MILWAUKEE -- The small-market Brewers always do it a little differently. Why would it have been any different on Wednesday when one of them carried a Torpedo bat to home plate for the first time?
The first player to use the uniquely-shaped lumber -- which took MLB by storm when the Yankees used them against the Brewers in the opening series this season -- was third baseman Oliver Dunn. But he didn’t swing it. Instead, Dunn squared to bunt in the second inning for a successful squeeze that gave Milwaukee the first run of a 5-1 win over the Tigers at American Family Field.
As a horde of cameras descended upon his locker, Dunn’s eyes widened as he asked, “Is this all for the Torpedo?”
It was about more than one bat for the Brewers, who secured a second straight victory after getting blown out by Tarik Skubal and the Tigers on Monday, and a fourth series victory in five tries since their miserable opening weekend at Yankee Stadium.
Jose Quintana delivered another pitching gem and Christian Yelich, Rhys Hoskins and Sal Frelick accounted for the Brewers’ other runs with home runs, all using more traditional lumber. Yelich’s was his team-leading fourth homer a day after he snapped out of an 0-for-19 funk, Hoskins’ was his second homer in as many days (and this season) and Frelick’s was his first homer in a regular season game since last May.
But not Dunn, who was among the Brewers hitters who placed orders through equipment manager Jason Shawger for one of the new Torpedo bats, which have customized barrels to put the most mass at the position a hitter is most likely to make contact. Designed by an engineer and physicist-turned-baseball coach who now works for the Marlins, they’ve quietly been around for a couple of years. But they became a sensation last month when the Yankees tied the record for a three-game series by smashing 15 home runs at the Brewers’ expense.
Garrett Mitchell tripled with one out in the second inning and Joey Ortiz walked to put Dunn in a good position to bunt. It was going out on a limb, so to speak, considering that while Dunn had taken more than 50 swings with his new bat before the game, he hadn’t tried bunting with it.
On a first-pitch slider from Tigers starter Keider Montero, Dunn dragged a bunt to the right side of the infield, and both baserunners advanced for a 1-0 Brewers lead.
“We were waiting for him to go hack up there and he dropped a little bunt down,” Frelick said. “Great job. Brewers baseball. That’s how you get a run in there.”
“It was a smart play,” Yelich said. “I should have done the same thing later in the game. It’s a really hard play to defend. If you do it right, you’re going to be rewarded for it most of the time.”
Yelich is a noted nihilist when it comes to Torpedo bats, and Frelick sounded as if he has the same outlook, saying, “If you chop down a tree, you should be able to hit with it.” But others are open to trying, including Dunn, who’s trying to get going at the plate to cement his part of a third base platoon with right-handed-hitting Vinny Capra. Dunn, a left-handed hitter, entered Wednesday with a .439 OPS in 13 games.
“This kid is a very capable baseball player,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “Defensively, offensively, on the bases, he’s very, very capable. … He sat out most of last year with a back injury, so he hasn’t had very many at-bats in two years.”
As Dunn pondered whether to take his new bat into the game, he said to himself, “Why not?” He bounced out in his only other plate appearance, but contributed to a win.
“You’re trying to get it going and use that as like, ‘Hey, I helped break the ice on the day. Keep it rolling,’” Dunn said.
With the homers that followed, the Brewers made a winner once again of left-hander Quintana, who made his second regular-season start and his home debut. He didn’t allow a run -- on a wall-scraping home run from Tigers first baseman Spencer Torkelson -- until his 13th inning in a Brewers uniform.
Quintana’s arrival is among the positive developments since the Brewers were torpedoed by the Yankees to start the season. Milwaukee went into Thursday’s off day at 10-9, with Brandon Woodruff scheduled for another rehab start on Friday night and 2024 Brewers Most Valuable Pitcher Tobias Myers on track to rejoin the Major League rotation next week.
“This whole thing is about response. You have to respond when not-good things happen,” Murphy said. “A lot of stuff’s not going to go your way. There’s going to be a lot of failure. How you respond to that is key.”