Joey Ortiz broke out of a long slump with one swing, driving a 395-foot home run to left and helping the Milwaukee Brewers beat the San Diego Padres 6-4 in the series opener on May 12. The shot came on a two-strike knuckleball from right-hander Matt Waldron and sent American Family Field into a brief jolt.

Ortiz said he was watching William Contreras and wanted to follow that approach at the plate. He also said he loosened his index finger from the bat before he ripped the ball through the zone, then watched his first long ball in nearly 10 months carry out. His previous home run had come on July 19, 2025, at Dodger Stadium.

It mattered because Ortiz entered the game hitting.181 with one extra-base hit, and since July 1, 2024, he had been batting.217 with a.312 slugging percentage. For a Brewers team that has needed production at shortstop, the game offered a rare lift. Ortiz and David Hamilton combined to slug.197 at the position entering the night, and Milwaukee had kept Ortiz in the lineup because of his defense.

That patience was visible on the field and in the dugout. Pat Murphy said the kid had been through a lot and added that his defense had been fantastic. He said the team knew the offense was in there, and when Ortiz delivered, the reaction around him was immediate. “The whole team was so excited for him,” Murphy said. “One of the neat things was to see how the team reacted.” He called it “like a walk-off.”

Ortiz did not stop there. His next plate appearance came in Milwaukee’s five-run fourth inning, when he took a 78.9 mph hack at a first-pitch sinker with the bases loaded and sent a 381-foot sacrifice fly to the outfield that nearly turned into a grand slam. He said he was trying to hit the ball hard in the air, got another good pitch to hit and took another good swing. “It’s something to build off of,” he said.

He later added his first multi-hit game since April 28 on a duck snort to right in the sixth, and his OPS climbed above.500 for the first time since April 11. Ortiz said the night felt good, but he kept his focus simple: take good swings on good pitches and let the results follow. For a player who has spent months searching for any kind of offensive rhythm, this was the clearest sign yet that Milwaukee may finally be getting more than defense at shortstop.

Murphy said it had been tough on Ortiz and tough on the kid, adding that he spent the whole last year playing every day at short and did an incredible job. On this night, the Brewers got both the glove they had been relying on and the bat they had been waiting for.