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Andruw Monasterio - Milwaukee Brewers
Andruw Monasterio celebrates his home run for the Milwaukee Brewers against the Cincinnati Reds in Cincinnati (Aug. 16, 2025)
Andruw Monsaterio has played in almost 200 games with the Brewers over the last three seasons but the most memorable among them almost certainly happened on Saturday.
The Brewers had already rallied to tie the game in the ninth and survived a back-and-forth tenth inning when they called upon Monasterio to pinch hit in the top of the 11th and on the first pitch he provided one of the biggest swings of the season, hitting a three-run home run to put the Brewers in emphatic control of the game and pave the way for them to set a franchise record with their 14th consecutive win.
While other sports certainly have them, unlikely heroes are a frequent storyline in baseball history. The nature of batting orders means that often a game can swing on the performance of a player who might previously have been an afterthought, and Monasterio is a perfect example of that. The Brewers only have 103 go-ahead extra inning home runs in franchise history (on average about two per season) but now Monasterio, whose homer on Saturday was only his sixth in three MLB seasons, has one of them.
Here are some of the other unlikely heroes to hit game-changing dramatic homers:
John Kennedy
A utility infielder, Kennedy had played parts of six MLB seasons across three teams but was a career .211 hitter with a .288 slugging percentage when the expansion Seattle Pilots acquired him from the Yankees for cash ahead of their inaugural 1969 season. Kennedy only played in 61 games and hit four home runs for the new franchise but provided some of that season’s biggest highlights: On May 16 of that season, he hit a two-run home run in the 11th inning of a win over the Red Sox, becoming the first Pilot ever to hit a go-ahead homer in extra innings. He was still the only Pilot ever to do it a few weeks later when he did it again on June 11, hitting a 10th inning solo shot to move Seattle ahead against the Tigers. Kennedy only hit 32 home runs across 12 seasons in the majors, but he’s one of just 22 Brewers with multiple extra-inning go-ahead homers.
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Ned Yost
Monasterio’s home run on Saturday drew near-immediate comparisons to another dramatic pennant chase home run that has become iconic in Brewers history: During the final week of the historic 1982 season Ned Yost entered the game as a defensive replacement behind the plate (the Brewers had pinch run for Ted Simmons earlier in the game) and was thrust into the spotlight when the Red Sox intentionally walked Cecil Cooper to get to him with two outs and the game tied in the top of the ninth inning. Yost, who had hit just three home runs across his first three MLB seasons, responded by hitting a ball over the Green Monster to give the Brewers a 6-3 lead. That day’s win combined with an Orioles loss gave the Crew a four-game lead in the AL East with five games to play.
Randy Ready
A 25-year-old utility infielder, Ready had a brief and relatively non-descript start to his MLB career. He had played in 55 games across three seasons and spent most of the 1985 season in the minors before being recalled and penciled into the lineup in left field for the Brewers on August 10 of that season. On his first day back, however, Ready provided one of the most memorable moments of his career. He was already 2-for-4 in the game when he came up to face White Sox reliever Juan Agosto in a 2-2 game in the 11th inning and homered to left, giving the Brewers the lead in a game they went on to win 5-2. Ready went on to play 13 years in the majors but this would be one of his biggest days.
Dale Sveum
Of course, no list of home runs in Brewers history would be complete without a mention of Sveum, who was in his second MLB season and had hit a total of eight home runs in his career when he came to the plate in the ninth inning on Easter Sunday in 1987. The Brewers came into that inning trailing the Rangers by three runs but had already tied it on Rob Deer’s homer, and three batters later Sveum sent the crowd home happy with a walkoff blast to give the Brewers a 6-4 win and extend their season-opening winning streak to 12 games. Sveum went on to hit 25 home runs that season and 69 across 12 years in the majors, but none bigger than that one.
