'That's good offense': The Brewers' best offensive inning of the year involved not a single ball in play

Oliver Dunn continued his emergence. Freddy Peralta may have been giving away his grips during a rough sixth inning. Christian Yelich gave the Brewers the lead. Abner Uribe gave it away in the ninth.

In a game in which so much happened, what ultimately decided it was a foursome of Milwaukee Brewers who stepped to the plate and stood there.

The Brewers waited out Mariners closer Andres Muñoz in the bottom of the ninth inning to win, 6-5, on Friday night at American Family Field. Five batters came to the plate in the inning. Four of them drew walks. In total, they saw 22 pitches, swung only twice and made contact once.

It all came to a head when William Contreras took Ball 16, spitting on a slider just off the plate outside, tossing his bat skyward and jaunting to first base while Sal Frelick came home and touched the plate that Muñoz couldn’t.

“You don’t help a guy out when he’s struggling to find it,” Frelick said.

Here’s the anatomy of the most patient of rallies.

Sal Frelick kicks it off

As Frelick stepped to the plate to lead off the bottom of the ninth, there was no way for him to know that this version of Muñoz would be the one the Brewers would see.

The 25-year-old righthander has one of the most lively arms in baseball. He regularly clocks triple digits with his fastball and had a 2.71 earned run average over the last two-plus years entering Friday while walking just 7.9% of batters and striking out 35.7%.

But Frelick did sense a slight sense of erraticness during warmups, which he exacerbated by throwing a first-pitch slider at 89.4 mph by the dirt.

It was already in Frelick’s mind to see a pitch from Muñoz before swinging because all he wanted to do was get on base and steal second. After the first one was low, the waiting game began.

“Obviously he throws really hard,” Frelick said. “Turbo fastball. You’re just going up there trying to get on base. I kind of wanted to see a pitch and I saw he was letting it rip, so I zoned up a little bit more and he couldn't find it, it couldn’t click. You saw it with the other guys, too.

The next two balls, one on a slider and the other a sinker, just missed the bottom of the strike zone but Frelick was able to pick them up well out of Muñoz’s hand and was able to lay off fairly easily. After Munoz pumped in a strike down 3-0 in the count, he sprayed a sinker way off the plate to walk Frelick.

“He wasn’t missing by much,” Frelick said. “I didn’t swing the bat. More trying with each pitch to get my timing down and see it. He’s the closer for a reason. He throws really hard, he has really good stuff. I think we’re a little lucky that he didn’t find it.”

Jake Bauers comes in cold but comes up clutch

Jake Bauers had been sitting in the dugout all night but was called upon by manager Pat Murphy to pinch hit for Joey Oritz.

Of everyone on the Brewers, it would be Bauers, who has struck out in 35.3% of plate appearances dating back to last year, that would be a rather advantageous matchup for Muñoz on most nights. But not this one.

“I mean, you walk a fine line coming off the bench right there because you want to be ready to swing,” he said. “You want to get a swing off and try and make something happen. But, yeah, at the same time, like you want to be a little bit selective. So it's kind of a balancing act. Not one that I have down by any means, but one that you kind of understand going into it. And there’s some pitches close to start the at-bat, a couple balls. Just have to work.”

Bauers worked the count full before Muñoz uncorked a slider that hit in the dirt and away from catcher Cal Raleigh for ball four.

There were multiple close pitches in Bauers’ plate appearance that were called – seemingly correctly – as balls.

Part of the Brewers’ process of waiting out Muñoz involved waiting out home plate umpire Derek Thomas, too. And the relatively inexperienced ump, who had a tight-but-accurate zone all night, never gave them a reason to change their approach.

“We had a young umpire who was very good. Very good,” Murphy said. “Very, very tight. He was much more tight than other umpires. Some of the young guys have that where they're calling it like nothing extra on the corner.”

Brice Turang showed bunt but walked instead

Everyone in the stadium knew Brice Turang, with two on and one out, would be up at the dish to bunt. It’s just what he does. That didn’t help Muñoz out one bit, though.

Turang saw five pitches and squared to bunt on all but the 3-0 fastball for a strike. On each one, he confirmed, he was trying to get a bunt down. There was no bluff involved.

The first pitch, a sinker, missed wide by a large margin. Then came a backdoor slider, a pitch that Turang thought was probably a ball but also not the best offering for getting a bunt down. So he pulled back again.

“I was just up there trying to get a job done and trying ot bunt a strike,” Turang said. “Those were tough pitches to bunt in the first place, so I just pulled back and it ended up that they were balls.”

Muñoz tried another backdoor slider. Turang saw it as a ball the whole way. He took strike one on the following pitch and then Muñoz dotted a fastball at the bottom of Turang’s kneecaps. Ahead, 3-1, he told himself to be picky with that pitch even if he was still operating with intent to bunt. He let the pitch go. Ball four.

“Your job is to get it down. So I'm going do my job and get it down,” Turang said. “But he went ball, ball and then threw another ball. And it's kind of like, ‘Alright, now I can be picky.’ He wasn't commanding the zone very well. I'm still going to do the job if I can. But those backdoor sliders, you don’t want to go out and reach for them and pop it up. I just said to myself that they’re probably balls anyway, so just pull it back.”

William Contreras wins it

Rookie Jackson Chourio had a chance to walk it off but struck out looking on a 99.9 mph four-seamer at the top of the zone. It was at that moment it seemed that Muñoz might have just found the zone at the perfect time.

Contreras could have gone up hacking, looking to be the hero. Muñoz started him with a 98.8 mph sinker that started on the inside corner before darting toward Contreras’ hip. A jumpy batter would have swung.

But Contreras had seen how the inning was playing out and, in the on-deck circle, given himself a lecture on staying patient and in the moment.

“I was trying to maintain a calm approach and stay locked in the moment with good patience,” Contreras said.

A 1-1 fastball nearly hit Contreras, and the 2-1 pitch wasn’t close to the zone, either.

Muñoz, down 3-1, snapped off his best pitch of the inning – though there weren’t very many good ones to begin with – with a sharp slider at the knees that missed by no more than two inches off the outside edge.

A jumpy batter, again, would have swung and likely stood no chance. But Contreras, similar to Frelick, saw it out of the hand from Muñoz. Contreras’ wrists began a swing ever so slightly, but his strong upper body stopped the swing before it was anything more than a mere twitch.

Ball four. Walk four.

The inning showcased precisely the type of offensive approach Murphy has preached since Day 1 of spring.

Be you. Don’t try to be the hero. Pass the baton. Eventually the dam will break.

“Move it along,” Turang said. “We get a great at bat from Sal, from Jake and Contreras to end it was great. Somebody can’t find the zone and is throwing 100 miles per hour and they were really quality at-bats. People can forget these pitches we’re taking are close pitches at 100. It all started with Sal having a good at-bat, and then Bauer and then it rolled from there. That’s what we have to do.

“That’s good offense.”

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Breaking down the Brewers' walk-off win over the Mariners