What's a little gamesmanship between old friends?
In 2018, then- Milwaukee Brewers manager Craig Counsell famously pulled a bait-and-switch in the National League Championship Series, removing starter Wade Miley after one batter in Game 5 against the Dodgers and turning to Brandon Woodruff, a gambit designed to convince Los Angeles to put its right-handers in the lineup.
The results were mixed; Miley walked his one man (Cody Bellinger), though Woodruff escaped the inning unscathed before Los Angeles ultimately staged a 5-2 win, tagging Woodruff for three runs in 5 ⅓ innings. By 2020, the league had implemented a three-batter minimum rule to mitigate the level of trickery teams could employ.
On Oct. 6, the Brewers' 2018 bench coach still had an ace up his sleeve when his team faced C