Milwaukee Brewers relief pitcher Brandon Woodruff drew a walk in the third inning of Game 5 of the NLCS. That gave him a unique piece of MLB history.
The walk, combined with the home run that he hit in Game 1 of the series (watch here), made Woodruff the first reliever since Nolan Ryan in 1969 to reach base in two games during the same postseason.
In fact, Woodruff is only the fifth pitcher — starter or reliever — to manage that.
With his walk in the 3rd inning, Brandon Woodruff became the first relief pitcher to reach base twice in the same #postseason since Nolan Ryan in 1969.
Only 3 other pitchers have done so in two different games – Jesse Barnes (1921), Pol Perritt (1917). and Orval Overall (1906).
— OptaSTATS (@OptaSTATS) October 17, 2018
That’s quite a list.
It’s even more notable when we think about the extensive postseason careers of pitchers like Bob Gibson, Dwight Gooden, and Madison Bumgarner, just to name a few. These were/are great hitting pitchers. None of them ever pulled this off.
But Woodruff has. Even better is that he reached base twice against, of all people, Clayton Kershaw.