Dodgers Level Series with Brewers on Turner Homer

Justin Turner’s two-run homer in the eighth inning lifted the Los Angeles Dodgers to a 4-3 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers Saturday that knotted their Major League Baseball playoff series at one game each.

Turner’s blast off Brewers relief pitcher Jeremy Jeffress gave the Dodgers the lead for the first time in the game at Miller Park in Milwaukee.

Turner rebounded from an 0-for-5 showing in game one on Friday that included four strikeouts, producing his first home run of this post-season.

“You just shrug it off to be about baseball,” Turner said. “Obviously I wasn’t feeling good about myself last night and wasn’t happy with the results, but today was a new day and another chance to go out and win a ballgame.”

Once Los Angeles were ahead, relief pitchers Pedro Baez, Caleb Ferguson, Kenta Maeda and Kenley Jansen combined to get the last six outs and preserve the win.

Jansen pitched the ninth for his second save of the playoffs, retiring Milwaukee’s National League Most Valuable Player candidate Christian Yelich on a broken bat ground out to end the game with a runner on second base.

The Dodgers now head home to Los Angeles to host games three, four and five of the best-of-seven National League Championship Series with renewed confidence.

The winners of the series will take on either the reigning champion Houston Astros or the Boston Red Sox in the World Series.

Boston hosted the Astros in game one of the American League Championship Series later on Saturday.

After hanging on for a 6-5 victory over the Dodgers on Friday, Milwaukee seized a 3-0 lead in game two with the help of home runs from Orlando Arcia and Travis Shaw.

The Dodgers loaded the bases with none out in the seventh inning and gained two runs with a base hit by Cody Bellinger and a walk to catcher Austin Barnes.

Although they left three on base in the seventh, the Dodgers would take the lead in the next when Chris Taylor reached first base on a single and Turner seized upon a split-fingered fastball from Jeffress, sending it 388 feet.

“I was just trying to elevate, get something in the air,” Turner said. “As soon as I hit it, it felt good. I knew it was a homer, and it’s cool to run around the bases and see all your teammates going crazy, jumping up and down waiting for you. That’s pretty cool.”