William Contreras just delivered the bat flip of the year.
The Milwaukee Brewers catcher stepped into the batter’s box in the bottom of the ninth Sunday against the Miami Marlins. Two runners on. Brewers down 1-0. Two outs. And he crushed a walk-off, three-run home run 410 feet to dead center to give Milwaukee a 3-1 win and complete a three-game sweep of the Marlins.
The homer itself was a laser. 102.8 mph off the bat. 29-degree launch angle. Straight over the center field wall at American Family Field.
But the celebration is what people are still talking about Monday morning. Contreras flipped his bat so high that no camera in the stadium managed to capture where it came back down. He looked up. He kept looking up. He actually took a full second to make sure it was not about to land on his head before he started his home run trot.
Brewers social media flipped out. Fans in the stands lost their minds. The Marlins pitching staff, who has now watched Contreras do this to them three times in the last two seasons, probably did some flipping of their own in the dugout.
This was the second walk-off home run of Contreras’ career. He now has 10 home runs on the season and is right in the middle of a legitimate MVP race with Freddie Freeman, Kyle Tucker, and, before the injury, Shohei Ohtani. His slash line is .312/.398/.545, and he has quietly become one of the most valuable position players in the National League.
The Brewers are 60-40 after the sweep and hold a 6.5-game lead in the NL Central. They have been the surprise team of the summer. Craig Counsell got fired by the Cubs three years ago and probably lies awake at night watching Contreras rope home runs for a team he could have stayed with for another decade.
Sunday’s sweep was the perfect capper. The Brewers outscored the Marlins 12-4 across three games. Freddy Peralta went eight innings in Game 2. Christian Yelich went 6-for-13 in the series. And Contreras closed it out with a homer that will live on YouTube compilations for the rest of the summer.
Miami is now 39-61 and starting to look like a full-scale seller headed into the August 3 trade deadline. Names like Sandy Alcantara, Jesus Sanchez, and closer Anthony Bender are all likely on the block. Marlins fans have been through this movie before, and it never ends well.
Milwaukee, meanwhile, is starting to feel like a legitimate World Series contender. The lineup is deep. The rotation is stable. Contreras is playing MVP-level baseball. And their catcher just flipped a bat so hard it made national news on a Sunday night in July.
Do not sleep on the Brew Crew.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
