Romero’s sinker and sweeper supplied two different strikeout finishes

Will Smith took JoJo Romero’s 85.7-mph sweeper for strike three after fouling off a changeup with two strikes. Romero had already struck out Shohei Ohtani swinging, giving Milwaukee consecutive strikeouts to begin a sixth inning that required only 13 pitches.

Romero retired Max Muncy on a groundout to finish a scoreless inning with no hits or walks. The game was tied 4–4 during his work; William Contreras’ RBI single in the bottom half gave the Brewers a lead they retained in a 7–4 NLCS Game 2 win on October 12.

The two strikeouts came from different responses. Ohtani swung through a pitch, while Smith took the final sweeper. Treating both outs as evidence of the same swing-and-miss mechanism would miss an important part of Romero’s inning.

Equal sinker and sweeper counts

Romero divided 12 pitches evenly between sinkers and sweepers, adding one changeup. His primary baseline is 201 pitches in 11 Brewers relief appearances, September 1 through September 26. Sinkers occupied 49.8% of that sample and sweepers 37.3%, compared with 46.2% each in Game 2.

The same-club comparison is short. His full regular season includes 922 pitches in 55 appearances for St. Louis and Milwaukee. The Brewers-only sample keeps the club and role aligned, while the full-season record establishes that the smaller comparison does not encompass all of his 2026 work. Neither sample supplies evidence of a specific coaching intervention.

His sinker averaged 95.2 mph, compared with 93.0 mph in that Brewers sample; the sweeper averaged 85.1 against 82.5. He generated three misses in eight swings, including two on sweepers and one on a sinker. The 37.5% outing whiff rate exceeds his Brewers baseline of 17.5%, but it rests on eight attempts.

Recovered counts and one contact out

Smith’s sequence began with a low sinker for ball one. A second sinker drew a miss, a low sweeper brought the count to 2–1, and the changeup foul produced a second strike. The final sweeper finished inside the recorded zone rectangle. The at-bat shows recovery from two early balls rather than uninterrupted control of the count.

Romero’s only ball in play was Muncy’s 85.3-mph grounder. Five of nine pitches outside the geometric zone drew swings, but that denominator is also small. The data supports a varied set of finishes within one efficient inning, not a reliable estimate of how often future hitters will chase.

His previous postseason appearance, October 6, contained two misses in 16 swings across 30 pitches and five outs. Game 2 brought more swing-and-miss in less work, while preserving the distinction between Ohtani’s swinging strikeout and Smith’s called finish. Another appearance would test whether those harder pitches continue to produce useful takes and swings across a larger hitter sample.