitcher who caused such chaos.
“I just never saw him run around the bases before,” said Richard Woodruff, the father of 25-year-old Brewers pitcher Brandon Woodruff, when asked his thoughts upon seeing his son homer off three-time Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw in NLCS Game 1 Friday night.